Category Archives: Family

Winter Solstice Anniversary

Posted by dkrashb on

Today is our wedding anniversary.  Of the 16 1/2 years we’ve been together, Pat and I have now been married for 5.  Yeah, I know, we were slow to decide to go mainstream.

We were married on the winter solstice in 2006.  I wish I had a great story to tell as to why we got married on the winter solstice, but, it was a complete accident.  It turned out to be a happy accident because had we gotten married on a day that didn’t have an event marked on most calendars, we would completely forget our anniversary.  Unfortunately, it took us a while to figure out the winter solstice doesn’t always fall on the 21st–there’s a good chance we celebrated our 1st anniversary on the wrong day.

Weathering the bad and the good together has been a remarkable experience.  When I think about the expectations I had in my twenties compared to the reality of a 16 1/2 year relationship, I sometimes laugh.  Our culture fills our heads with ridiculous expectations about head-over-heels romance–and simultaneously ignores how love shifts and grows, becoming more powerful over time.

Someone once pointed out to me that fairy tales–both traditional and the modern version (romantic movies)–end when the couple gets together.  All we are told is they “live happily ever after.”  I’m here to tell you that if “ever after” is supposed to mean they lived happily all of the time from that point forward, it ain’t happening.

People are not one dimensional.  We get cranky and scared and irritable and depressed and rude and angry in turn.  There’s no such thing as “a nice person” who isn’t also sometimes annoying, difficult, needy, bossy, or whatever.  And how we see the other person has as much to do with us as it does with them, which is also inconstant.

I often ask myself what makes a relationship work.  When I was young, I wanted fireworks and sweep-me-off-my-feet excitement.  Then I figured out fireworks fizzle and I prefer to walk, but a guy who will help with the laundry and cooking  makes every day better.

I can’t say I’ve really decided what makes a relationship work, but I’m honing in on it gradually.  Here’s my list so far:

1) Mutual respect and admiration.  It’s hard to put up with someone’s foibles if you don’t respect and admire them as they are.  The parts you respect and admire keep you sane when the parts you want to kill surface.  🙂

2) Laughter.  It’s OK if you don’t always get each other’s jokes, but you’ve got to get most of them.

3)  Adventure.  Life can get pretty darn repetitive.  Having some form of adventure together helps keep it interesting.

4) Patience.  Not the kind of patience you have to have for children, but patience with yourself, your life, your spouse.  The patience that allows you to wait and see when you start to get afraid or angry.  The patience that allows you to love each other for who you are in all of your dimensions.

Playing Santa

Posted by dkrashb on

‘Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la la la la.

Demonstrate our great folly, fa la la la la la la la la.

Ah, Christmas.  Where did the magic go?  The days when I used to agonize over the perfect gift, going store to store to store–returning home frustrated and desperately in need of a nap.  I would put up decorations, wrap every gift with homemade bows.  And I always, always sent Christmas cards.

Then, the circle of friends with whom I exchanged Christmas gifts started to shrink.  As we grew older, there were fewer things we wouldn’t just buy for ourselves if we wanted them.  Besides the occasional bottle of wine in a reusable, decorative bag, we were down to just exchanging gifts with family.

Then, my family had what I like to think of as the “epiphany Christmas.”  We realized that we didn’t know what to get each other and it was silly, as adults to be making lists.  We called a truce on gift buying and agreed just to get the kids gifts.  This simplified shopping and allowed us to focus on the boys, who really made Christmas fun.

But then, my nephews seemed to lose their enthusiasm.  They used to try to stay awake all night so they could catch Santa; now they sleep later and later on Christmas morning.  They used to carefully open each toy, set it aside and play with the box for so long that we’d have to remind them to open the next gift if we wanted to finish in time for lunch.  Now, gift opening barely lasts a half an hour.  And their wish lists get shorter each year.  Until, finally, the youngest stop producing them all together, preferring to be “surprised.”

I have to agree that wish lists feel like cheating.  There’s something really special about a gift that says someone was paying attention to the things you’re interested in or, even better, found the perfect symbol of something special between the two of you.  I love giving gifts when I know I thought of something only I could have thought of and only the receiver can appreciate.  Even if it’s a silly, cheap gift, when it feels like the exact right gift, it really is magical.

The problem is it’s impossible to think of that perfect gift for everyone I know (and remember what it was).  In fact, if I don’t see someone regularly, the probability that I’ll have any clue as to what to give them is so small that it depresses me.  The thought that I know so little about what my father, step mother, brother, sister-in-law, nephews, friends, etc have and don’t have, need and don’t need, want and don’t want serves to remind me that I haven’t been paying enough attention.

Perhaps that will be my New Year’s Resolution–to know the people I love well enough to think of the perfect gift for each of them.