So I planned on writing about music tonight– something light, something non-serious. Something actually to make you feel like, ah, she is maybe not so melo-dramatic. But then my blog failed me, for one reason or another, and wouldn’t let me upload a daggone video. I wanted to talk about wistfulness! And revelry! Dammit!

And with Chris gone tonight (who fixes all my computer errors), it’s just gonna be fully me. It’s funny how marriage is the odd balance of being you, and yet being a we too. I haven’t quite wrapped my head around it, and don’t know all the time when I need to be a me, and when I need to be a we. You see, it should be a we all the time. I know this, because I think– through reading and studying and our counseling last year– this is how marriages thrive and stay breathing. It’s that you’re always a we. Even when you are out there on your own. I only retreated to my me when I feel like I need to, those times we he travels or when I’m angry or any of those “I can do this all on my own” moments, which happen with entirely more frequency than I’d like to share.

Over the past year, I took his traveling with a nonchalance. A window back to my ol’ independence where I could do silly independent things like wander Anthropologie for an hour (and not buy anything), or read all morning and drink so much coffee I vibrate. Or what about spending a long evening with my mother– starting at 3 and lasting till midnight– drinking wine, eating, doing the dishes, retiring by the fire pit outside. Oh, the whimsy of independence!

Then, Chris traveled last week. And I was legitimately, seriously, sad he was gone. I got a lot done, sure. I was productive, had a few dates with girlfriends, but everything just seemed so grey. Marriage means you have a person; you have a companionship all the time. And this chronically introverted and independent gal took a while to understand the importance of this and want it, all the time, for better or worse. It didn’t come easy, and well, it’s still coming.  Chris would be the first to tell you this.

But I love wanting him near. And I love him not leaving. And I love that these feelings don’t come easy, because it means they’ve weathered the storm, and sifted through my layers of selfishness, and somehow, come out on the other end.

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  • Sarah
    http://www.thegoodtogether.blogspot.com

    Well said. I like your idea of easy feelings vs hard-earned feelings. So much of any healthy relationship is admitting that, while perfectly content perhaps, you are not completely complete all by your lonesome, which isn’t easy!

    March 19th, 2013 12:39
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    • Rebecca Payne

      amen, sister. I like the taxonomy of easy feelings vs. hard-earned feelings. There are lessons there that I have learned over and over in my closest of relationships.

      March 20th, 2013 8:27
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