Do any of you remember the movie City Slickers? Remember how they go to a dude ranch and end up doing all kinds of things like birthing baby calves in the rain? And the one guy keeps saying, " This was not in the brochure!" Most of the time he means, "I SO did not sign on for this!," but by the end he means it in a more positive way, like, "Look how much more I got out of this, more than I ever expected."
Today is our 8th Anniversary. EIGHT. I've been thinking today about the things that were not in the brochure. The brochure of marriage. I guess I thought I knew what I was getting into. I was educated about marriage, I had read every book and taken every class. I had waited a longer-than-mormon-average number of years to be married and had my share of relationships along the way. I figured I pretty much knew what was in the brochure. We were excited, happy, thrilled to be beginning married life together.
The first 18 months were breezy, really. But that year Patrick was born, man, there was some stuff that was DEFINITELY not in the brochure. Parental sleep deprivation, juggling school and jobs, tough finances, Sean's cancer scare, my nursing infection and surgeries. There was this moment, when I was home recovering from that surgery and Sean was supposed to change the dressings on my "open wound healing" and empty this little grenade bag thing full of blood and...other stuff. It was super gross, sorry but the details are important. We're both in the bathroom, trying to man up and deal with this, our baby is wailing in the swing and we both looked at each other like, "This? This was SO NOT IN THE BROCHURE."
But you know what else wasn't in the brochure? That we WOULD do those things for each other. That we would take care of each other through thick and thin, even when it was hard. And, that we would be changed forever by doing it. That we would become more and more, each other's everything.
Since those early days, there have been so many moments like that. I picture me freaking out just before each c-section birth and hyperventilating. And he puts both hands on my face and talks and talks and talks, calming me enough for them to place the spinal. Handling me, when I can't handle myself, even though he's desperately afraid of needles and blood and everything in that room and he doesn't get any drugs to get through it. I don't think I ever imagined marriage involving that cold room and facing that fear together, but I also never imagined the way we would care for each other through those moments.
I think of both of us, rallying on the long nights with a sick child. We have a tag team system by now, especially for pukers. I clean up, soothe and medicate the kid, he cleans up the environs--even quickly steam cleaning carpets in the middle of the night. We play our roles, we make eye contact over the sick kiddo's head and, even though we'd both rather be sleeping, we rally together for our babies. And when we've finally got our little one back to dreamland, we always stop to watch them sleep for a few minutes. Because even though those long nights weren't in the brochure, neither was the depth of emotion we would share for that tiny person.
We've still got so much to learn. Marriage is hard business. There are a lot of moments that were not in the brochure. Differences, arguments, stresses, challenges, trials. Hard things. Luckily, there are a lot of simply wonderful things that also weren't in the brochure. Togetherness, tenderness, happiness, sweetness, kindness. Love. Love. Love.
What else matters? Happy Anniversary, babe. Thanks for being there for all those moments we could never have predicted, and for those yet to come. I love you.
