Bliss

I now teach the five and six years olds in primary. I'm pretty excited about, I forgot until I got called that this was my dream from about two years ago. I subbed in primary for about six weeks and it was so fun to learn the songs again so I could sing them with my son, and I remember thinking wouldn't it be fun if I was teaching in junior primary, but not sunbeams when my boy became a sunbeam. Just a few more months. Anyway, so while I am in primary, my daughter and my husband are getting quality time together. In sunday school, he heard this quote and told me about it.

“I was just sure the first ten years would be bliss. But during our first year together I discovered … there were a lot of adjustments. Of course, they weren’t the kind of thing you ran home to mother about. But I cried into my pillow now and again. The problems were almost always related to learning to live on someone else’s schedule and to do things someone else’s way. We loved each other, there was no doubt about that. But we also had to get used to each other. I think every couple has to get used to each other.”
Sister Marjorie P. Hinckley, wife of President Gordon B. Hinckley (in Sheri L. Dew, Go Forward with Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley [1996], 118).

I was so relieved to hear that from a woman who was married to a prophet. Don't get me wrong I love my husband, in fact since we moved I often find myself smiling because I get to married to him. But sometime I wonder why in the heck he does something, or doesn't do something, until I decided to get over it. Like why is he not concerned about the carseats?! (He always buckles our children in, he just doesn't want to spend money to replace a non damaged, non expired carseat) Anyway, its nice to know Sister Hinckley thought the same thing, minus the carseats that hadn't been invented.

With that being said, Brent said the teacher said he thought the first year of marriage was the hardest year of his life until he got to the second year. Brent said, I just don't get, I didn't think the first year of marriage was hard at all, I don't think any of it has been hard. I think you think the same thing except for the beginning of the first pregnancy you weren't too happy with me. (Neither of us were too happy with life in general at that point, which we quickly got over.) Anyway, I agree with my husband, we never had a hard adjustment phase, I don't know why we got lucky. I remember every month waking up on the 30th of the first year of marriage thinking yes, its been two months how did it pass so quickly, three, four, etc. I don't think we ever fought. The first year of marriage was truly blissful, although our engagement was the most terrible part of life, by no fault of my husband, he was perfect, I was so stressed with going to school, and planning a wedding, that I cried every day. I can't believe he actually married me after how I acted being engaged. My husband will agree marriage was so fantastic after that engagement. Or maybe it was blissful its because we knew each other so well before hand, we spent so much time talking when we said we would never date each other, that we never put on a show in a dating sense of being more mannered or refined then we really were. I knew who my husband was when I married him. Nothing he does really surprises me, he is the type of guy who would give his friend the roof rack of his wife's car. He apologized afterward, and I said I knew who you were when I married you. He is the man who will fall sleep at 8 pm, and always be the first volunteer when someone is moving. Who plays quake three when I'm gone and he while is watching the kids. Don't worry the boy thinks he is playing and helping his dad.

All I can say, is I got lucky, I got a man who I think is fantastically perfect for me, and I think he is pretty fond of me too. He would tell you he has no complaints, and honestly mean it, would not be able to even come up with a complaint. To think its just a few weeks shy of knowing him for six years. Crazy. By the way we have no memory of meeting for the first time.

And by the way, yes one day in the near distant future, he will come home unexpectedly and I got a new job opportunity, what do you think about moving to, ___________. And I'll say when do we leave? Luckily I know that can't happen until he graduates, because there is no way in heck he will repeat his MBA work in a different location. But if I'm lucky before the next job, he'll say, flights to Mexico are under a $____ want to go?

Life is pretty much perfect, I don't mind that I'm surrounded in food storage not one bit. (I'm typing in my bedroom, everyone is a sleep, yes even my husband, next to me with the light on.)

Not to say we haven't had struggles over the past four and half years, but the thing that always gets me past the struggles is my desire to want to enjoy my marriage, and be the best mother I can be. I think I'm failing terribly at being the best mother, but at least I'm enjoying marriage. Which in itself is a gift to my children. So.... maybe I just need to lower my expectations of motherhood. Enjoying motherhood, and being the best at it, are two different things, maybe I should work on this. I use to wonder if Brent could have done better than me, than I decided why stress, he picked me I didn't force him. That is my secret in life, whenever something I can't change turns out to be disappointing, I lower my expectations, than magically it meets my expectations. Although I didn't have to do that in marriage, I just had to remember that some things that drive me nuts now is what endeared me to him the beginning. Like always helping other people in need, when I want attention, his strong service ethic appealed to me. The carseats? He was always so nonsensical, practical, and frugal, and still is. I turn too many things in emotional appeals, like this blog post.

My husband is everything I wanted in a man, and all the things I never even thought about. I really spent hardly anytime planning a wedding, a marriage, or a man. I was too young to be obsessed with things like that when I met him, fresh off the plane from high school.