a lesson i learned the hard way

Since celebrating our first anniversary about a week and a half ago, I've been thinking a lot about the last year of my life, and how much I've grown and been changed by the experiences we've had. I've been trying and trying to write something that adequately describes the thoughts and feelings I've had and nothing has turned out quite right. I've realized it's because I've been emphasizing everything that's gone wrong this year, naively trying to prepare all the naive young brides out there for how difficult their marriage will be. And finally, I've realized that nothing I say will necessarily help anyone because the ways that I have found marriage challenging are completely different from the ways you find it challenging.

Us as two very naive barely married people

What I want to say, more than anything, is that the challenges you face will be very unique and personal to you; just because what you're dealing with is the exact same thing every other married couple experiences doesn't mean it will affect your relationship the same way it affects other people.

But it doesn't really matter, in the long run, how hard it is or what challenges come your way, because it's worth it. Marriage is worth every bad day, every petty argument, every anguished night. Those are the times when you grow to love each other with the kind of love you didn't know existed. Those are the times when you'll discover, to your amazement, your capacity to forgive and forget, again and again and again. 

My very favorite picture of Jason. He's such a cutie :)

Starting today, for the rest of my life I want to focus on the good, and take the bad when it comes, and deal with it, but then move on. Moving on is not my strong suit, but I've realized, today, that it's a necessary component to living a happy, regret free life. Here's the story of how I learned to focus on what's going right instead of what's going wrong.   

Jason has been working with my great-uncle for the past few months doing odd-job construction projects. Their biggest job right now is a pergola they're adding to the back of a house. It involves a lot of climbing ladders and scampering all over the roof and hoisting huge trusses twenty feet into the air using nothing but their bare hands and a lot of ingenuity and male pattern recklessness. Every time I go to pick up Jason, I marvel at the fact that neither one of them has managed to kill himself yet. 

Yes, those trusses are 20 feet in the air, and yes, Jason did decide to balance his ladder 
on a pile of  plywood to reach them. In his defense, he really didn't want to
 move the plywood. :)

Yesterday, I was at work when I got a phone call from an ambulance driver saying that Jason had fallen from a truss and they were en route to the hospital. My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and awful scenarios ran through my mind as I drove to the emergency room: Jason had hit his head and was in a coma; He was paralyzed; He was bleeding internally; He had brain damage. I didn't hardly let myself think about the worst one of all, that I'd arrive at the hospital only to have a scrubs-clad nurse pull me aside and gently inform me that he hadn't made it, that I was twenty years old and a widow. 

At the hospital, an orderly took me back to the room where they were working on Jason. She told me he was alert and conscious and I breathed an instant sigh of relief, until I saw him. He was strapped to a hospital bed, covered with nothing more than a sheet. Wires and tubes crisscrossed his body, his neck was stabilized with one of those awful cone things, his left knee was covered with bloody bandages, his left arm was splinted, and as they wheeled him past me I noticed tear tracks from his eyes to his hairline. I would've given anything to switch him places, to be the one needing help and not the one helplessly watching, knowing there was nothing I could do to fix it, to stop him from hurting.

Jason modeling the latest fashion.

The next few hours were a whirlwind as the hospital staff worked to extract a piece of glass from his knee and stitch it up, stabilize his left arm, and get him situated in his own room. We spent the night last night and have had visitors all day, and every time I tell someone the story I realize how tremendously blessed we are. That all he broke was his arm and not his head or his back. That he landed on one piece of glass instead of the handful of nails in his right pocket. That he was conscious and able to call 911 himself rather than waiting four or five hours for me to come looking for him. 

How'd you like to have this buried inside your knee?

Every time I look at him, in the back of my mind there's all these thoughts swirling around; the surgery he still has to have to put his elbow back together, how we're going to pay for all this, when he's going to be able to start work again, whether he'll be able to care for himself once we go home. I push those thoughts away though, because at the forefront of my mind all the time are the words Thank God. Thank God that he's still here, that he'll heal and be able to live his life normally. Thank God that I will get to have him and love him for many more years to come. 

As I drove to the hospital yesterday, fearing the worst, I bitterly regretted every argument I've instigated and every time I've held grudges, waiting for my husband to change into the man I wanted him to be. Now I realize that none of that matters, that I love him fiercely just as he is and my life wouldn't be worth living if he didn't get to be a part of it.

I don't know when my last day on earth with him will come, but thank God it's not this day, and until that (hopefully distant) day comes, I intend to make every day the best it can be, and to be grateful that I have Jason and I'm married to him. That's all that really matters to me now.