July 22, 2011

  • your way, my way

    © a fellow who said the picture might not be straight

    The other day, I ran into someone I hadn't seen since before I married.  Maybe it was the heat or just a lull in the conversation, but she asked me several times throughout the night, "How's married life?"  At first, I replied with the traditional happy thoughts and good will that I'm used to saying, but by the third time, I was running out of answers, and for some reason, I said, "It's good!  It saves time."  The other person, being a bit tongue-in-cheek by nature, replied, "Oh great, that's really what I look forward to when I get married.  Saving time."

    That answer really irked me the past couple of weeks. I wished to say something meaningful and grandiose, but instead, I said the truth!  I've thought about it a lot, and I think I said that because time was one of our biggest (and still is) stressors before we got married.  R would leave work, ride to my place, and by the time we ate dinner, we had an hour before I had to go to sleep because of my teacher schedule.  We always bemoaned not being able to spend enough time together, and not being able to get our own business done.

    I've been reading Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages after years of avoiding it, and I was surprised to find out that my love language is quality time.  No wonder I replied what I did.  Not that we have all the time in the world, but I've been relishing sharing my life with Randall...err, in every way.  Tonight, he came home drenched in sweat and humidity.  It is a heat wave after all!  I was making Korean dduk bboki as per his request.  After we kissed, he told me about his crazy day, and I told him to wash his face!  Dinner was ready.

    We had dinner, shared some yummy cookies, and talked about our days.  I told him about my home improvement projects and my conversation with an irate mom who's garden had been weeded of her prize plants!  He told me about work drama and some photography equipment he had purchased on e-bay.  After dinner, he went to his desk and worked on his computer, and I got on my laptop (which I'd spent way too much time on during the day) and started playing a game I found on an old blog I used to frequent in my single days.  R cracked up when he realized I was playing an escape-the-room RPG.  Yes, full geekdom come.  I cringed as he saw the screenshots I had taken to figure out some of the puzzles, and yet R exclaimed, "I admire your drive to solve anything at all costs."  [Blush!]

    I caught up on some e-mails, Facebook, and looked at all the Google Doodles from past to present (did I tell you I'm on summer break?) while R caught up on photoblogs and shopped for some new tungsten lights.  It was glorious.  Hours of time to just "be" together AND get "alone" time.  I'm out in the living room since R has fallen asleep, and I'm just so thankful for marriage.  R named ours "Two weirdos living together."  Originally, I had meant to come out here and write a post about our differences - namely because we've been sleeping with a fan on our nightstand, and I still fear fan death - but now I'm glad that our differences help us to run along side of each other and marvel.

    I once heard an analogy of meeting your mate like this.  You, as a single, should be running after God with all your heart.  And then as you run, you happen to glance over and see someone running parallel in the same direction.  A glance turns into a dance and then a negotiation.  So then marriage then becomes a slight intersection of two paths running towards the same goal.  I'm understanding this a bit more everyday.

    p.s. Next time, I'll write about fan death and other things that have been the source of hilarity in our day-to-day.

Comments (3)

  • i love this post! when i first read your comment about fan death, i thought it meant that the fan cover might come off and allow the blades to come at you...yikes! the actual site is rather tame in comparison. :)

  • Yes, Koreans tend to be superstitious about the littlest of things. Must be that peninsula.

  • awwww...love this post. :) and SO GOOD to see you guys tonight. glad we are now (sort of) neighbors!

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