World Series

Nine years ago this week, the Red Sox were about to play game 1 of the World Series. A man named Loverpants was sizzling frozen pierogies in his kitchen, wearing pajama pants.

Maybe he was all caught up in the Red Sox excitement.

Or maybe it was just too much to wait until a ring on order had arrived.

When a woman named Kendra entered the kitchen that Loverpants was renting, Loverpants turned abruptly to Kendra and just said some brief, heartfelt things that only history can recall, and punctuated those nice thoughts with, And I want to marry you.

Good thing since Kendra wanted to marry Loverpants.

So they agreed, with a string tied around a finger as the only outward symbol of this contractual agreement.

There was no well-choreographed surprise or sparkle of jewels like so many other autumnal proposals. Just an affirmation and one echoed.

***

I was thinking tonight what a lovely season fall is in which to get engaged or married. I think about our own engagement and how it truly was like a harvest of all the goodness we had planted and even the pain that we had plucked up until that time. Just as the World Series is a harvest season, reaping the rewards of long months of teambuilding and perfecting plays.

So much has passed between us, Mr. Loverpants and me: rings and money, secrets and trust, laughter and tears. I feel so immensely grateful for his love and the kindness of his soul.

And yet so little has changed. He still stands in his pajama pants and turns abruptly while sizzling something pulled from our freezer, telling me something--from the sublime to the ridiculous. We are still renting our kitchen. We are still affirming one another's hopes for the future.

Our Red Sox are back in the World Series.

The only things that have changed are the geography. And a couple of precious souls, pajama clad and yelling loudly over us.

On being an introvert who is not shy

I read something last week by psychotherapist Martha Crawford whose brain clearly operates at a higher frequency than mine. I posit this because I read the piece and then I thought about it ::makes thinking sound with mouth DURRRR:: and then I read it again and thought about it some more and the flickers sparked like a strand of Christmas lights and my brain nodded yes. YES! Yes. There I am. I am over there, with the introverts.

Here is the illuminating thought from that read: I am a tricky kind of introvert because I am an introvert who is not shy. I masquerade as someone who is interested in the exteriors because, as the author of the piece writes, I am good with words and enthusiasm is in heavy supply in my pocket. I am witty and not awkward {all the time}. I am an introvert who is not afraid of talking to people, who never had a goth phase, who has friends on and off the internets. Crawford says there's no other career but psychotherapy for her. For a long time I doubted myself as a journalist because I'm not a news junkie like a journalist should be. But put me in a room and let me probe the mind of a career criminal or a Miss California--tell me how you really feel--and I am in my element.

I have always preferred to exist in the inner sphere, to be involved and to spend long hours pondering and keying into the inner worlds of others. Large crowds make me so nervous and interacting on surface level drains my battery like woah. I know this is not a flaw, I know this is how I am wired and it is to be celebrated. I've taken the Myers-Briggs tests and I know how all about Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. I know how much I should be embracing the introvert within.

The problem comes in having been pegged so often as an extrovert. My sister and I attended an all-girls high school (shout-out to MHS Blue Streaks--holla!). Do you know what it looks like to spend four years with 800+ mostly overprivileged suburban not-yet-womens? It looks like a huge sorority, built on the pillars of overachievement and preppy clothes. It is really hard to be an introvert because your social survival depends on extroversion. There are no boys to spur the extroversion, shouting with their suddenly deep man voices through the halls, pulling you out of a crowd, clowning around in class. It's just you, the body politic of the teenage girl. Extroversion is rewarded. Introversion is just too weird; go take that to the poetry club.

So I faked it until I made it in high school. I had many acquaintances. I had very few close friends who knew what was happening in my inner world.

When I got to college, the jig was up. I had to live in community, to share showers with 30+ women on my floor, to coexist in a cinderblock cell with a complete stranger (shout-out to ya, Tiff!). I was so desperately lonely my freshman year and to be honest, I had no idea why. I was motoring around trying to extrovert myself and I could not make any of the flies stick to the honey. My saving grace came the next year when I became an RA. I got a single room to myself where I could stare at my Christmas lights for hours and listen to Counting Crows "Long December" on repeat. I could go out of my room and interact with any number of amazing women. And then I could retreat back to my sanctuary of books and dim lights.

Just a couple of months before we got married, I was doing yoga in my underoos on the floor of my single girl room and I realized: this would soon end. Like, forever. I was lamenting this to my co-worker Kamau at the time and Kamau was all, "Um, Kendra? You know he's going to see you in even less than your underoos, right?" And I was, Yes. That's not the part that bothers me. The part that is so disruptive is the part another person being there, blowing up my meditation spot with his snoring.

Loverpants and I had a good first year of marriage to adjust to each other's need for quiet (me) and interaction (him). Um, WHO AM I KIDDING? I cried the entire first year wondering why I was such a jerk and why didn't I like to talk to my husby. Well, I'm still a jerk 8 years later, but I'm also an introvert and maybe the two aren't mutually exclusive of one another, but the latter involves some self-care.

Having kids has broken down so many introversion allowances for me. I am neither allowed the physical space nor do I need the thought space that I once was afforded, and it's good. My kids are two wrecking balls against the edifice of my introversion, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The soundtrack of my life MAMA? MAMAAAA! reminds me that I am not alone. Their love, especially, with their downy little cheeks against my face and their whispered pleas for more snuggles and marshmallows, have a special power to penetrate, and remind me that I am not alone on the outside, and their love is there keeping me company even on the inside.

P.S. Last day to enter the Easy Canvas Print contest!

Marriage is not hard.

I must be a slow learner, because eight years have passed and I am just awakening to this truth: Marriage is not hard. Marriage, the equal yolking of two well-matched individuals for life, is not so difficult in principle and practice. You know what is difficult? Overcoming selfishness. Constantly squashing the urge to serve one's own desires, to not eat the whole pint of Ben and Jerry's, because, puhh, I want to. Marrying someone, and being married to someone is not the hard business. You say, I do, and then you say I do, I do, I do, over and over and over again, every day, until death do us part. But the hard part is not saying I do, also and simultaneously, to 401 other commitments that, in themselves, are not inherently wrong. However, the leading parent-teacher council and the working overtime, the agreeing to bake 3 dozen cupcakes for the party--they all steal energies and consume time and wring us out like dirty dishrags from the demands of married partnership. Marriage is not so hard. Marriage is not the enemy or the whipping girl. Marriage is good, it is so so good. Our selfish, guilt-filled, distracted parts are the ones that make marriage bad and hard and toxic and weak.

I've also learned that marriage doesn't need us to define it. And believe it or not, that's not a political statement. Even though marriage is mired in politics, especially in this country, marriage has been doing just fine since God had the idea to pull Eve from Adam's rib so that man would not be lonely, so that he would be in the good company of equal partnership. Marriage, as institutions go, is pretty strong. I can't think of too many more that have been keeping on, by the same name, since their inception like marriage has. But it seems as though we're spending a lot of our time trying to define the bounds of this marriage thing than actually living out our calling as married people.

My role in marriage is to make mine strong, care for, and enjoy my marriage. If others ask how I feel about cohabitation before marriage, or culture clashes in marriage, oh sure. I can tell them. Truth be told, though, on any given day, I find the maintenance of my own marriage is an immense task. To see marriage as anything but hard is hard for me. Is anything worth defending that I am not already treasuring? My desire is to be good to my marriage, but the temptation is forever to be good only to myself. I can barely fathom having enough time to judge the adequacy of others' marriages. I cannot spare the energy that defining someone else's marriage requires when I should be busy about finding God in my own little marriage pond and keeping the distractions at bay. Marriage does not need me to define it. Marriage needs me to be in it, 100%, and eight years have taught me that task alone requires my 100% dedication.

Eight years has also taught me that marriage is not long enough. Supposedly Loverpants and I have surpassed the "seven year itch." Last week I told the mister that this last year has taught me the most about my husband. That's seven years after we walked down the aisle and THIRTEEN years after we first became cookies n' milk. This past year we have faced foreclosure, bankruptcy, the traumatic loss of an animal, major family crises, cancer in our family, and we have grown closer and become stronger through these trials. Seven years is considered a symbolically long time in the Bible. Yet it feels like a drop in the bucket to me! Matthew 22 says we will not be married to one another in Heaven, but to Christ. In this way, marriage is for eternity, but from my flawed human view, I don't want to imagine living without my husband. I know that marriage is intended to be a foretaste of God's total devotion and unconditional love for us. I feel as though I fall so short of that kind of love for my husband. I basically fight the urge to tell him to figure out dinner every.single.day. Occasionally I will joke and tell Loverpants that I am doing such a great job preparing him for his second marriage. And in a way, I am right. We are all, you and I, preparing each other for Heaven. Married couples are preparing one another for the ultimate marriage. Maybe that's why marriage right now feels so hard. And yet, so important.

Happy 13 years together Happy 7 years married Happy 2 years as Southerners Happy almost anniversary, Lovey Loverpants! <3

photo credits to Steven Mastroianni, the best.