Posts Tagged ‘marriage’
Really Me
I watched a movie last night about a person who went undercover, and the discomfort it created for me led me to realize how much I prefer being authentic. You can ask me a question about my life and I won’t have to make up an answer, I can tell you what really happened. Or at least, the version of what happened that my mind conjured up for storage in my memories. I fully admit to the fallibility of my perceptions.
If you were to ask me what happened in my life 34 years ago today however, I would have no problem recalling the beautiful blue sky and warm sunshine that broke a chain of much less lovely weather during the week prior. 
I remember feeling a bit disoriented by all that was going on around me, because much of it was all about me. It was also all about Cyndie, as that is the day we were married in the Noerenberg Garden park on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, in Wayzata, MN.
For too many of the ensuing years, I have been the target of much grief and good-natured ridicule from my wife for the time I sought clearance from her to go away for a weekend of mountain biking with friends, having not put two and two together to determine it would mean I would be gone over our anniversary. It was an innocent oversight, but not one a husband should ever make if he doesn’t want to hear about it over and over, for many years after.
If there is any matrimonial justice in the world, a wife who chose to schedule a week away with her friends on the far side of the country during her wedding anniversary weekend would be setting herself up for an equal number of years of grief from her husband, but I don’t think it works that way.
If you happen to read this today, my dear, Happy Anniversary!
Now, if someone asked me what happened 27 years ago today, I would also know exactly what happened in my life that day. Cyndie and I received the best anniversary present we could possibly imagine. Our son, Julian was born on our 7th anniversary. I like the fact that one of my favorite memories of that day, beyond seeing his face for the first time, involves our daughter, Elysa.
I had ventured from the hospital to pick her up and bring her to meet her brother. I bet Cyndie recalls who was taking care of her and what she was wearing, but those details, I didn’t retain. I remember that little 2-year-old girl in her car seat behind me, as I pulled up to a fast food drive-through menu to fill Cyndie’s one request. She needed a specific chicken sandwich from Arby’s that she couldn’t get from the hospital’s kitchen.
I had barely completed the sentence proclaiming my order for the sandwich to the faceless wall, when, without missing a beat, a tiny voice came from behind me… “And a coke!” Elysa knew what her mother would want.
Happy Birthday, Julian!
I’m so glad I don’t have to make any of this stuff up.
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Missed Chance
Choreographing the transition from me being home full-time to manage the ranch, to it now being Cyndie, is proving to be a struggle for my inner control freak. Believe it or not, she doesn’t do things the way I do. If I want things to happen the way I would do them, I need to do it. The other option is that I relax my urge to have things run like I would do it, and let her do things any way she wants.
Yesterday provided a fine example, and I totally missed my chance to hand over management of composting manure. Cyndie had made a pass through the paddock with the wheelbarrow, cleaning up fresh droppings, and came to check with me on where in the compost area to dump the load.
There was my opportunity to invite her to do it any way she pleases, but I couldn’t help myself. I walked with her over to the piles and began to give instructions on how I do it. What was I thinking?
When she rolled the wheelbarrow up, she came in on the wrong end of the piles. It felt like a “Mr. Mom” moment when Micheal Keaton’s character, who had traded roles with his wife, drove the wrong way in the circle of cars taking kids to school.
In the middle of trying to describe the process I have developed and my methods, I realized the folly of my thinking. I could tell by her reaction that this wasn’t going to happen. The job would remain mine. She offered to scoop up manure and stage it for me in the wheelbarrow, but I would maintain ownership of doing the compost management.
I can be my own worst enemy.
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Relative Something 