Married for a Lifetime

It has begun to stop bothering me that the One True Wife does not finish her sentences --

"Could you get the ...?"

"I'm hoping you'll ..."

-- because I have begun to finish them in my head.

All the ways that we're different have become bridges to aspects of our respective selves that have gone unexplored.

All the duties we share and shoulder are parceled out according to respective strengths, and time schedules, and predilections, and jobs, with only periodic verbal communication (this ritual is called "doing calendars").

The One True Wife and I have been traveling this summer: to Israel, to Montana, to Denver -- and although we haven't been married that long (14 years), this summer it came to feel as though the epoch of youthful marriage had ended -- one last layer of sentimental sediment had been deposited, in the form of trips taken and memories made -- and now another epoch, form and content, geology and meteorology unknown, has begun.

In little more than a month, Middle Daughter will fly the coop. I will have (mostly) raised and turned loose two stepdaughters, despite the divisiveness engendered by the divorce of their biological parents. We have made a family, despite everything, and that family is growing up.

Gabe faces the experience he dreads -- that of being the only child living at home.

And the One True Wife and I will enter a new age, because we started our marriage with two small children on board, and now we'll have one on the edge of adolescence -- one whose orbit will begin to circle outward toward other constellations we can't detect or fathom. And the Wife and I will have the luxury of mutual exploration and deeper introspection that til now we haven't known.

There will be a lot of changes to talk about here (or not). As the summer ends, and a time of great wonder draws closer, the Wife and I rediscover dormant talents and neglected ambitions, and we discover, for the first time, what it's like to have (or feel like we have) all the time in the world.

--T.A.

Comments

[JewishAtheist]

Sounds like a great marriage. :-) I'm sure you two will have a great time when you get some alone time together.

[Mom]

Finishing a sentence?? Try intuiting and comprehending the other's thought. It'll happen, I promise you both--and you'll be filled with awe (sometimes) and baffled (sometimes).

Love--