Question: How do you know you’re
all about someone?
Answer: When a new person you just met laughs at you
because she says you ‘sound so in love with your girlfriend.’
Well, here’s your fair warning,
fellas. Don’t bother reading the rest of
this if you don’t desire to be in a relationship. Believe me, I totally get it. So much so that for about a decade I was
bound and determined to not get bit by the love bug. I was perfectly happy being single and
honestly was convinced that I would be single for the rest of my life. I celebrated this fact all the time, telling
anyone who would listen about the benefits of singleness and why my life was
better than a married person’s life.
There is definitely still some truth in that and I have the Scriptures
to back it up if someone wants to argue about it. However, something has changed in my heart
and mind over the past year and a half or so, starting around 4 months before
the time I turned 30 ironically.
I can remember the specific
moment that things started to change if you’d like to hear about it. You’re reading my blog so I’m going to go
ahead and assume that even if you don’t want to hear about it you’ll at least
excuse me to do so as I try and wrap my mind around what has happened in my
life over the last year and a half or so.
It was January of 2012 and I had just moved into my parents’ new
investment property that they had just bought.
My mom had come down to help me furnish the place so it wouldn’t look
like a total bachelor pad right off the bat.
I can distinctly remember her calling my dad to talk over the phone when
we were finished working on the house for the day.
It finally occurred to me, and
looking back it should’ve occurred to me much earlier, that my mom and dad
simply cared for each other. They were
genuinely interested in hearing how each other’s day had gone. The reason this should’ve occurred to me much
earlier was because I grew up with having them as an example of a beautiful
marriage. Don’t get me wrong, they went
through their rough patches I’m sure just like everyone else does. They were very careful as I have learned
since being out of the house, to never fight in front of my brother and
me. This was especially true in our
early childhood, but I think they just decided to keep with it as we got old
because although I remember a few times of my brother or I getting reprimanded,
I sincerely don’t remember a single instance of them fighting with each other
in front of us.
As I said, I’m sure they had
their rough patches and still do to be sure as in married couple does, but that
doesn’t take away from them genuinely caring for one another and each other’s
needs and desires. My mom has joked
before that she’s not so sure she wants my dad to ever retire. If he goes for more than about 4 days at any
given time without working at all, he’s liable to go crazy at least on some
level. Mom jokes that he would cause her
to go insane if he didn’t go to work every day.
Honestly, I can’t see him as ever being retired for any length of time
myself. I’ve joked with friends that I
see him taking about 3-4 months of traveling, maybe around New Zealand as that’s
been his dream with mom for when they retire, but after 4 months the poor guy
will be bored out of his mind.
If you’re reading this, don’t
worry too much dad, I’ve got some ideas for you to consider when it gets closer
to the time of retirement. I can hear
you cackling now and mom laughing too, but don’t laugh too much! You always like to say how Grandma B. and I
seem to have a fairly strong connection with the Big Guy upstairs and rest
assured I’ve been laying down my ideas for your retirement at His feet. You better be prepared for some big things,
that’s all I’m going to say about that for now.
I don’t want to give away too much right now, just know that it’s going
to be good.
Where do I begin with my
mom? She has always been a rock by my
side when I’ve gone through various struggles growing up and on into
nowadays. Dad has always said she has
been the glue that got us through the difficult times growing up, and I couldn’t
agree more. My dad rightfully admires
her, although he does like to tease her, a fair amount, something Steffani will
have to learn to love because I certainly come by it fairly honestly on both
sides.
For a while in college and in the
years following that, my friends would ask me about my parents and I’d lovingly
share how they were complete opposites in my opinion but just made it work in
their marriage. Now either I’ve started
to change how I view each of them as individuals or they’ve started to change
in their respective personalities. I
remember getting a basic outline of my Grandpa’s funeral when he passed a
couple years ago in my email. I balled
like a baby when I read that and still do to this day which is why I don’t open
that word doc very often. Anyways, in it
the man who had prepared it mentioned how people never really knew my
grandparents apart from each other. They
were simply known as John and Shirley.
Isn’t that the point of
marriage? A friend of mine relayed to me
the sad story of one of her friends getting divorced because of some ridiculous
reason along the lines of, “We had started to lose our personality as
individuals.” My friend told me she had
reflected on that a little bit and quickly reached to conclusion that it was
kind of the point, wasn’t it? I mean,
two become one is kind of the overall picture we’re given in Scripture, right?
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