Life’s a Traveling Circus
Life’s a Traveling Circus
Sept 2, 2014
Today I have been married for 41 years. And to the same man! That’s pretty unusual for my generation.
Imagine:
This poor man has had the fortitude to put up with me for all that time. He says that’s why his hair is silver. We married when we were toddlers.
I’ve often thought that we do our children such a disservice when we give them the message through social culture that adult life is all about sex. How much you have, how many people you have it with, are you sexy enough, how much plastic surgery can you have to make yourself sexier, how long will you be sexy before everything has to be lifted, filled, tucked and tightened. It puts all your attention on the shallow physical aspect of your being, really the least interesting part of you, and besides that, it must be exhausting.
It’s THE most superficial part of being human. I guess that’s how the selfie craze came about. We have to have endless pictures of ourselves to reassure us we exist. Whatever happened to “I think, therefore I am”? Where are personality, intelligence, humor, wit and wisdom to be found in this emphasis on the physical?
Can you tell I’m a child of the sixties when expanding your consciousness and blowing your mind was the hot setup? (The drugs, not so much.)
Tell you what: if when you reach semi-adulthood you have an interest in developing personality, intelligence, humor, wit and wisdom, marriage is the place to do it. It also helps to pay much more attention to the inside of whoever you hook up with than the outside. I have a theory that a marriage based on a good friendship will have a lot more staying power than one based on sexual attraction. You’re not so likely to let a good friendship go so easily.
Marriage teaches you patience, humility, love, sacrifice, economics, how to relate to others. But those aren’t desirable character traits anymore, are they? Marriage also teaches you anger, impatience, frustration, selfishness, recrimination, and sometimes hate. Now those, those are acceptable, because they give us instant excuses for our bad behavior. And a close relationship (a marriage) with another person is the only place that all these emotions can be exercised and a choice made to overcome the bad ones by utilizing the good ones. It’s unfortunate that so many people use the bad emotions as a sign that the relationship was a mistake, and they bail (or batter) because they don’t want to make the effort to learn to be a better person. When one person is stuck in a relationship with someone like that, there’s no other choice than to leave. You can’t grow into the potential you were given if you’re terrified for your life.
Society is now in the process of tearing down all the institutions that were set up to teach us to live in harmony with one another. We are fast losing the knowledge of how to be human beings. When, in a society, the focus concentrates on the trivial and superficial (the physical body), the importance of the humanity of others is lost to us. True humanity is not what you look like, it’s how you behave. And a marriage is an excellent place to teach that behavior.
And last but definitely not least, I think the greatest blessing of marriage is the love and respect you develop for your partner as you make the effort to work through the good, the bad, and the ugly of the territory of commitment. I marvel that Mike did 41 years hard labor putting up with me (!), and came out the other side a perfect husband, father and grandfather. And my love and gratitude for the effort he puts in grows greater every day. He is the awesomest guy ever, and that is the pearl of great price that cannot be purchased by any other means.
