A look at our marriage - thoughts from afar
A few thoughts I had written while I was away on vacation, and didn't want and couldn't be in front of the computer without working...
Spending time on work, business and family like it's going out of style - filled with so many needs, wants, responsibilities, obligations...sometimes I lose sight of the spirit behind all that work.
The security of our future that we try to work for, just doesn't equal to moments of bliss when I lay in bed with Ian and have our cuddle attacks. Or times when Moira and I have our talks on her dolls, toys and imaginative dreams as I either brushed her hair, or sat down in bed with her.
We work hard and strive to provide for our children, to be able to give them what we never had as children, provide for them the opportunities that may not have been afforded us, or we weren't remotely interested in. A fear I have is a dream of my child not being fulfilled because of something I was unable to do...our lives after children stop being our own, even as we strive to find ourselves in this new place in marriage.
Brian and I work at finding time for each other. We are blessed because we have found jobs that we love, keep us challenged and interested and strangely enough we are passionate about. Many times we both have said that had we not have children, we would be 2 workaholics that collapse on each other every other night as we work hard and probably party hard as well. I think our kids give direction to our work-craziness, and probably force us to take vacations, breaks and weekends. =)
It is a delicate balance between our obsessive compulsive nature to attain some sort of perfection at our jobs and the practicality of actually being able to do that and live some sort of quality life with the family. It took some time but I am much better at that - I used to think that I would be able to give the 100% that work, and family demands. I used to think that I can do everything I needed to do at work, go home and be the best mother and wife that I can be. Then, when that didn't work, I thought maybe if I gave about 80% to each side I could be happy still. But it wasn't happening and for awhile I felt like a huge failure...if I couldn't make it work, maybe this wasn't what I was supposed to be doing.
It was a couple of years of going through and in the end of that long, trying journey - the face of my kids, the embrace of my husband was made more special. I learned something very important in our marriage; this is our marriage, not made up of anyone else's ideals, values and visions...but ours. We created our marriage the way we wanted it to be and now we don't live up to anyone else's ideas of how a marriage should be, but our own.
It's certainly not the traditional kind of marriage, at least not the kind like our parents had. We have separate vacations sometimes, we share equally on our responsibilities at home, we raise our kids the best that we can, maybe not in the neatest and sanitized of homes - but definitely they are raised loved and cherished. I certainly can't speak on how well our way will be but I know that we are the best that we can be and we love each other completely, faults and bruises and all.
Spending time on work, business and family like it's going out of style - filled with so many needs, wants, responsibilities, obligations...sometimes I lose sight of the spirit behind all that work.
The security of our future that we try to work for, just doesn't equal to moments of bliss when I lay in bed with Ian and have our cuddle attacks. Or times when Moira and I have our talks on her dolls, toys and imaginative dreams as I either brushed her hair, or sat down in bed with her.
We work hard and strive to provide for our children, to be able to give them what we never had as children, provide for them the opportunities that may not have been afforded us, or we weren't remotely interested in. A fear I have is a dream of my child not being fulfilled because of something I was unable to do...our lives after children stop being our own, even as we strive to find ourselves in this new place in marriage.
Brian and I work at finding time for each other. We are blessed because we have found jobs that we love, keep us challenged and interested and strangely enough we are passionate about. Many times we both have said that had we not have children, we would be 2 workaholics that collapse on each other every other night as we work hard and probably party hard as well. I think our kids give direction to our work-craziness, and probably force us to take vacations, breaks and weekends. =)
It is a delicate balance between our obsessive compulsive nature to attain some sort of perfection at our jobs and the practicality of actually being able to do that and live some sort of quality life with the family. It took some time but I am much better at that - I used to think that I would be able to give the 100% that work, and family demands. I used to think that I can do everything I needed to do at work, go home and be the best mother and wife that I can be. Then, when that didn't work, I thought maybe if I gave about 80% to each side I could be happy still. But it wasn't happening and for awhile I felt like a huge failure...if I couldn't make it work, maybe this wasn't what I was supposed to be doing.
It was a couple of years of going through and in the end of that long, trying journey - the face of my kids, the embrace of my husband was made more special. I learned something very important in our marriage; this is our marriage, not made up of anyone else's ideals, values and visions...but ours. We created our marriage the way we wanted it to be and now we don't live up to anyone else's ideas of how a marriage should be, but our own.
It's certainly not the traditional kind of marriage, at least not the kind like our parents had. We have separate vacations sometimes, we share equally on our responsibilities at home, we raise our kids the best that we can, maybe not in the neatest and sanitized of homes - but definitely they are raised loved and cherished. I certainly can't speak on how well our way will be but I know that we are the best that we can be and we love each other completely, faults and bruises and all.
posted by Marla | 10:37 PM
2 Comments:
such a beautiful perspective... :)
(gasps)..very true! i love how u put your thoughts in writing! u do inspire me! :)
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