It is the first of May today - the traditional start of the growing season and is between the Spring and Summer solstice. It is also the day I asked my wife to marry me.
It seems so long ago, but I remember feeling weirdly nervous about it all - even after spending the last few months getting a ring of my mother's from Australia for the diamond (courtesy of my sister who inherited the jewelry) and then designing and having it made. The design represents our early communication and signifies a heart in a box.
I wasn't nervous about her saying no, nor about the decision I made to ask her, I was nervous about the way I was going to ask her and whether it would be something that she would remember and appreciate. Some people do big fancy song and dances - I took her to the local May Day market for cotton candy - it was cold and rainy that day - not ideal. But, she did say yes and as they say - the rest is history - still in the making.
I think that over the last almost decade we have been together, we have seen and been through a lot. It probably isn't much more than any other couple out there, if any, but when it is your life, it obviously carries extra weighting.
Everything is funny, until it happens to you.
Well, everything is funny overall by my measure, as this life can be so ridiculous at times that one can only laugh at the sheer stupidity and futility of it all. What I have found is that if you can't find the humor in the pain, the humor in the better times is hollow and lacking - it takes the juxtaposition, the contrast between the good and the bad of life to identify and appreciate the things that actually matter in this life.
Sharing life with someone matter in my opinion, though it doesn't have to be in a marriage or love relationship. Intimacy isn't physical, it is a psychological closeness, and understanding of each other and the willingness to be vulnerable. A lot of people look to find intimacy without forming relationships where it is possible, they look for it from strangers online, thinking that all it requires is sharing their mind with whoever will listen - or potentially be listening.
There is intimacy value in this too, but it is the intimacy of getting to know oneself and if one is willing to pay attention and explore, the discoveries made could be among the most valuable in life. But still, what good is the knowing oneself without the context of relationships surrounding us - a disconnected island in a world that requires community collaboration in order to operate.
As much as some people might like to say they are independent, no one is by design - each of us have come through a history of humanity to be here today, each of us carries scars of the past that were burned into us before we were born. Genetically and socially.
One of those scars is the need for connection, the forming of relationships, the feeling that what we do in this world matters. Again, many people turn toward a digital representation of connection to fill the void, as if broadcasting to the many makes up for building well with the few - quantity over quality - but in this life, it is not necessary, as long as we feel that we matter to one person in the world, that one person thinks that what we do is valuable.
I think that this is why new parents may have a greater sense of their worth and then feel abandoned when their children grow and move from the home, as the parent is no longer needed. The entire life as a parent is to make oneself obsolete, redundant - to raise the child to go out into the world and fend for themselves - create for themselves. Being a parent is to pour love into a person knowing that the end goal is that they will be strong enough to leave, and not look back.
I don't know about myself as a parent, but I do know that I married a brilliant mother and one that will consistently do right by her daughter. Right being - doing her best. No matter what is happening in the world, no matter what other pains exist - she will be there for our daughter and she will be as strong as she can be.
Perhaps this is where real intimacy lays, the willingness to give oneself to another despite the pain that may come - the acceptance of risk through trust, the openness to share what cannot be taken back and leave it up to someone else, an uncontrollable force, to do with as they please.
Love isn't painless - love is the entire spectrum of experience, pain included.
Start to finish.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
