You Have To Be Pretty Darn Self Absorbed...

... to write a blog post this long all about ONESELF.

I am. I am, I am. Sorry.

It is hard to believe that DH and I have been married for nearly 5 months. In a way, it surprises me how short a time we have had together ... living together is much less of an adjustment than I was expecting.

Not that it isn't still fraught with all kinds of drama.

I am the kind of person who likes to live life on the edge. As in, I borrow about 10 books a week from the library AND I read them. ALL of them. WOW. This week I was thrilled to discover some ancient cassette tapes featuring performances of Hamlet and Macbeth by old-timey actors such as John Gielgud and Alec Guinness. You know, the actors who still have that resonant, moist, radio quality to their voices (listening to which is the audial equivalent of biting into a rich, booze- and fruit-laden holiday cake), with truly astounding precision of diction. This was truly a find, because my car (which was born in the same year I was) plays cassette tapes.

So I really enjoyed listening to something truly absorbing on the way to work, as opposed to NPR's discussion of Oprah's latest big news, or the type of news stories discussed on the Godless Rock Stations, which are a sure way to erode the moral sensibility.

Then, inevitably, disaster struck. Wednesday morning I was late getting out the door, due to my distressing lack of professional attire. Dennis had already left for school--with his cellphone responsibly turned off, of course, because DH is nothing if not responsible. And of course my car would not start, because of course I had arrived home right in the middle of a soliloquy and had to stay in the car, turned on so that I could enjoy the heater, until the end of it, so that I had completely neglected to turn my lights off afterward, despite the index card taped to the inside of my windshield that says in large block letters TURN YOUR LIGHTS OFF, YOU IDIOT (except that DH crossed out the "idiot" part).

So I had to call and tell my boss that I wouldn't make it in to work. And then I had to call and cancel the doctor's appointment I had scheduled for that afternoon. And then I had to cry for three hours, because I am self-absorbed enough to really be upset by my explosion of incompetence. I still have this arrogant need to, if I can't be brilliant in a creative way, at least handle mundanity competently.

I should explain at this point that, since moving to Iowa the last week of July, I have left my lights on (and run down my car battery) four times, and locked my keys in the car once. That's just car-related incompetence, not general incompetence, which happens on a daily, if not hourly basis.

So I was basically a mess by the time Dennis got home. I told him what happened, and he did that thing where he stops and thinks how he wants to react to a situation. So he decided to treat it as not a big deal at all (which I guess it wasn't, put into perspective, which I don't have). Which really did a lot to defuse my heaped-up store of agony untold, and help me to face the evening with an acceptable amount of sanity.

Sometimes this makes me mad that Dennis is so capable and so deliberate in his responses. Because, you know, I could use some of that! I have the emotional maturity of a six-year-old. My life is a constant string of NOW. And sometimes, NOW is great. But more often (because I am imperfect and wicked, and so is the world) NOW is not so great. And if NOW is all I can see, then, by golly ... it is not a pretty sight. I spend probably about 75% of my waking life either furtively walking around the edges of depression, hoping to stay peripheral, or CAUGHT IN THE PIERCING FANGS OF CRUEL DESPAIR, O Agony!

Anyway, the point of this whole story is to say how very, very much I respect my husband. He is one of the most thoughtful, deliberate people I know. He prays almsot every day that he would be Christlike in the way he loves his wife (me!), and that, my dears, is HUGE. (It makes me cry a lot, but then I cry ... a lot.) And it makes me really want to be more deliberate in the way I relate to him as well--less time reacting out of emotion and more time relating out of truth. I'll let you know how that goes. If nothing else, well, I can definitely see how God is using me to grow Dennis (my gosh, I HATE that).


I am just amazed by the grace and wisdom God has given my husband. He is so good -- Dennis is not exactly what I would have described as the ideal husband for myself a few years ago, but I cannot imagine a person who would be better suited for relating to me individually. I guess God knows what He is doing!