.....39

Yogis,
Thirty-nine is an odd number. I remember turning 39 myself. A pause that sits between the young and vibrant days of your 20s and 30s and the leap into the 40s and 50s which seem so …….well, mature. Now I have a son turning 39 and I celebrated my 39^th wedding anniversary this weekend. How is that possible when I feel like I am still only 39?

Thirty-nine years of living life hand in hand with the same person. That’s a long time. A mature marriage.

It was a bitter cold January day at the Fortnightly Club. The streets were clear but the snow that had fallen two days before was still pristine, glistening under bright sun on the grassy areas. I was an idealistic 22 year old and imagined that marriage was something that came easily. That love was enough. Yes, you are told there would be ups and downs. Yes, you saw others with troubles. Yet somehow you are sure that yours will be different.

At first you try to change the other person. If I just keep reminding him to wipe his shoes, put down the toilet seat and close the closet doors he will gradually mold into my desires. Years and arguments later you finally realize that who you married is who they are. They are never going to delight in shopping with you. They don’t think salad is dinner. And they will never be happy staying up past 9:30.

Letting go of expectations. Letting go of needing them to be and think like you. Not easy.

Time marches forward. You buy houses together. You travel together. You handle crisis together. You parent together…even handing them off into their own marriages. You cry and you laugh. Together. But together does not mean the same.

It took me many years to get it. That marriage becomes strongest when its two unique ‘individuals’ have worked on becoming whole and complete beings on their own. Not looking to the other to fill their own voids. That is the foundation. Moving through life separately, but together.

In ‘The Prophet’, Khlil Gibran says it this way.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.

And stand together yet not too near together.

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadows.

 

How do you celebrate 39 years of waking up to each new day together? We decided to try ‘floating’. Lying quietly in a closed heavily salted pod in darkness for an hour. When I called to make the reservations I said there were two of us. ‘We love having you come together and at the same time, but you must each float alone in your own pod,’ she said.

How fitting.

Being whole,
SARAH