Friday, August 28, 2009

Embrace Uncertainty

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 California so that Paul could get his PhD in psychology. While there my honey went through some major life changes that through me for a loop. I found myself no longer married to a conservative Mormon….but to a liberal atheist. As you can imagine such a major life change is hard on any relationship, Paul may have changed, but I did not.

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.



8 comments:

Jensen Family :) said...

Wow Sarah! You are amazing.... I love everything about you. Trish

Pat & Donna said...

So wise of you Sarah! I too have gone through simular circumstances, and the way you put it out there, captured my sentiments exactly,
honesty, laughter understanding, and love is what holds a marriage together, it's not the diffrences but how those traits keep us all in a check and balance, earning the relationship, awesome read! So wise so very wise and again you astound me with your insight.....

Anne-Marie said...

"he even asked for back issues of the Ensign for Christmas"

LOL!

Life just doesn't always turn out the way we plan it old friend. I think we can both attest to that. I'll embrace uncertainty with you till we are old and gray.
Love you.

Alisha Joy said...

Bawling my eyes out!!! Wish I was as brave as you . . . just to spill it all. And I totally agree with you, staying together and respecting the changes in your partner (cause there will be a lot if you plan to spend forever together) and just seeing where life takes you is the secret to happiness. I think about the fights Jed and I were having before Vander was born and then to be suddenly tightly bound in caring for a sick baby and to realize how silly the things we were fighting about really were and that our kids and our family and health were our common goal and the rest would work itself out as long as we worked towards what was really important. Love you!

Amy Densley said...

They never talked about how hard marriage is in my young women lessons. I always believed that if I got married in the temple I would live happily ever after. I have been on the brink of bailout many times, but I'm still toughing it out. I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm not a quitter and you're obviously not one either!

Kristin said...

Sarah, this post was just incredible. Thank you for sharing. I agree with what you said about humor. Humor has changed my uptight, judgmental teenager into a laid-back, more casual guy, and I know he's happier now than a year ago.
I love you - you are a WONDERFUL sister-in-law, and I couldn't ask for a better wife and mother for my brother and my nephews and niece.

Tara said...

I think back on all the memories that we had together, each of them is accompanied by laughter. That is one of your greatest strenghts. You have always been such a strong person. I want to give you a hug! Just a little something to make you laugh, remember when we got pulled over, you were driving, the cop didnt' come to the door for a while and before we knew it there were 3 cops surrounding us. They took your license away and were total freaks! That was awesome. miss you girl.

Vanessa Thelin said...

Sarah you are such an awesome woman. You gotta come up to Alpine and visit us with your adorable family. Life really does have its challenges but if we can make it through this life learning the things we need to and become a stronger more empathetic and more forgiving person, we may have a chance of happiness. Be the happy person you are! We love you! This is my son Tan