You Can't Be In Love
Every Day
by Liz
Flaherty
What’s it like, you
ask, being married to the same person for over 30 years? How do
you do it?
Well, it’s like this.
You know every word
of his body language, can identify every freckle that dances across
his shoulders when he walks into the sun, can buy him a year’s
wardrobe in 15 minutes flat counting the time you spend writing
the check and asking the store clerk how her kids are doing. You
know better than to cook tuna casserole even if you like it, that
a sure way to get him to talk to you is to start reading a book,
that if you’re not feeling well, he’s most certainly feeling worse.
You’ve learned by now
that there’s no possible way you can be in love every day. Sometimes,
let’s come right out and say it, he’s just a jerk. Sometimes,
since we’re not holding back, you’re a pain in the neck. On those
days, you look at each other with glazed eyes and wonder which
lawyer to call. Then you go to bed, mumble “I love you” with doubtful
sincerity, and lie in the dark and mentally parcel out the furniture,
the dishes, and the retirement accounts until sleep overtakes
you.
There are days, indeed,
when Peggy Lee’s voice echoes in your mind, Is that all there
is? In the time when you had a flat stomach and naturally
glowing skin and hair that was …well, a different color than it
is now, this isn’t what you counted on, was it? Once you got the
kids raised, you were going to travel, wear expensive clothes,
dance the night away. You were going to have fun.
Okay, you say, if it’s
that bad, why do you stay married?
Well, because, that’s
why.
Because he can tell
by the set of your chin if you’ve had a bad day, because he’ll
bring home takeout food just when you’re positive you can’t cook
one more meal in this lifetime, because he tells you he thinks
you’re really cute and means it even if you’re not wearing any
makeup and you haven’t sucked your stomach in.
He still takes the
street side on sidewalks because that’s the way he was taught,
tells your daughter she’s almost as pretty as you are,
and never reminds you you’re getting more like your mother every
day. He knows the words to the same songs you do and he doesn’t
mind that you can’t carry a tune in a bushel basket. He doesn’t
laugh when you can’t finish singing Puff, the Magic Dragon
because you are in tears you can’t explain. He just tucks his
arm around you and hands you a tissue and kisses the top of your
head where the roots are starting to show a bit.
Well, fine, you say,
but isn’t it boring?
Oh, I suppose, once
in a while.
But a long marriage
is like the sun. It’s there every day and night, sometimes hidden
by dense and sulky cloud covers, sometimes blazing red and vital
and exciting. During cold spaces in your life—and life offers
a lot of those—marriage wraps itself around you and keeps you
warm.
The other side of that
is that long marriages are uncomfortable now and then, like when
you and your spouse disagree on matters of fundamental importance,
such as values, religion, politics, money, and thermostat settings.
And you do disagree about these things even though you think you
never will. This is when you look at him and think, Why am I still
married to this person who is so wrong about everything?
Maybe because, when
you get right down to it, the marriage isn’t boring, but a definition
of fun you never imagined. And then there’s the irrefutable
fact that when the world is out to get you, it has to go through
him first. Or, trite as it sounds, perhaps it’s glued by those
promises you made when he was just safely home from Vietnam and
you were a size five, the ones about loving and cherishing and
sickness and health...you know the ones I mean.
Or maybe because, like
the sun, marriage is different most every day. Those differences
are what have landscape painters and photographers lying in wait
for sunrise and sunset. Some days they go inside in disappointment
because the cloud cover hangs low and dismal over the show, but
on other mornings and evenings they sit spellbound and work as
fast as they can, holding onto the light for every precious second.
And there you go. There’s
the answer to the questions, What’s it like, being married to
the same person for over 30 years? How do you do it?
You just hold onto
the light.
Married for thirty-some years to Duane, her own personal hero, and mother of three and grandmother of six, Liz Flaherty has written a column from her Window Over the Sink off and on for over ten years. She hopes you enjoy her essays. You can email her at lflaherty@comteck.com
