For Better AND for Worse

"We’ve seen each other bleed, cry, and suffer humiliating defeat; we’ve given each other our imperfect best; and we belong to each other. In other words, we’re family." 

--Floorpie, one of my favorite bloggers, about her marriage

When choosing our partners for life we select for equal parts attraction and fantasy. Hopefully we also look for shared values, compatible dreams and the ability to speak the truth of who we are. 

But inevitably, if you stick together for a number of years, you get to a place I like to call the "I can't believe I married someone who" moment.

At that moment, you just can't imagine carrying on with this person. 

One of the funniest moments like that in my marriage was when I realized that my husband was using our dish-washing sponge to wipe the floor. Worse, that he had been doing this for YEARS. 

This revelation led to a shrill and shrieky argument and rocked my world for a few moments. Could I carry on being married to someone who thought it was okay to wipe the floor with the same sponge we used to wash the dishes? I just wasn't sure.....

We made it through that "for worse" moment and eventually got back to "better," but it wasn't until the other day that I realized the vow is all wrong. It should be "for better AND for worse" because it's always BOTH, isn't it?

In my younger days I always just assumed that eventually we would work out all the bugs, get to "better" and just hang out there for the rest of our days. That hasn't happened....yet. 

The other day we had one of our periodic knock-down-drag-outs about communication and somewhere in the midst of that fight, I finally got it. I stopped seeing our "worse" moments as the end of the world, or at least the beginning of the end. 

I now know that "worse" will eventually morph back into "better" (and on the flip side, that "better" will once again slide into "worse") - sometimes within days, sometimes within hours, sometimes even within minutes.

PRIDE! (in the name of LOVE)

"Being absolutely present and engaged with each moment is generally the way to go. However, sometimes it's best for you and all concerned if you can take a step back from the intensity of the present. Ask yourself, 'How will I feel about this in 10 years?' Then channel your decade-older self and speak from his/her perspective. People might think you're crazy because you're laughing instead of furious, or casual instead of intense. But coming from that place will generate a more positive situation...." 

--From Sign Language by Caeriel Crestin in Maui Time News

Earlier this year we had our kids' parent-teacher-conferences. They went well. Very well.

Our kids are bright, well-adjusted, and well-behaved (for the most part anyway :)

Walking home I felt proud of my kids. Proud of their accomplishments in school thus far. Proud to be their mom.

As I continued to reflect on these feelings of pride I found myself wondering....is this what life is all about?

Smart children. Good meetings. Proud parents.

Or is life about learning and growing and sometimes making a mess?

And I began to wonder....am I going to feel as proud of my kids when they are messing up as I do when they are doing well?

Am I going to feel proud the first time one of them fails a test, or sneaks out of the house, or gets his heart broken,  knowing that they are learning as much - if not more - from these experiences as from doing well in school?

The conclusion I came to was: I hope so.

I hope I can remember to view their slips, missteps and failures with as much pride as I view their accomplishments and successes, knowing that BOTH are an integral part of this human life.

The Wisdom of BOTH

"Do not cling to anything, to any idea; because clinging is the bondage, even to the idea of enlightenment."

--Osho

"To gain enlightenment, you must want it as much as a man whose head is held under water wants air."

--Zen saying

Whenever I give my husband a choice between two things his answer is always the same: BOTH. 

It used to drive me CRAZY because I was raised in a world where you can't have BOTH. You can have one or the other, but not both. In his world BOTH is always an option and it is always the one he chooses. 

These quotes came, less than two weeks apart, from my Wisdom of the East Mini Day-to-Day Calendar. I had to laugh when I read the second one, because I remembered liking the first one and posting it on my fridge. 

I quickly found it and posted them together, held up by the same magnet, side by side. 

Every couple of days I would read them, laugh, and then put them back together where they belong.

Some days I know it is my desire for enlightenment that gets in my way.  I am trying too hard and by trying, missing the point.

Other days what holds me back is that I do not want it nearly enough. Because achieving enlightenment would mean giving up things that my ego values like pride, jealousy, gossip, righteousness and anger.

On the days when I pause and ask myself to decide - really - which of these quotes I believe to be TRUE the answer I get is always the same: BOTH 

Or as the Buddha said, "I gained nothing at all from supreme enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called supreme enlightenment."