Category: personal

First the mundane: I voted and my Senate candidate is trailing by a small margin as I type this. And we had an Indian lunch.
All of this came after a kind of wild 6.35 walk on campus (almost totally snow free) in 1:29:25 (14:05 pace). It was cold: 9 F when I started.

Last weekend was our 30’th wedding anniversary. It was painful for many reasons. My spouse posted photos from it (and warned me that she would, and it was her right to do so). I untagged myself and declined to participate on her wall.

Previously, I had deleted all photos of her from my FB accounts. While I am NOT totally over the issue (which will remain private, but it does not involve infidelity, abuse nor financial dishonesty)

Today I wrote this:

My spouse posted photos from our 30’th wedding anniversary on her wall this past Sunday. If you go there, notice who did NOT react and who did not comment. I could not bring myself to do so.

Those photos brought back some very uncomfortable feelings for a variety of reasons, and I shall keep those private. What I can say is that few of our closest friends expected our marriage to last and, to be honest, our marriage got off to a Keystone Cops caliber start.

I reread some of my diary entries from that time period, and yes, there was a lot of good stuff too, but my brain tends to focus on the past pain; that is just the way I am wired.

Needless to say, a lot of time has passed between now and then, and the vast majority of it was good. But not all of it. In the comments, I’ll post the link to a pithy little article about long term marriage, but here is the money quote:

“here’s the hard truth behind lasting marriages that no one really wants to say out loud: in order for marriages to last, at some point, one or both partners will be required to forgive the unforgivable and put up with crap that no one else would put up with.

We are not perfect beings and if we’re going to last in a marriage, our partners are bound to see us at our worst, most weak and most ignorant moments. We’re going to, at some point, also likely see our partners in theirs too.”

And humans who try to live together are, from time to time, likely to hurt each other badly, unintentionally. And the hurt is sometimes harder to overcome when the usual challenges of aging drain from the reservoir of patience.

These rough patches remind me of the late stages of an ultramarathon, where one has gone far enough to be bone tired but not far enough to imagine finishing the race. Quitting can look soooo inviting, so easy.

They are also a bit like the “white knuckle” periods where those trying to stay sober from an addiction (excessive eating, alcohol, smoking, etc) where the minutes feel like hours.

But, ultimately, if one does not panic, if one deliberately looks at all the good that attracted you in the first place, the bad patches eventually end. And you’ll realize that, on a daily basis, you get to come home to and live with your favorite person in the world.

It is more than worth it. But it isn’t always easy. Nothing good is.