Love Is A Marathon

 

I attended a wedding last night for the first time in a while.  Most of the weddings I've been to in my life were either as a single woman or a newly wed, this was the first one I've been to since I've actually been married a while (7 years, thanks!).   It was different watching the bride and groom this time, different listening to how they said their vows.  So many lovey smiles and lofty promises made with clear, confident voices. Promises to love completely, to support, to endure, as though any other option were entirely unthinkable.

Sometimes we treat love like a sprint.  We spring forward from the starting line of our vows, full of energy and enthusiasm and hopeful cheers from the crowd.  We are sure our energy and the power we feel in our legs and hearts will push us on unhindered in this journey of marriage. But love is more like a marathon.  It is a long journey, and if you set out unprepared you may find yourself collapsed and gasping for air on the sidelines.  There are times you'll feel invigorated with the breeze on your face, a stunning view all around, and a gentle downward slope to your path. At other times you'll find yourself in the middle of a long hill in suffocating heat wondering how you'll ever go on.

In marriage, as in many other things in life, passion and excitement get us started, but without patience and without endurance, we will all too soon quit.  Maybe we'll just sit out on the sidelines, or maybe we'll find ourselves another race to join that seems more exciting and less difficult.

We all crave love. We've all sighed at the movies or the novels or the stories from our friends.  We all want to be loved relentlessly, unconditionally, because of our strengths and despite our weaknesses.  When we see that kind of love in fiction or reality, it strikes a deep chord.  But what about us ourselves? Do we love relentless and unconditionally? Do we love for strengths and despite weaknesses?  We all want perfect love to swallow our own imperfections, yet no one is perfect.  I always amaze myself at how I can subconsciously hold my own husband to a standard of perfection and be surprised when he isn't but at the same time be so completely understanding of my own faults and expect him to be too.

Patience and endurance. And can I add humility? Humility can admit fault and see someone else's position and be less extreme with it's expectations. Humility can apologize and restore, where pride stiffens and damages.

Love is a marathon.  Sometimes people's marriages will have years of hardship, but they come out on the other side stronger and with a richer love story. Others hit hard months and throw in the towel and search for another love story.  I know this is a bit of a rambling post.  I would just like to encourage all you people out there who are married or starting the journey of marriage, to prepare yourself for a long race.  To see the hard times you might face as hills to overcome, not as reasons to give up. The history of two people holding together, literally for better or worse and in good times and bad, is a beautiful story indeed.

This Is Hard

In a charge nurse meeting a while back my manager said something that resonated with me. In talking about emergency medicine he made the statement, 'This job isn't supposed to be easy.' Sometimes it's the things that should be obvious that stop me.  That statement actually replayed in my head later that day when my kids were in fine form and driving me crazy. This job isn't supposed to be easy either.

There's this word in science called homeostasis.  Homeostasis in a nutshell is the stability of an internal environment.  Temperature and ph in appropriate ranges and all that. Natural systems go to great lengths to preserve homeostasis. People are that way too. We seek to keep our lives somewhat comfortable and free of those things that upset our internal environment. We like easy. We like comfortable, and to an extent are always trying to get to that place. But there's this thing I've been discovering, and that's if you want to do anything meaningful with your life, you will often not be comfortable. Generally the more something matters, the harder it can be. Raising kids, fighting for justice, loving the forgotten, helping the sick... Meaningful work that can never by its very nature be easy.

So you have to ask, would I rather have an easy life, or one that matters? I personally would rather have one that matters, even though I often find myself wishing things were easier. And frankly, life will always be full of struggle, even when we avoid it like the plague. It can be full of struggle as the fruit of foolish decisions, or struggle can be part of the journey of fighting the good fight, and part of what hones and refines who we are.  I would love to spend more days by myself, peacefully sitting in the sun with a breeze on my face.  But days like that should be a respite and a time to recharge between doing meaningful, hard, challenging, inspiring work that matters beyond my own little existence.

We frame our lives with our expectations.  When we expect things to be smooth and comfortable, we are disappointed and unprepared when they aren't.  But when we expect and prepare ourselves for challenge, I think we find more strength to face it. Even a little thing like coming into work reminding myself that I didn't sign up for an easy job helps me mentally prepare to be ready to face whatever may come.

I leave you with a quote:

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which,  more than anything else, will affect it's successful outcome
     - William James