Steady As We Go (Dave Matthews Band)

Full disclosure:  The below is text that I've tweaked/adapted and posted, in some form or another, every year on my blog and/or Facebook.  Despite  my husband's ability to drive me crazy more often than not, he also drives me crazy in the good kinda way, which you will understand if you're able to machete through my missive below (sorry/not sorry it's so long!).

I love him dearly, and I can't imagine being with anyone else for a lifetime; he truly is My Person... 💓

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“Tell the story of your marriage,” my young friend Niki says to me. “Write down how it is you have a happy marriage.” But the story of my marriage, which is the great joy and astonishment of my life, is too much like a fairy tale, the German kind, unsweetened by Disney.” ~ Ann Patchett, from her book of essays, The Story of a Happy Marriage

September 18, 2021 (this past Saturday) marked our 45th wedding anniversary.  It's been a long-standing joke of mine that, like the famous 12-step program, we do our marriage One Day at a Time (that would be 16,425 days, but who's counting?... 😃 )

Chico (given name Robert) and I met when he was a senior and I was a sophomore in college (Fall 1974).  One Sunday a group of my friends had been challenged to an impromptu football game by another group on campus, and I went along to watch. I was recruited to be one of the holders of the down-markers (two pointed brooms with string tied between).  Chico flirted with me all day, but saw me leaving with my "gang" and assumed I was dating one of them (I wasn't). The next day I was in my usual spot/routine in The Student Center, drinking coffee/reading a book/smoking cigarettes (gave up that bad habit when I found out I was pregnant with our daughter Sarah, over 38 years ago).  He came up, introduced himself to me and asked permission to sit down.

I was impressed by his good manners, among other things, and we were "an item" for the remainder of the year.  He graduated with a degree in Latin American Studies and got a job in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky with the Red Cross, counseling servicemen. I stayed to finish my degree and we carried on a long-distance relationship for the remaining two years, writing, calling, and visiting when we could.  The April of my senior year, during one of his visits, he asked me to marry him… and we rolled out of bed to call our parents to share the good news.  I graduated in June and we were married the following September.

An aside: During my last two years of school, I worked at a clothing boutique not far from the college.  I would walk there directly after classes, putting in about 30 hours a week and getting a 30% discount.  Chico and I had only been dating a few months when a beautiful dress came into the store.  I knew then I had to have it, whether to be married or buried (whichever came first) in such elegance, and I put it on layaway immediately. It was an off-white muslin with long, crocheted-lace sleeves and an empire bodice (very Guinevere-ish).  The big joke in my family is that, with my discount, I paid $28. When my wedding day was finally announced, my mom tried hard to talk me into something more traditional but I would not be swayed.  I still think it was the perfect dress… 💖

We stayed in our small college town for the next 8 years, moving temporarily to Atlanta en route to Puerto Rico for a company transfer (where we put in 4 1/2 years).  Back to Atlanta for almost three years and then to South Florida, where we've resided for the last 29. 

During the first twenty-five years of our marriage, Chico traveled quite a bit (twice a month, a week or more at a time). I've always been a strong and spirited soul and when the children were younger, we talked about the time he was away, not as better or worse but just different.  I belonged to AAA (although AA seemed more appropriate some days... 😉), I learned to fix small household items, I became responsible for my own entertainment.  When it had to be done, I did it. The worst were his two-week trips, when I didn't want to relax and appreciate having him home the weekend in-between, because it just meant giving him up again.  I learned various coping mechanisms, but I missed him.

Career moves found Chico home more, and the rest of us having to readjust, awkwardly at first, but happily.  He and I have always had separate interests (my music, his soccer), meeting in the middle more often than not for conversation, intimacy and intensity. 

My husband is of Brazilian descent and I am of Italian/Native American heritage... so emotions run high most of the time.  We pendulum between pondering what to name our wished-for houseboat when we retire... to me threatening to run away with the Renaissance Festival each February. 

My husband makes me crazy... and he makes me feel adored.  He is frustrating... and he is flattering. He is honest, even when I don't want to hear it... and I know I can trust his words and his actions (how many people in our lives can we say that about?!?).  He is intuitive, which is sometimes annoying but mostly a blessing. 

I wholeheartedly cherish our ongoing flare-ups, passions, commitment, disconnects, conversations, silences. It has never been easy; it has always been worthwhile.  As Brian Joseph sings in Cal’s Chevy:  “it ain’t easy… but it’s ours.”
I vowed that *happy* and *marriage* didn't have to be mutually exclusive.  My parents divorced after 29 years so I learned early on that one is never safe, and I try not to take it for granted.

Chico and I have made a conscious decision to stay together in this hectic and unsettling world (especially now during the pandemic). I crave and cherish my independence, but I don't worry any more that I'll have to "give in" (reminds me of a Dar Williams' song, In Love But Not at Peace: "I still need the beauty of words sung and spoken and I live with the fear that my spirit will be broken").  We seem to have forged a wonderful agreement where we both manage to get our own way a good bit of the time, but we haven't forgotten the art of the happy medium.

When we got married in 1976, a popular reading to include in weddings was “On Marriage” by Kahlil Gibran.  I loved it at the time, but even more so now.  The concept was, and remains, groundbreaking.  Remember these lines?

“You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. 
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God
But let there be spaces in your togetherness
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”

I've spent the last few weeks re-evaluating what's kept us going these 4+ decades.  We have had just as many troubles as everyone else, but the risk is the reward, and the leap of faith is the longevity... and, to quote Jackson Browne, we just keep getting up and doing it again... amen... 🌅

I have always hated the term soulmate which, in my mind, used to conjure up images of Hallmark movies with couples joined-at-the-hip in that "you-complete-me" kinda way. Ugh. Many years ago, a dear friend (who is also a therapist) offered up her definition of soulmate:  someone who challenges you to be the best person you can be. Chico does that for me and, I'd like to think, I for him. We have "a head and a heart marriage" (a phrase I heard on a TV show recently). It suits us... ♥

When it comes to troubleshooting, I am in constant awe of Chico’s ability to stay calm, to let go and to move forward, in all aspects of his life.  His oft-repeated phrase is "let's not worry about how something got to be a problem; let's just figure out how to fix it". Wow.  With my tendency to finger-point, internalize and dramatize, he sets a wonderful example.

Chico loves me unconditionally, a status I am always trying to achieve but come up short.  I love him no less, but my family history includes strings attached, a very difficult pattern to break.

He is the calm to my storm, the ground to my clouds, the 33 1/3 to my 45, the waltz to my polka, the reason to my emotion, the carousel to my rollercoaster, the string to my kite, the balance to my spinning.  He supports but never suffocates, respects but never expects.

In an anniversary card one year, Chico thanked me for my enduring love and patience with his failings.  I can say the same.

Ups and downs, ins and outs, betters and worses go with the territory.  We've lived to tell about it ("fairy tales and diaper pails" indeed, as Amy Rigby sings).  My marriage has endured for many reasons (one of which is just good old-fashioned luck).  Cheers to the two of us for our perseverance, patience and passion with each other.  Tomorrow is another day!

SONG:  Steady As We Go by Dave Matthews Band (thanks to Sarah for sending this "just a love song" in our direction... 💕 )

BOOK:  What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life by Marlo Thomas, Phil Donahue

POEM:  A Love Note by Adeeba Shahid Talukder

for Willem

My love,

you are water upon water

upon water until it turns

azure, mountainous.

The horizon fills like sand

between glass marbles. So much

has passed between us—

last night you told me

to press your hand

harder and harder as I pained.

The sunset was at its last

embers. The dark was stealing

the blue light from our room.

I was falling into you.

~ ~

Compress water and it turns to ice— compress beauty

and it loses breath. Gaze at it too long, and even the wide

mirror of the ocean will shatter.

~ ~

My Willem,

between us, God has descended in all His atoms.

We have not yet learned to hold Him.

QUOTE:  "Wasn’t marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when *too* well-ordered and protected and guarded. Wasn’t it finer, more splendid, more nourishing when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt." ~ Edna Ferber