The Halfway Mark

Ask a majority of married couples what their most tough time together was and the answer is usually the first year of marriage. "If you can survive giving up your space this year, you can survive anything," says a married friend.

Adjustments, compromises, dealing, settling- even the words we use to describe our advent into marriage are cold and unfeeling. They indicate a loss of passion, of self and interest. We turn the usually exhilarating process of getting to know someone into a stressful year of "whats ifs" and "if onlys". I know so many couples who will speak vehemently of how much they had to give up in their first year of married life but never quite so vocally of what they acquired.
However, it seems that, along with being the most difficult year of togetherness, in the hindsight that comes with experience, this year is also supposed to be amongst the best years ever. A year when the responsibility to outward elements is almost nil, when the honeymoon-ness is still in the air and when the magic of learning (or relearning) each other is at an all time high.

So much expectation is riding on the first year, as it struggles to fulfill all demands of being magical, wonderful, tough, difficult and most importantly memorable. As we cross the halfway mark of our first year together, six months of absolutely married life, I have three well-learned lessons under my belt already, lessons it would do me good to remember for the years ahead.

1. Be careful in what you say, in love or in anger. You cannot take words back. Once they have been said, they hang around, in the air, in his head, somewhere waiting for a vulnerable moment to rear their ugly heads.

2. Let go. Leave fights, arguments, differences and annoyances behind at the end of the day. They don't deserve to be baggage for the next day. Don't go to sleep facing the other way and start afresh tomorrow, with a forced smile if you have to.

3. It's the two of you against anything in the world. Always always remember that. If you have him and he has you, you will be fine. Simple.

Onto the one year mark...

and they lived happily ever after,

I sat with hussy in church, covered in goosebumps, as the bridal entourage walked in. K, with the other 2 best men, escorting the bridemaids, the rise and fall of the music, the poignancy of the words and the feeling of anticipation in the air. Having grown up watching cartoons and movies, the concept of "forever" was always this one.
The trailing white wedding dress,
the "till death do us part" type vows
the high ceilinged church and eventually,
the bride and groom dancing on soft
romantic songs late into the night,
under a sparkling canopy of stars.

with a start like this,
now wonder they lived happily ever after.

setting patterns

I used to be fascinated by books in which a character would mention that she had lunched with her best friend "every Saturday for the past 20 years". I imagined a relationship flourishing just as a result of lunches and conversation and in my 18 year old life then, imagined that I, too, would form such relationships one day in my life, where I would actively take out time from the routine of my dailyness to fit in someone important even if they were not an everyday reality to me.

When we stare hard enough at the fabric of our lives, we start detecting recurring patterns and motifs- little islands of sense in the unpredictability of everyday life. We start hanging onto those constants with a vehemence, regarding them as key factors of control in an otherwise uncontrolled environment. We start working around other details in life to make space for that motif, that little puece of time out that you now regard imperative to you as you have become today.

Regular espresso breakfasts with meyum and kat over the last year of changes have beeome islands. Snatched lengths of reconnecting time. Sometimes it is silent crosswords, sometimes a non-stop conversation, sometimes venting, other times sorting, resolving and many other times just nothing at all. As I came back today, I realized that this is how, with little things, we make our individual patterns, and set precedences for years to come.

Dinner for Two and a Half.

one of the best ways of truly getting to know a person, of truly connecting with someone, is over a great dinner, prepared with painstaking attention to detail and had unhurriedly and leisurely, savouring each bite and feeling.

main course: almond chicken in a chunky tomato pesto sauce with fromage potatoes and a cold greek salad with feta and olives in red vinegar dressing
along with crusty french bread with herbs.

finale: a chocolate cheese frozen dessert with vanilla sauce and a dark choc-coffee centre. little bites of heaven.

kaboom.

what is it about some combinations that does not work at all, no matter how hard you try, and what is it about others that just spontaneously, without effort, combusts?

resolving 2005.

I think post the age of 25, the struggles have changed.
I remember a time when my list of resolutions had "lose weight" and "not waste money" on it amongst "not fight with sisters" and "be home more often".
as 25 moved to 26 and 27 happened, the resolutions became more inward, more specific to "resolve things with x" and "make peace with y".

Making any kind of resolution this year was hard for me. I don't think I see last year as a particularly resolved one yet for myself. I think I'm carrying some of the baggage forward in the hopes that I will either be able to dump it soon or actually use it to turn myself around. 2005 brought with it a kind of peace for me, as the age old hunt for the better half ended and I started my year informally bethrothed. It signalled the end of an era, of not being single but of wondering. The conversations were finally over. The discoveries had begun.

However, 2005 also shattered a lot of the calm, one that I had achieved with a lot of distance, soul searching and perspective. It left me unsettled, and at many an instance has caused me confusion and gut wrenches as I attempt to balance the excitement of my new life with k with the leftovers of my old life. I look forward to growing up some more in the next year, hopefully not painfully, and preferably not too much.

Wishing everyone a very happy and peaceful new year.