Last month my wife and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary. We didn’t make a big fuss of the day itself; earlier this summer we took a long trip to Ireland with the kids, and that was the main celebration. But we went for lunch at a little French place we discovered years ago, and as Smug Marrieds will, we did some reminiscing.
Two things struck me as we did. First, the happy surprise of how much of our life now had its roots in things we were up to in the earliest years of our marriage: things we’d screwed up that we’ve since gotten right, and minor events or chance encounters that had turned into major projects or accomplishments. The other, though, was the number of sad memories that overhang swaths of our marriage. There were deaths in the family, relatives’ troubles that sucked us in, and simply “the dark days” (as in, “those were the dark days, weren’t they?”) when one job search or other went badly, or when work overwhelmed us, or couldn’t be balanced with waking up at all hours to care for a baby, a toddler, a fragile kindergartener.
I’m still not sure how we got through some of those days, but I do know this: at some point, about a dozen years ago, I sat down and rewrote my memories of them, and it changed my life.
I forced myself, not just to look back, but to write down a list of days, hours, even the briefest instants when things were good, no matter the context, even if they soured moments later. I got the idea from the poet Molly Peacock, I think; she writes somewhere about keeping a “happiness journal” for a year, forcing herself at the end of each day to think of at least one moment that was happy, and write it down. By the time I was done, I had a new way to think about those years: not a story to tell myself, again and again and again, about how lousy we’d had it, but a thread of bright spots where somehow, by whatever luck, we’d been happy anyway.
This was before I started reading romance–although my impulse to start reading romance actually sprang from something I noticed later, looking back at that list. (No, you don’t get to know what!) But romance heroes and heroines, maybe especially the heroines, make moves like that all the time. They find new ways to tell their life stories, and in the process, they break old habits in dealing with both the past and the present. Some of my colleagues groove on alpha-male tears, but me, I get my thrill from those inward turning points, like the one in Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation where Sophie Dempsey stops herself from stumbling back into a slough of annoyance:
It occurred to her that this thought wasn’t getting her anywhere. It was the same thought she’d been having for fifteen years without any insight or growth. It was the thought that had led her into two years of mind-numbing security with Brandon, it was the thought that had kept her from having the kind of wickedly abandoned sex she’d been having since she met Phin. It was, in short, nonproductive.
Worse than that, it was boring.
“I’m through with you,” she said to the cherries. “It’s a brand-new day.”
It wasn’t that easy in real life–but you know, I’ve had moments just like Sophie’s. And knowing that you’ve had them once makes it easier, much easier, to have them again.
Last Friday, stressed out by a half-dozen projects, I took a long with my wife. As we talked through what we were facing next week, and how little we’d each accomplished in the week before, I noticed that we were doing together that same sort of active re-writing: letting ourselves off the hook for our failures and honing in, instead, on a fistful of tiny victories.
Is it an accident that we do this so readily now and that we’re both romance readers? Maybe so, but whatever the cause, it’s not a bad way to spend an hour. Or the next fifty years, either.
BIG congratulations!
The hubby and I have been a team for 15 wonderful years and yes, not all of those were wonderful, but looking back, I wouldn’t trade them for the world. They made us the tight, solid team we are.
I love the black moments in romances.
Why?
Because it shows me who the characters really are and reassures me those two crazy kids are going to make it.
Our theme song is
by Kimber Chin August 11th, 2008 at 8:19 am‘Can U Stand The Rain’
because it is only when it rains,
that a couple grows.
That is just the best darned post.
And I lent my only copy of WTT to a non-romance reader. It was slightly scorned when I plunked it in her hands, but since she’s read it twice and I have yet to get it back.
by Eva Gale August 11th, 2008 at 8:39 amHi, Kimber! Hi, Eva! Thanks for reading and posting comments; I’m really glad you liked it. (I was worried it didn’t have enough about romance fiction in it.)
You know, I lost a copy of WTT in just the same way, Eva! Maybe the RWA should raise money to have a copy placed in hotel room bedside tables, alongside the Gideon Bible?
by Eric Selinger August 11th, 2008 at 10:16 amMy husband and I just shared our 7th anniversary, so this is a timely post. There’s something to be said for romance novels as relationship therapy. And perhaps reading (or writing) about a character experiencing an epiphany influences us to be more self-aware.
Congrats on your anniversary. Here’s to twenty more.
by Jill Sorenson August 11th, 2008 at 10:42 amHappy Anniversary, Eric! My husband and I have 18 under belt together and 12 as Smug Marrieds. And it is the dark times that remind us of why we love each other, because that’s what gets us through: “I don’t like you much right now, but I still love you, and we’ll work with that.” And I know reading romances make me a happier person.
by Sarah S. G. Frantz August 11th, 2008 at 11:16 amWhat a wonderful post. I really enjoyed it.
by Ciar Cullen August 11th, 2008 at 12:55 pmCongrats, Eric. Hubby and I are hitting #39 in 2 weeks. Even though we both went to RWA, and then stayed and extra week visiting with his family in Oregon (think mega $$ expenditures) he invited me along on one of “his” trips next week and suggested we extend it a day or two and make that our anniversary ‘just the two of us’ time.
He’s not big on reading romance, although he was kind enough (after much begging-almost-threatening) to read the ARC of my next release. I told him to read it for errors so he wouldn’t feel like he was reading a ‘romance’. He finished it in about 3 days (normally, he won’t even check out library books because they’re dur in 3 WEEKS), and neglected doing the work he brought along that came with deadlines. After another day or two, he actually admitted that he thought it was a good book. Not sure I could get him to read anything else in the genre (after all, that was my 5th book, and he still hasn’t read the other 4).
I love you’re ‘good stuff’ list. Maybe we’ll give that a shot. Although things are looking pretty good right now after watching the dynamic of his sister and her husband for a week.
by Terry Odell August 11th, 2008 at 1:33 pmRead your entire post to my hubby of almost-30-years over breakfast this morning. So two thumbs up from this camp (we had five sons — yeah, there’s been some dark times here, too
).
But there’s a reason I write romance, and his name’s Jack.
by Karen Templeton August 11th, 2008 at 1:53 pmMaybe more couples should have ‘good stuff’ list.
by Lee August 11th, 2008 at 5:32 pm[...] know we have some long lasting marriages among us but it’s nice to hear someone comment on their marriage and why they think it’s lasted so [...]
by » Linky Love August 21st, 2008 at 12:18 am