Rainbows and butterflies?

"It's not always rainbows and butterflies, it's compromise that moves us along."

Russ and I were walking around our neighborhood with Aliza recently, chatting away....I'm not even sure what the conversation was exactly, although it probably had something to do with how to raise Aliza. As teachers we are both provided with many examples- both positive and negative- of choices parents make for their children. At the end of the conversation Russ commented on the fact that we see eye to eye. My reply? We see eye to eye on many things in our life together.

As I thought about this conversation later the truth in that statement hit me. I can remember, when I first met Russ, how easy it was. There were no games or gimmicks or silly analyzing of what he meant when he said xyz. It just was. We just were. I remember, when I first met him, how all of a sudden all of my past relationships almost seemed like a waste of time. Not that I regretted any of them, of course not, but that they were so clearly not right for me because Russ was so different, and being with Russ was so different.

Now, today, with a one year old and a career that keeps both of us rather busy, I have to say that thank god being with him is as easy as it was. Because if being with him was difficult, then there's no way we'd make it. Marriage is tough. This is something I am learning. Once you get over the rainbows and the butterflies. Once you do the big things together- the engagement, the marriage, the first house, first car.....first child.....well, what you are left with is the ordinary every day stuff. The way he'll turn on your tea pot for you on a weekend when he hears you waking up, the laundry that you fold carefully for him because you know he won't do it, the way he'll rub your back when he knows it is more sore than normal, the meals you cook that you know he'll like, the fact that he knows you hate it when cabinets are left open so he'll close them for you.....and then there are the other things: the empty soda cans that are left around the house, the way he still doesn't know how to put the garbage bag in the can so that when you go to throw something away the bag drops to the bottom, the shoes that I leave scattered over the floor so that he trips over them in the morning when he is trying to get dressed, the clothes he leaves at the foot of our bed, the way I steal the sheets when I'm cold at night.....there are those things too. It is these ordinary things that make up a life together. It is one ordinary day after another that mark the chapters of our lives....
......and it is a blessing to have these ordinary days with a man who is easy to be with.....