So I was watching TV today and there was this guy who was supposed to be the end all be all on spirituality. Ellen asked him what his goal was this year and he said…”I want to learn to embrace uncertainty”…….At first I was like WHAMMO …..that is just what I need to do, I need to embrace all the uncertainty in my life. That would totally solve all my problems.
Any of my readers who have known me for a long period of time, know that I had a plan for my life…I was going to marry a nice conservative republican, Mormon and live in Utah, stay at home with my kids and raise a nice little family. When I met Paul I thought WOW…this is the guy, a return missionary, a teacher at the MTC, he even asked for back issues of the Ensign for Christmas. Well a few years into our marriage we moved to
I don’t really change….not to any major degree. I am like an old bachelor….set in my ways. I was raised by parents who beat certain principles into my head, and they are there forever. So when all these things that Paul was going through came to the surface…. I have to say I did not handle it well…..I was angry and resentful, but mostly scared. I was scared that my children would miss out on the upbringing that I found so important. I was scared that my relationship with my husband would never be the same, we disagreed about everything, politics, religion, the way our children should be raised.....to say the least it was hard. Looking back I wish I could have been more understanding about what Paul was going through, I am sure it wasn’t easy loosing your identity and having to totally redefine yourself. But at the time I was too blinded by my own feeling to see that.
The thing that pulled us through is our sense of humor….the ability to laugh. It was all to often that we would end a hard day together in bed watching our favorite comedy …and laughing together. Humor is that one thing that we will always have in common….it’s the tie that binds. Now 6 yrs after the first question of faith…..and the change from Rush Limbaugh to Bill Maher….our marriage is better, not perfect, but better. I think that we are more honest with each other and have more of an understanding of what we are both feeling. But there is still a lot of uncertainty….Which brings me back to what that guy said about “embracing uncertainty”. When I really started to think about it, I realized it was a really stupid thing to say. You can sit at home and tell yourself, I am going to be at peace with all the things that are yet to come….but when they do come you will not always want to embrace them (nor should you). Life is full of surprises and not all of them are pleasant. I think the best we can do is learn to live with the changes and fight like crazy to keep the things that are important to us.
Paul and my marriage are important, so I am willing to make the compromises that will bring us closer together. I love so many things about Paul, he is a great father, a good provider, a smarty pants and mostly a great friend to me and I am willing to fight to keep him abound. Making sure my kids go to church and are raised in the gospel is also important to me, so I will take them to church on Sunday by myself, and do my best to instill those principle in them…and at the same time teach them to not be judgmental of others. And that everyone has there own life to live and we need to respect other people’s choices. It is a delicate dance. I just hope that in the end Paul and I will have raised some amazing kids who are able to look at their parents and know that they love each other and they didn’t just give up when things got hard but fought hard to keep the promises and the family that they made.
