The List

The shadows of the patrons at Bipartisan Cafe talk against the poster-full wall, “Freedom From Want” is the tag line on the bottom of this old patriotic poster. What do we want? According to this poster, a huge roasted turkey. The meanings of images and words do change over time. My mom just bought me a book about love, named “Love”. Apparently it was a popular book when she was in college, and she wanted me to read it. Although she qualified the book by saying she liked it when she read it, but wasn't sure she'd like it if she read it now. I might read it just to know what a professor in 1970 defined love. In the midst of these thoughts of time and definitions, I thought of my mom's friend Joe, who we visited on Monday. Joe has a construction consulting business in Portland and is interested in green building, and energy techniques. This is how my mom knows him, I guess they had some classes together. So Joe asked me how my month and a half old marriage is going. A question that I have gotten a lot and am still not sure how to answer...I mean it just seems to early to really tell how its going. But I managed this time to say something like, “Its going well...ummm... you know we're still getting used to living together but we have time.“ To which he replied, with a knowing smile, “That can take a while,” and with a laugh he declared, “I'm still not used to it.” So Joe, has been married for thirty-some years.
So it really got me thinking about how my marriage is going so far and I ran across a list in my journal that I had made during our honeymoon. I kid you not, this is word for word in my journal:
“~get settled in home
~find a church home
~manage finances
~play games
~exercise together?
~agree on school options
~have sex as much as our bodies and minds can handle
aka please one another”
I guess it gave me some categories to judge our fledgling marriage on, and I felt pretty good about how things have been going. We are pretty settled in our new home, we've managed to put together some kind of financial plan, we are gamers so that one is easy, Hans just started running more, and well the question mark gives me an easy out, we've agreed on school options, and as far as intimacy goes we've managed to meet my sex goal as far as I know. The one that is still in process and one of the more important ones, is finding a new church home. But, we've made some pretty serious leeway on this one so far. So to answer the question, how is being married so far...I think pretty much awesome.
A lot of times I get really freaked out about my new life, because everything feels so brand spanking new. You know, that is exactly how it is supposed to feel, because we are newly weds. So, might as well enjoy the status while it lasts. I am guessing 30 years from now, we'll still not really know what we are doing. The words in my list will mean something totally different, but our hearts will still mean it when we say, “I love you.”