the fumes and the fire.

I'm just going to come right out and say it.  Marriage is hard.

So?  Now I'm just sitting here staring blankly at the monitor waiting for the crickets to clear so I can form an intelligible thought.

Ok, so when the discussion of parenting comes up between people, it's a given that regardless of how hard it can be, people love their children unconditionally.  Parenting is hard, but when it's admitted there is no obscure judgement that maybe that parent is going to break up with their kid or that their relationship is hard: drama, drama, drama, glad it's not me.

I hesitate to admit that being married is hard due to my assumption that the subsequent judgements will now be what people see when they are faced with my husband and I.  Friends, family, and readers.  But that's whats been on my mind and I can't move forward and talk about other things until I purge this stuff.  Which is why I haven't talked about much lately.

My love for my husband is one that I don't have to think about.  It just is.  I love him.  When I dream, he's there.  He's a part of my existence that I don't have to wonder about.

But the thing is, lately, I wonder.

We're lucky to have the type of connection that is knee-jerk.  I think it's safe to say that the moment we met, we were married- we just didn't need to be apart anymore.  We were living together for all intents and purposes only three months after we met.  Done.  The first time he told me he loved me was like the first time anyone really said it to me.  It's the only time it mattered the way it's supposed to.

Back then we didn't have to choose each other.  Chemistry did the work for us.

When you're married there are sometimes long, maybe even seemingly interminable, phases when love becomes an intention and a choice that needs to be made every day.  And lately I wonder because when there's so much other shit on our plates, that choice sometimes sits on the back burner like my favorite pair of jeans on the shelf in the closet.  I know they're there.  They even technically fit- but who has the time to do lunges in the morning to make them more comfy [i.e. stretch them out so I can breathe]?

We work our asses off.  We have the baby who deserves every ounce of our happy and pleasant energy so at the end of the day, what tends to be left is just the fumes.  The glazed eyes in place of eye contact.  More work that's better to be done when the baby's in bed.  TV in place of conversation because we're too tired to formulate coherent thoughts on anything worth talking about.

Then there's the "I do this, I do that, what do you do" kind of rationale when discussing the lack of zest in our marriage.  And honestly, what does that accomplish?  Nothing, besides making eachother feel even more under appreciated and over looked.  In fact, it's quite simply the anti-thesis to what we should be saying.

I need to feel like I have a husband that wants to dote on me.  Not by the obligatory gift on a holiday.  But by the intentional face in the hands I love you.  By a compliment.  By an acknowledgement.  I need to do the same for him.  Folding his laundry is not equivalent to making one moment just about him and why I think he's the cat's ass (that's a good thing). 

We determined last night that we started losing ourselves when I got pregnant.  I was too sick and miserable to be exuberant or to clamor for him.  He felt pushed away and exhausted of my misery.  [I was so siiiiiiiccckkkk.]  And by the baby's birth, with the lack of sleep, the emotional roller coaster that was the hormones balancing themselves out, the nursing "endeavors," and Nico feeling the pressure to provide, the situation didn't improve.  And now, we are where we are.

Where are we?  Where did we go?

We are here because we went on a first date and fell in love the moment we saw each other.  We are here because we're both from Awesome-Land and it was clear our mission was to provide the world with another person of Awesome descent.  That's why we are here.  Who gets that?  Who's given that in life?  And of the people that receive that kind of karmic blessing, who lets it go?

"Not I, said the blind man peeing into the wind, it's all coming back to me now."  Ha.

Ha. Hahhhhhhh-oooh god.

We are going to be ok because it's hard.  Because we care enough to be bothered by it.  But the only way any marriage works in the face of life happening [how dare it?] is when the choice is constantly made to love one other well.  Gotta put a fire in your ass to make moves.  To heat things up a bit.  To be conscious of the way the other person ticks.  Don't just do things you think are nice.  Do things you think the other person would think are nice. Got that?

And on that note, the golden rule is not a hundred percent on the money.  It is not 'treat people the way you want to be treated.'  It [should] be 'treat people the way they want to be treated.'

I'm not on a soap box.  I come to these conclusions after the fact- after the emotional discussion.  I'm not only the president, I'm also a client.  Marriage is a partnership.  There are two of us that need to take responsibility for our roles in this house.  Who need to be honest.  We need to be ok with being vulnerable around each other again.  When are you more vulnerable than the first time you tell someone you're in love with them?

Nico is my baby-daddy.  There is only one person in the world I can actually call Tits on a Bull and say it with love.  He's hot- which helps.  He makes me laugh.  Vienna adores him.  I adore him.  And with my charm?  How could he not be enamored with me?  He is.  But, marriage is hard.  Without close supervision we can go from the chemically bound, love at first sight couple to... roommates. 

If I were going to live with a roommate, it would most definitely be with my best friend.  Who is a girl, and is clean and type A and maintains a wardrobe intuitively complementary to that of my own.  A girl I wouldn't have to explain where the same thing is every time she needs it.  Boys are smelly and sweaty, and... hairy.  Only one boy is worth the effort of cohabitation. 

That's right.  Tits.  Fa' life.