Are you THERE God, It's me Amy?

I learned of a new place that exists. A place called “There”. “We’ll get there”…”You’ll get there”…wherever ‘THERE’ is….. what does ‘THERE’ look like? What will ‘THERE’ feel  like? Sometimes I think, “Oh, I’m getting THERE”, only to realize I am so, soooo far from being THERE. Who has time to get THERE anyway? And why is it such a great place to be, anyway? And why do we want to arrive at it at all, ever? THERE must be this magical place of amnesia. A beautiful blank slate. Does that sound like a place I want to get to? I realized this morning, as I got ready for work, that the road to THERE means change, big change, and it sucks big time. THERE means you have to go through all the steps to dig out of holes, and climb mountains, and swim from beneath a valley of tears. THERE knocks you to the ground when you don’t even realize it is about to happen. THERE sounds like a place so far away from where I started. I was strolling through my life, beginning the next 50 years of my existence, in the life that was so known and expecting. THERE pulled the rug out from under my feet. Just this morning, as I prepared for work, THERE left me standing with tears streaming down my face, with a sucker punch to the face. That’s what THERE does. Just when you think ok ok ok I’m making progress, it shows up and makes you realize how much you are NOT getting THERE. I realize much about getting THERE. I realize that THERE and I are NOT friends, not even acquaintances. No Map Quest in the world would direct me to it…any time soon. I don’t know about this place called THERE, but I do know the path to getting THERE, quite well, and what it looks like. I’ve memorized its dark alley s and side streets like the lines on on my own palms. Getting there means that instead of the “Honey, I’m leaving” hugs in the morning, you will stick your face into the stiff and unwashed shirts hanging in the closet for a deep inhale, just to take a piece of them with you when you start your day…and everyday you think (no, you know) that the smell is getting lighter and less ‘him’ than before. Getting THERE looks like a tap on the side of his photo as a virtual ‘hug’ before leaving your home. Sometimes getting THERE means realizing the many things that AREN’T THERE…and won’t ever be THERE again. I don’t know how quickly people are supposed to get THERE. My mother has been gone 30 years and sometimes I don’t think that my family is THERE yet. Or a flow of memories flash through the day and then you realize well maybe you aren’t ever going to get THERE. But people will tell you not to worry that you will get THERE. How do they know that? Have they arrived safely THERE before?  I would ask them why it was such a coveted destination. Or maybe they don’t know that getting THERE is a place that we really don’t want to get to because we don’t know what THERE will look like, or feel like.  However and truthfully, nobody said it was an easy road to get to. Right now I don’t  know if I want to get THERE. So I continue to find ways to getting THERE, and many more ways to avoid it,  as I navigate through this place that I never wanted to get to. For now, it just sounds like a place that I wouldn’t like very much. I would like a refund on that ticket.

How I Quilt

I don’t pretend to know what love is for everyone, or HOW a ‘relationship’ should go. Everyone’s different. I know what it is for me. I know I didn’t marry him because he was perfect. It is more likely that I’m attracted to the imperfect…the one with the ‘broken wing’…rough around the edges. I have a superpower of seeing the ‘heart’ of a person…what really makes them tick; their REAL side that they don’t show to the outside world. I often stand in amazement and watch him genuinely care about another person. I watch him hurt when people are struggling. And I wait, because I KNOW he will be anxious to share these feelings with me. He knows I will understand these things like no one else does, or would even understand. This side of him makes those rough edges not so apparent to me. That’s what a relationship is. The person someone wants to run to when they have news, heartache, or a jarred memory. It is your soft spot to land where you know you will be understood and welcomed. It’s the place that only the two of you can understand. One statement about marriage I read was: Why is it important for people to get married? Because we need a witness to our lives. There are a billion people on the planet. In a marriage you promise to care about this person’s everything. You’re saying “Your life will not go unnoticed, because I will notice it”. It is that patchwork of memories that you can pull up in a minute…that recollection of memories past. It can be as mundane as the day-to-day events, or as spectacular as the planned trips and holidays. These are all weaving who you are as a couple. It is understanding their weaknesses and strengths. It is giving that ‘last bite’ (which we know as the BEST bite) to the other person because you KNOW how much they will like it. It is not always the ‘take your breath away moments’ that young love relates to in its fairy tale. This is when you know that marriage is about the history and familiarity, and the people that are effected because of those memories. You see, anyone can have a lover, but true love is the stitching together of days, years, events, tragedies, raising of children, letting go, and hanging on. Anything else is fantasy. I have read article after article of couples that have been together for years, decades, and they NEVER say what keeps them together as being passion and fiery lust. It isn’t those sexy nights that are often too infrequent because there’s a kid in your bed with a tummy ache or a phone ringing in the middle of the night from a teenager ‘checking-in’. It is ALWAYS because they genuinely cared about the other person’s needs before their own. They ‘like’ the person for who they really are. LIKED!!! You see, that is important when the first person you see at night is the same person you see each morning. ‘I like you’ means ‘I relate to you so much and I like who you are’. It means “I have been watching you year after year and I still want you in my life’. It means you know their faults and weaknesses and you would still be their friend, even if you weren’t married. There is no better feeling in the world than when we can tell what the other person is thinking with just a ‘look’. That something that only the two of us ‘gets’. As Rocky said, “ I got gaps. You got gaps. We fill each other’s gaps”. I know that if my husband ever wanted to leave, then I would have to go with him. It might not be perfect, but it is who we are and quite frankly, I think we are doing a pretty darn good job of being ‘US’. We are here because we know there isn’t any other place quite like OUR place. Happy anniversary…