like a beautiful song on a busted old radio

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

This video is six minutes long, and is definitely worth taking that six minutes to watch. I watched it twice and was in tears through both viewings.

When a guy is happily married, no matter what happens at work, no matter what happens the rest of the day there's a shelter when you get home there's a knowledge knowing that you can hug somebody without them throwing you down the stairs and saying "get your hands off me". Being married is like having a color television set. You never want to go back to black and white.

Lately I've had a few issues with marriage. Not issues in my marriage, but in seeing the fragility of marriage in people around me. I realize how fragile marriage is, how important it is to constantly nurture your marriage, and how absolutely vital it is to make your marriage a priority. My parents' are divorcing after 26 years of marriage, and while I can't spend any amount of time analyzing what happened between them, or trying to sort their relationship out, I have spent a lot of time talking to Doug about our marriage. We can't guarantee there won't be difficulties, in fact, we CAN guarantee that there WILL be difficulties. This doesn't mean that our marriage is doomed just because we hit a bump in the road (or a mountain). We made a commitment to each other recently, that we will put our marriage at the very top of our priority list, that we will be honest with one another about any issues that arise, and that we will not hesitate to seek help when we need it.

Right now it is easy for us to say that our marriage is a shelter, that we feel safe and secure. Right now it seems unnecessary to plan for future difficulties, but it is important for us to discuss these things now, to feed our marriage and help it grow strong. Especially now that our little boy is on his way, our little boy who will be greatly affected by our marriage.

And maybe one day there will be a video, like the above, about Doug and I. Maybe one day our marriage will inspire other people, give them hope, give them something to look forward to and to hold on to. But for now, we are content in what we have, we are content to say "I love you" as many times as possible, to never forget the meaning of the words, and the promises we made to each other the day we started this journey.

(and as a completely random sidenote, my wonderful husband has started a blog of his very own. Check it out)