More About Relationships

Still talking about Tim and I and relationships, and still thinking out loud.  (This picture is Tim and I in thirty years...just in case you were wondering.)

There's a saying that a good marriage isn't defined by the absence of problems, but by the way partners handle the problems they have.

A few years ago Tim and I got sideswiped by life, and to be honest, we've done our best to get through and patted ourselves on the back for being so amazing.  (We've decided as we've talked about all of this that we deal well with challenges.)  And before I jump into talking about the resulting problems, I feel the need to say when we talk about problems it's important to keep it all in perspective... healing of grief and trauma in our family is huge, and along the way we've also shared the joy of seeing that dark cloud lift and the joy of bringing two new child into our family...an amazing journey, for sure.

In the process, it's what we didn't share that has been the problem.  And it feels good to be talking about that again.  We have referred to it as being real with each other.

It feels a little Velveteen Rabbit-ish.

“What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day... "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"


"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."


"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.


"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."


"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"


"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. 


"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”   


The good news is we don't break easily, or have to be carefully kept.  The bad news is we're loose in the joints and shabby (but I'm not giving up my make-up or giving up coloring my hair any time soon).

Real feels vulnerable but good, and certainly better than self-imposed pressure.

Real also means sometimes we still struggle...and disagree over dumb things like driver's ed and taking down a tent (yes, really).  It also means that we can be honest about what we really need, and get over it quickly.  (Huge, yes?)

Real is also recognizing that even people who are amazing at getting through challenges can feel the odd effects of trauma--even all these years later (and I'm sure I have so much more to say about that but not right now).

Real is also remembering all the times in the overwhelming deluge of events in the past few years that we have been there for each other.  Tim was remembering some of those times tonight, and as we started recalling, it felt good to look back and re-write that narrative with both of us in it together, because really we were.  We just couldn't see it at the time--kind of like standing in front of a grizzly bear and trying to notice the songbirds in the trees behind the bear.

Aren't relationships interesting?