Marriage

The way to learn yourself is to tie yourself to one person for the rest of your life!

I have been married for just under five months and I have learned more about myself in these months than in the year of courtship I shared with my now husband. Actually, I stated that incorrectly: I have faced myself more while being married than in all the years of my life.

The act of yoking myself to one man for the rest of my life has liberated me in numerous ways. I am free to be my unique self with him; I am free of the arduous task of looking for "the one"; I am free to enjoy the most wonderful and intense intimacy; I am free of the worry of abandonment or loneliness. And, now, I realize I am free of something that I've clung to for years... delusions.

I have always prided myself on being an advanced-type of female. I thought that because I grew up a tom-boy, enjoy tearing things up and getting dirty, and am an engineer - I thought that I was better equipped to relate to men. I regaled myself as the best type of woman - feminine yet tough, expressive yet logical, traditional yet evolved. I was always quick to quip "I feel more comfortable with men than women because I think more like a guy."

In ways, that statement is true. If being able to comprehend theories and systems that are not tangible and expressed by mathematics with more symbols than numbers is to "think more like a guy", then it's true. If being able to apply a logical process to identify the root cause of a problem is to "think more like a guy", then it's true. If what drives a person is efficiency, effectiveness, and fact is to "think more like a guy", then I say it is true that I think like a guy.

I have been led by this way of thinking and identifying myself for all of my life. And even though I know I experience the traits that are identified as universally female - emotion, fear, sensitivity - I believed those experiences to be minimal and secondary to the logical and pragmatic life I've led. Now, I realize I have been deluding myself.

Marriage has shown me that although I may simulate "male thinking" as an engineer, within the workplace, and with my preferences of leisure - I DO NOT THINK LIKE A MAN. Hours and hours of conversation with my husband have proven this to me. The fact that I have peeled away at every layer of this idea is proof enough. I have learned that feeling/emotion and sensitivity are neither male or female traits - they are human traits. A strong man feels everything that is within their trusted zone. A strong man shows emotion to only a few that have proven respectful and trustworthy. And a strong man that can deflect the barbs of any Joe is struck sensitive should those words be slung by someone he loves. I know this because my husband is a strong man.

Through marriage I have learned that I deluded myself with the notion that I was especially fit to understand the male because of my history, my profession, my appreciation for order. It may be true in the workplace and playing field but not within an intimate relationship. Once intimacy is introduced I am unable to restrain myself to the clean lines and radial progression that define my professional life. The act of loving someone so unique and so different from yourself removes all rules and order. The act of loving someone for a lifetime stretches logic to limits never before experienced.

This act of loving one person without retreat or surrender exposes everything for each person involved whether you intend to or not. I have seen things of myself that I have only acknowledged silently in the far corner of my mind and quickly tucked away emerge within the pressures of marriage. I have seen things exposed that I had no clue existed for me. I have seen things that I hoped I had resolved and sadly shown I hadn't. Marriage is the great discovery of self. No book, no meditation, no journal will show you what marriage exhumes.

I say all this out of realization. I am not placing judgment for or against marriage with these words. I simply understand that marriage is the ultimate journey of self discovery. And I suspect that marriages fail - not because of too many differences or dissimilar goals/expectations - they fail because one or both cannot face the exposure of self.

There is nothing fun or easy about being exposed... but, if there were any reason to willingly engage into full exposure of one's faults and frailties I'd say that doing so in order to realize greater peace and understanding with the ONE PERSON you want by your side for all your life is a good enough reason to me.

Unspoken

I have been fretting over this first blog for weeks. My husband is a natural and fluent blogger. I read his words and think, "you can't compare to his style, his words, his impact. Who will read my words?"
Tonight, after work, I came home to my husband and began to share my day. We covered my day, his business, our faith, misplaced faith, concerns for mutual friends, the line between concern and nosiness, and finally, fears surrounding unspoken dreams. And that is when my realization began.

"What can become of things unspoken?" Nothing, but loss.

"What keeps me from speaking my dreams?" Nothing, but fear.

"What is there to fear in words said aloud?" Nothing, but Creation!

"In the beginning... the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep... And God said let there be light: and there was light." (Genesis 1: 1-3)

Things unspoken can never be realized. All the imaginings, the hopes, the dreams that float within my mind have no substance, can never take form, will only reveal loss. I have been told you cannot miss what you never had, but I believe you can loose what you never speak. See, every thought holds potential - formless and aimless. Word defines thought, and provides form and direction. Yet, word alone is simply intention and not enough to unleash potential. It is in the speaking of the word that thought takes flight and unrealized potential transforms into immense and unimaginable energy... that is creation!
With the immense power of word God created light, darkness, heaven, earth, and every thing and creature on this planet and within the universe. And God made us "in his image, in the image of God he made him: male and female." (Genesis 1:27) Of all of God's creations he gifted us, human beings, to be of his image. No other creature was given this gift. With this God allows for each of us to share in his supreme design and offers us the ability to create as he did the heavens and the earth. Although a crude and minute spit of God, we too wield the power of creation on our tongue.

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue..." (Proverbs 18:21)

And so, I return to my earlier questions:

"What can become of things unspoken?" Nothing, but loss of the God-given gift to share in creation!

"What keeps me from speaking my dreams?" Nothing, but fear that my tongue, unskilled absent of reverence, may bring death.

"What is there to fear in words said aloud?" Nothing, but the Creation of true Life in the Image of God is my Christian walk fulfilled!