Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday.

Warning!!!!: In the following post I reference some friends and family by name or relationship. All examples here are meant for illustrative purposes and the comments are not meant to be demeaning or disparaging in anyway shape or form, HOWEVER, if you find yourself often confused, offended, or shocked by anything I say you should skip reading this post altogether.

P.S. Sorry this is a long one you might have to print it out and keep it on the back of the toilet until you can get it finished.

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed
awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you
foweva... So tweasure your wuv. - from "The Princess Bride"

I believe it was Tennessee Williams who asked his publisher not to publish one of his works until after everyone he based characters on had died as to not offend them. I can see where that might be good advice. But I also seem to recall Spencer W. Kimball saying something about if writers and speakers waited until they had gain a perfection or expertise in a thing before sharing what they already knew that the world would lack much of the knowledge that it has. So I'm going with Spencer on this one.

As I drove back to Provo from Logan Sunday night my mind was consumed with the thought of the institution and act of marriage. I am remarkably bad at being married. I'm a great Dad - not outstanding or excellent or extraordinary - but great. I do whatever I can for my kids and I challenge them when I think they need to be challenged, I praise them when they need to be praised, and I swat their butts when they need it. (Yes that's right I use old fashioned discipline on my children. If you are appalled by that then you don't have to spank your kids.)

But mawage has me baffled.

I do not for a minute regret marrying my wife. Firstly I think she is the one, of all the girls I dated leading up to marriage (there weren't many trust me) who could best handle the roller coaster that has been life with me and she is probably the one most likely to put up with me and see things through. (I think now it's more like being at the scene of a horrific train wreck, she wants to leave but everytime she turns to go something else blows up and she's riveted to the spot waiting to see how it's going to turn out.)

But, however, I am becoming more and more aware of the difficulties that past lives can bring to a marriage. I am not talking about black and white cultural backgrounds either because those have yet to be an issue. (Okay well maybe my insistance that it is okay to sweep the carpet with a broom when the vacuum is broken [I was told once by someone that the only people they had ever seen do that were black people so if there are any non-black people out there who have done this please chime in]) Culturally we are very similar for instance we are both rednecks by association for instance:

• If I were to compile a list of the best looking celebrities in the world Reba MaEntire would definitely be at the top of the list. (In fact if there was such a thing as reincarnation I want to come back as Reba's husband. No offense to my current hottie of a wife but...Reba's a country redhead with spunk and beauty and a lot of money. The perfect package. Oh and I'm sure she's a wonderful person on the inside too!)



• My dream vehicle is a pickup truck with extended cab and 3/4 bed with four-wheel drive and a HEMI. And the first song I would play in said pickup would be "Pickup Man" by Joe Diffie



• When Jeff Foxworthy tells his redneck jokes we can name the people he's talking about. Well I can anyway.



• My wife says she won someone in a game instead of she beat them (Our kids are starting to say it now - it's AWESOME)



• I say Might could.

• I think all of life is related to a Garth Brooks song.
  

Seriously though, we are both from smaller rural areas (she from a smaller ruraler (redneck speak) area than I am(Remind me to tell you the story about how the only bookstore in her hometown closed and now the "bookstore" is half an aisle at the Walmart!) but our true cultural differences are familial and how we handle situations.

Mamalissa's family is the salt of the earth. But most of the time (remember this is just how I see things) it seems to me that they deal within the realm of what they know. With any generalizations, of course, there are notable exceptions. She has a brother who moved to Nebraska for grad school and is thus quite removed from his and his wife's family. They've had a baby since they left and had a young one go through a couple big surgeries. Her sister served a mission in Baltimore and then to my pleasant surprise she has moved to SLC for school and the way I understand it intends to live there. I couldn't be prouder of her if she was my own sister. Mamalissa's family talk quite regular and when the disagree the "argue" and cry (they are a bunch of weepers every last one of them - and yes, it is contagious) and pray and go to the temple and on and on.

But my family is nothing like that and until recently that bothered me. My family is varied and random top to bottom. We've always been encouraged to go where we need to go. I have a brother and sister in Cali I have a sister in Florida. I have family in Arizona and family in New Jersey. We're migratory.

And when it comes to conflict resolution...bring a hard hat and your iPod because we have been known to start punching walls, throw things, my brother can string together a chain of swears that would make you think he was talking in tounges (actually that was probably from the green shots - DON'T DRINK THE GREEN ONES KID, HAPPY BIRTHDAY P.S.) I remember a time when I was sitting at a table with my father and got so upset with him that in an instant (I kid you not it was so fast I didn't know I was going to do it until it was done [see Garth Brooks' "The Night I Called the Old Man Out"]) I had pulled him down out of his chair to the floor his head pressed against my leg. But on the flip side we also avoid and when I say avoid I mean avoid. There are arguments in my family that haven't been had in thirty years. In fact if you have dirty laundry to hide come to our house, I'm pretty sure someone in my family knows where Jimmy Hoffa is buried, is mad that they know, and won't ever say anything about it. Consequently me dear sweet wife is becoming an avoider. I do something she does know how to deal with and she just ignores me until it goes away. (But in all fairness she did turn me into a weeper.)

And about discipline? Oh I got spanked, in fact many of you might have noticed my tight firm buttocks. Yeah I didn't get that butt from working out I can tell you that. That butt is perma-firm and can only be had by getting into trouble and failing classes! Yes, ma'am many a "D" is sculpted on my hindside.

What does all this have to do with marriage? I don't know this is a blog I'm making it up as I go along! That's not true just hold on I think I'm getting to a point.

Mamalissa and I have found that we converse better in writing, usually during sacrament meeting and sunday school. Sunday school is the best because the kids are all in primary or nursery. It's like date night for mime's it's awesome. I know she would rather be able to talk things out but there is often too much emotion involved with that.

So what is my point?

I love being married. Being apart from my wife and kids these past several weeks I wake up in the mornings and have "phantoms pains" and I am acutely aware that I am in a bed without my wife (and Parker, and miles, and jonah, and some nights Zipporah). I am aware that no matter how long I lay there I am not going to here one of the kids yell at one of the others for waking them up. When Zipporah was younger she would wake up but she'd stay in bed and start singing songs. I miss that. Being married has brought such wonderful joy to my life. It has provided me with a landing pad that I have used time and time again. When we closed the restaurant and it became all too obvious that I was going to have to file for bankruptcy and everything was worst than it had ever been (it would get worse later believe it or not) and I thought we would lose the house...oh man I was so glad to have a wife. There is a scripture that talks about letting your light shine out. At the time in my life I didn't have my own light Mamalissa was my light. I love being married

I hate being married. (Okay hate my be strong) I have been very calm since the day my wife's water broke so many months ago. I never gave heed to the doctors who said our baby would die in the womb and then said we should consider terminating the pregnancy and then said that when she (yep they missed on that one too) was born she'd have a 20-30% chance of dying. I just said we'll see and we prayed and we thanked God for just the chance to have conceived this child and we asked for the privilege of raising him/her.

But every so often I would get a break and the kids would be gone and I would be home alone or driving home alone and the pressures of being a father and a husband would lift and I would spontaneously start to cry. I wasn't sad, I wasn't angry, I was just over my head. In a professionaly restaurant kitchen when you are working on the service line there always comes a time when you get slammed and you are swimming in the deep kimchee and one of two things happens; you hit a groove and get in the zone and you aren't even thinking about what you are doing you are just doing. I remember doing things that I couldn't do when it was slow because I was overthinking it. But at that moment when it had to be done, it happened. The other thing that can happen is total meltdown. Everything goes blank and you couldn't make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in seven minutes let alone try and orchestrate half a dozen entrees, a set of appetizers, and a line of desserts.

With marriage I'm that greenie who can't find his own butt with both hands (regardless of how firm it is). We took Building a Celestial Marriage TWICE for crying out loud and if it hadn't been free I might demand a refund. Somebody help my wife didn't come with an instruction manual and I didn't come with a HAZMAT suit and a team of psychoanalysts.

In His ministry, Christ talked about having faith the size of a mustard seed. I think in marriage the same principle applies. If we can come together in faith and believe that all of this is going to work out in the end, WHEW what power would that bring to us and our kids and our families. We are so often two people working on the same family and the same goals on opposite ends of the room. Me too scared to let someone else have too much of me and she probably too scared too have much more of me (I could lose a pound or two - 10 since I moved to Provo).

Like I said, I'm no good at marriage and I have no answers. I know that our marriage is strong enough to survive all this nonsense because it is built on a Greater Love. But there are days when it is a lot to bare.

Friends and loved ones I hope you do not come away from this post with despair and sadness or frustration. Because I don't. I know that I've done good and I'm sure that in your relationships you've chosen well also. But maybe you and I and my lovely wife have got to stop looking at the "perfect" examples and being so sad that we don't have that. And start looking at the pile of resources we did bring into the marriage and start building our home with the tools in OUR box. Mamalissa and I are NEVER going to have the marriage that she and her father have. We're also never going to have the marriage that my parents (Cliff and Claire Huxtable) had every Thursday night at 7. (Just kidding, Cliff and Claire weren't really my parents, Ward and June were!)

As I close and head to my borrowed twin bed I ask a favor of you. If you are married when you climb into bed tonight with your spouse be aware of the comfort having them there is and when you wake in the morning be grateful for the blessing that they are still there. If you are not married, sorry I don't know what to tell you. Actually I do, enjoy your single life because if you build a relationship right it is the last time you will ever be so. Find peace with yourself, love yourself, and become a whole person by yourself. Because getting married will not complete you unless you are in a movie.

Good night.