The Big Six-Oh

 As I mentioned, Beloved Husband celebrated a Big Birthday in March - Sixty! It seems impossible -- he is, as always, eternally youthful and young-at-heart: cheerful, fun-loving, humorous. The Ernie to my Bert. He makes me laugh. 

He works very hard at Work and at his Volunteer Projects. He plays hard, too -- trying to find time for his motorcycle, for off-roading, for spending time with his lovely Mom and brother and sister, for enjoying his work-outs at the gym. He crams as much life into Life as possible, making the most of every moment. 

I wish for you, Beloved Husband, many, many more years to do All The Things that you would like to do. And all the joy that can be found in this strange, complex world that we live in. 

January Eats: Octopus Chicharrones

Beloved Husband and I tried out a new restaurant. On the menu: Octopus Chicharrones. 

Sounds: questionable.

Was: delicious. 

Thirty-Four

 Herself speaks.

Beloved Husband and I have been married for nearly fifty nine percent of my lifetime now.  For some reason, it feels as though it has gone by quickly. Or perhaps the memories of the earlier years become crowded and compacted, like layers of sediment, by the later years. 

Every now and then, a piece of our shared history is unearthed, especially now as we are doing some much-needed upgrades to the house. I wade through a container of grade-school papers from the Offspring, or find an occasional photo from Days of Yore. I sort the box of little T shirts that our elderly rescue dogs wore for comfort. That little hook there? My Dad gave it to us, because it matched the decor in that bathroom -- I'd forgotten until Beloved Husband reminded me. Little pieces of an entire life, slowly being weeded and organized. It's odd, after years of organic chaos of Offspring and pets and Everything, to slowly and methodically tidy all the pieces of our life together.

There's such a sense of -- Completion? Empty nest? -- without any Offspring or dogs or any pets that make noise (the sound of bunnies rummaging in hay is not loud enough to count) on weekends. I feel old? Or tired? Perhaps it is time to plan some new adventures, as we step into this next phase of life. 

We travel on. And time moves ever swifter. 

Duet Under A Tree

A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time. ― Anne Taylor Fleming

Herself speaks.

While Beloved Husband and I were at our alma mater a couple of weekends ago, we took a walk out to the golf course near campus. We looked carefully, and we found we found what we are sure is the tree under which he proposed, thirty-six years ago. It has grown quite a bit in the intervening years, and is just as beautiful now as it was then.

I don't think either of us had any idea way back then what the future would hold. And now, here we are -- we have been through so many years together, so many milestones. The only thing I knew back then when he asked me to marry him, was: I wanted to be the very best wife I could be for him. I still do today. I still try, every day. 

I am fortunate in that after all this time, even beyond love, I also like Beloved Husband. He's smart. He's funny. He's curious about the world and always learning new and interesting things to share. He wants the best for his children. He is devoted to his family and to his friends. 

He's the Quintessential Congenial Person: Cheerful, Charming, Likeable, Talented. Everyone loves him. The only problem with this, is that there is not enough of him to go around. So many demands on his attention and his time. It must be hard for him to prioritize, being pulled in so many different directions at once. Sometimes (oftentimes) I feel as though I get short shrift. Not something I considered under that tree, so many years ago. But what is to be done? I cannot change What Is. 

The best I can do is work on my own solo dance, until he is available for moments of our duet. 

Young at Heart

 Beloved Husband is fifty-[mumble] years old.  Eternally young at heart, always willing to try new foods, new activities, and new places, he will always be the cheery, born-under-a-lucky-star person that I have known him to be since the very first day we met. 

Happy Birthday, Beloved Husband. I wish for you -- with great love -- continued health, happiness, and adventures, for many, many years to come. 

33 and Sushi

Beloved Husband and I went out for sushi to celebrate our 33rd anniversary. 

Here's to the next 33 years. 

Santa Fe

Herself speaks.

It's remarkable how it seems as though it takes the entire workweek, to prepare to take one work day off.  

Last week, Monday through Thursday were extremely busy, so that Friday could be spent out of the office. Beloved Husband and I took that day off, and took a leisurely drive from our usual corner of this desert southwest, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. (We went to Santa Fe at around this time last year as well -- we are looking to make it an annual pilgrimage, in honor of our anniversary which is in a few weeks.) 

It's such an interesting place: so many contrasts. Rich and poor, desert and oasis, art and mundane. We looked in all the expensive tourist-y shops; had several very fine meals at very fine restaurants; perused Art in various galleries; saw a ballet performance at the lovely little theatre. It was quite nice. 

There are some parts of Santa Fe that give me pause.  There is a lot of art in the galleries that depicts idealized Native Americans: beautiful maidens wrapped in furs or skins, waiting expectantly; stoic warriors in full regalia or war paint, staring defiantly; plump children contentedly gazing at  small carved toys, and such. I would be very surprised if any of these works were created by actual First Peoples artists.  It feels a little bit like Indian pornography -- exploitative, false, glossing over the ultimately terrible history of Native Peoples in the area (and throughout the United States). And there are the indigenous street vendors selling their wares on the weekends, on numbered spaces on the sidewalk by the center square -- there is the same vaguely uncomfortable feeling of exploitation and discomfort there, too. Is it just me? I don't think so. 

 There is also the conservative politics of some people of the region, that we strenuously avoid (particularly with the apparent assassination attempt on July 14, while we were in Santa Fe). The present state of the nation, of women's rights, of the Supreme Court decisions and other current events, fills me with such despair that I can no longer read the news. It's hard not to think about what's happening. But that's a discussion for another day.

We took the scenic way back to our corner of the desert, which was a very nice drive. Long freight trains, wind turbines, cows, a few pronghorns, and stretches of dry landscape as far as the eye could see.  It was a refreshing nothingness. I could spend forever in that interim.

Alas, we are now Back to Business As Usual.

It was a good trip, though.  We'll do it again next year. 

Young at Heart

 Beloved Husband has completed another trip around the sun. Cheerful; eternally young-on-the-inside; a man who is fond of Dad Jokes, of four-wheel-driving in the desert and motorcycling and traveling along on the open roads; the human whom the rabbits all quickly approach in the hopes he will share bananas with them. 

He works hard, plays hard; enjoys spending time with his friends from a wide variety of walks of life, not only from business acquaintances but also from extracurricular activities, and even from as far back as high school. Everyone loves him, speaks highly of him, relies on him. 

It's a full life he leads, and each year seems to pass in the blink of an eye. I do the best I can to better his life every day --  to ensure that all the minutiae of Life are handled, so that he has the time and freedom for what he desires. 

Happy birthday, Beloved Husband. I hope you find time for all of the Good Things.  And I hope that all of your dreams come true. 

Thirty-two

Happy anniversary!

"In every good marriage, it pays sometimes to be a little deaf." - Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Young at Heart

Happy birthday to the perpetually young-at-heart Beloved Husband. You are so well loved. I wish for you, continued joy as you move through life, led by your ever-cheerful, ever-youthful, ever-playful spirit. 

Credit Where Credit's Due

 Beloved Husband gave me a Harry Potter-themed purse for our anniversary this year.  (It was an unspectacular anniversary otherwise, seeing as I had COVID at the time. Nevertheless, the gifts were quite thoughtful.) It's an excellent purse: backpack style (my favorite kind), just the right size, subtle, tasteful. Nice.

As I've mentioned previously, I've had a spate of routine maintenance appointments lately, plus have also run a bunch of errands -- gone to the pharmacy and the grocery store and the eyeglass place and the bookstore and whatnot. (I'm the only one wearing a mask these days, but that doesn't bother me: I have festive holiday-themed masks! What could be better?) The purse has come with me everywhere, and I've received numerous compliments on the purse. Everyone loves it. 

Each time someone comments on the purse, I give appropriate credit to Beloved Husband: thank you - I need to give credit where credit is due, it was a gift from my husband. He did a good job. And the compliment-giver invariably says, he did! 

And they're right. He did!

I think that there's a tendency, not only in the media but in society in general, to portray husbands as being poor gift-givers. People roll their eyes and scoff at men in general and husbands in particular when it comes to presents, and allow them to maintain deliberate incompetence in the gift-giving department. We're doing men a disservice. They can do better. We should let them. And we should always give credit where credit is due. If they do a good job, we should say so. 

I really like my purse. Thanks, Beloved Husband!

The Angels Who Walk Among Us

 Herself speaks.

I had a short text conversation this past week with my mother-in-law. We'll call her Buela, because that is what everyone calls her. 

Buela inquired after my parents' health, and I let her her know that things are going as well as possible. She was delighted to hear. She then she inquired after Cherished Friend, saying that she hoped he was doing well also. I answered in the affirmative and let her know I had spoken to him recently. And she replied:

Mija, that is wonderful! Please give him my regards next time you talk to him, tell him he is not forgotten. <3 

And this simple statement somehow both broke my heart and healed it. She keeps my Cherished Friend in her prayers and in her heart, always, even though she hasn't seen him for years, because she knows how important he has been, and continues to be, to me and my family. 

This is the kind of person Buela is: she loves a person, because someone she loves, loves that person. 

It is the kind of person I try to be. 

What a shining example of Love. Buela, an angel among us. 

On Marriage

When I laid down on my quarantine cot last night and contemplated what words to use to describe Beloved Husband's any my thirty-first anniversary, I was a bit at a loss. Sometimes, when there are too many possible words, the simplest route is to choose the small ones -- a description of the ordinary, of just the facts. When one is so very close to a situation, it is easier to write about the trees rather than about the whole forest. Sometimes even picking an individual tree as a starting point is nearly impossible. 

Occasionally, a theme can provide structure: for example, Pandemic marriage. As I sit here in the early hours of daylight today, after a night of COVID-induced sleepless ruminations, let's take a deeper dive, shall we?

-----

The Pandemic has been a crucible for so many marriages. So many complicating factors: close-quarters lockdowns for extended periods of time, job and money uncertainty, illness, caretaking, worry about extended family members, political polarization, and more. Some of these factors did not have as significant an impact for us, because this is a seasoned marriage that has already survived years of complexity, including the birth, growth, and near-launching of multiple offspring; career changes; moves; financial ups and downs; illness and death of elderly extended family members; good times, bad times, and all the times in between. We are fortunate, too, in that work has continued essentially uninterrupted throughout the Pandemic, and has provided an outlet for productivity and consistent income. Nevertheless, there have still been some challenges in the Pandemic. 

In the Pandemic, how does a person individually go about his or her life as fully as possible, while minimizing the impact of one's own activity on the spouse? How much socializing, travel, even in-person-work-meetings, is an acceptable level of risk? Acceptable to whom? What if "acceptability" varies among spouses? And when the Pandemic virus inevitably comes home to roost, what happens then? What caretaking must be given, what taking-over-of-the-ill-spouse's-activities should be done? Who shepherds the plague-stricken Offspring through the health care system? Who ensures the smooth running of the household in the face of illness, and is it different from in times of health?

And so we see marriage through a particular lens: contemplating how one's actions may impact another person's life, and contemplating how supporting that person may impact one's own life. Marriage is to think not only of oneself, but of another.  Obligations and promises: for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. Choices made, every day, to uphold those vows. This is why it is often referred to as "building a life together": brick after brick of daily mundane decisions, paths so intertwined as to render it difficult on occasion to pinpoint the boundaries of each individual's wants and needs within the intersections. 

The biggest challenge: to remain an individual within the partnership. To be a whole person, not just a spouse. To tend to those obligations and promises of marriage, without being defined by them or consumed by them. 

Through marriage, we each learn not only about the other, but also about our individual selves. What do I want? What do I need? What will bring me greatest fulfillment? And how do I find those things, as I move through life in co-orbit with my spouse?

Day by day, step by step, on we go. Through the Pandemic, and beyond. 

"A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time." - Anne Taylor Fleming

In Sickness and in Health

Married, 31 years today.

It was a quiet anniversary celebration: work as usual, a take-out dinner eaten at a social distance to try to ensure Beloved Husband does not become re-infected with COVID, an exchange of thoughtful gifts and cards, and finally, him falling asleep in his comfy chair while was in my study, putting black electrical tape over the printer power button so I don't have to keep unplugging it when I retire to my quarantine lair for the evening. 

This is marriage for over half one's lifetime, in the heart of late Pandemic. The time has all gone by in the blink of an eye, as we have grown into middle age, both separately and together. I look forward to seeing what the future still holds. 

Happy anniversary, Beloved. 

Open Road

Beloved Husband is spending his birthday today, off-roading in the southwestern wilds.

There are even petroglyphs. Neat!

I hope you enjoy, Beloved. Happy birthday.

Belated

Had a tasty, belated anniversary dinner. So colorful. Takeout, because Plague. 

It was nice to have a meal together. 

Thirty

 Herself speaks.

Tuesday was the 30th anniversary of Beloved Husband's and my wedding. Thirty years. That's a long time to be married. I feel as though we deserve a medal or something.

He had to leave on a business trip midday that day. He spent the previous evening packing/preparing, and went to work for a few hours that morning, before leaving just after lunchtime. I am not sure when he will be back -- perhaps this evening, perhaps tomorrow. With a little luck, we'll be able to have a celebratory meal in honor of our anniversary this coming weekend. 

In some kind of "the Universe is Testing Me" situation, the following things also happened Tuesday: one of the wheels of the garage door fell off of its tracks; and the landscapers (who have been ever-so-slowly and honestly, rather sloppily, repairing the sprinkler system) managed to blow a fuse/trip a circuit, so that none of the outside outlets work, nor do the outlets in the garage -- including the one hosting the garage fridge. And meanwhile, I had worked with one of the Offspring to coordinate car maintenance for them this week, with the assumption that they could use my car if needed, and I could in turn use Beloved Husband's truck; but due to the nature of the business trip, he needed to take the truck. 

Oy.

I tried for about 45 minute to reposition the garage door wheel back on the track, but without success. Fortunately, I was able to close the door, and I can just park outside until it is resolved. An annoyance, but not terrible. I tried off an on for about an hour and a half over the past two days to resolve the circuit breaker issue, but no amount of my manipulating the circuits or the GFIs I could find solved the problem. Again, an annoyance, but not life-threatening. (The main difficulty with these two problems was the limbo-ing around the things in the garage to get to where I needed to stand to tackle the issues. That was capital-F Frustrating.) And the Offspring and I coordinated our schedules to share my car. 

The hardest part of all was perhaps not giving in to the temptation to be annoyed that Beloved Husband had to be away, and thus was unavailable, to help with the issues. What good would it do, to be angry? None. Feelings with nowhere to go are unhelpful.

One thing that I have learned after thirty years of marriage, is this:

The current social mindset that one marries a person who is one's Everything, is absolutely terrible. 

It's romantic, in a way, to want to portray one's spouse as friend, lover, co-parent, all one ever needs. But that is a tremendous burden to place on another person. And realistically, it is a burden that cannot be carried. There will be times when a spouse will be busy, out of town, or otherwise not physically or emotionally available. Sometimes there isn't bandwidth to come to the aid of another person, or even to listen empathetically. This is especially true for certain types of professions, such as the one that Beloved Husband and I have. 

It's up to each person to build their own support structure to provide assistance, a listening ear, a meal, if their spouse cannot do so. It's necessary.

This might be the ultimate issue: I need to work on my own village. The number of people I can comfortably call in times of need, can be counted on one hand with fingers left over; and the number of people who are in physical proximity to me and could conceivably turn up to render aid are nearly nil. 

So much easier said than done. 

Really, I would like not to have to reach out to anyone else, ever. That's a bit of a lonely existence, though. Plus, I like to help other people; surely there are individuals like me, would would be happy to help me on occasion? One would hope. I don't know. 

This all sounds very much like a "me" problem. 

I'll work on it.

After I fix the garage door, and the circuits. 

Shadow

 Herself speaks.

Last week, I attended an event that was an educational program for local women. I was on the speaker panel, serving in a professional capacity to provide a few snippets of advice about my area of expertise. The women who attended had interesting and thoughtful questions, and it was a fruitful experience. 

Two of the other women on the speaker panel are in industries that work in conjunction with mine for certain transactions, and have interacted with Beloved Husband on a professional basis numerous times in the past. (He and I work together in the same industry.) And as the introductions were being made by the moderator, these two other panelists mentioned Beloved Husband -- and, in fact, spoke glowingly and a bit at length about about him before I'd even had an opportunity to introduce myself. They eventually moved on, and I was able to provide my background (including giving Beloved Husband credit for bringing me on board to work with him, and his training me). The rest of the program went well, and he was mentioned less as we progressed.

-----

I don't begrudge the glowing mentions of Beloved Husband. He is absolutely excellent in his field: bright, extremely competent, creative, thorough. He's an outstanding teacher. He handles business conflict resolution extremely well. He has a wide network of business acquaintances and compatriots who work together well and support one another. And: he's a genuinely nice person. 

The result of this: he casts a very large professional shadow -- one that I will never truly be able to step out of. I came to this industry late (a mere seven years ago) after twenty-two years of a separate industry. We work in the same office. I am still in many ways under his tutelage and I continue to need his help, because the ways of thinking and looking at problems in this line of work do not come easily for me. I will forever be associated not only personally, but also professionally with him in most circles. And that's mostly fine. Every now and then, though, I feel a little bit... subsumed. Especially when I cannot make an appearance at a women-led and women-driven event, without his shadow preceding me. 

It's times like this, that I miss my other Project, because that is something that is truly Mine. 

Time to work on growing my individual hobbies. So that I can still be Me, in addition to being Beloved Husband's wife and work partner. 

Thirty-Two

Thirty-two years ago, on a clear Friday afternoon, I turned in my senior thesis to my advisor, and then went for a walk in a lovely green area near campus with then-Beloved-Boyfriend.  He had flown up from his desert land to my humid east-coast state to attend an end-of-year formal with me. I hadn't seen him for three or four months previously -- we were in the midst of our ultimately three-and-a-half years of long distance -- and it was a curiously calm sensation, to be together. Or perhaps it was the absence of longing to be together, that made everything seem so tranquil. We sat under a beautiful leafy tree, and he asked me a certain question. I responded, and then we walked back to campus, newly engaged. 

It was a most memorable day. 

Speed Limit

 Beloved Husband turns 55 today. 

Happy birthday, you hardworking, ever-optimistic, perpetually cheerful man. We love you, and wish for you, many more years of marvelous adventures ahead.