Find the Good

There’s a lot they don’t tell you in preparation for marriage.

They always warn you about how terrible it can be, living with another human, getting use to the idea of having someone else’s dirty laundry covering the floor or rearranging the way you insert dishes in the dishwasher. The sights and smells you’ll experience when you start living with a man.

They never tell you how good it can be.

They never tell you how he’ll bring you coffee first thing in the morning, letting you sleep in so much it turns cold before you get the chance to drink it. They never tell you the sparkle you’ll see in his eyes in those rare moments you catch him staring at you, no matter how long it’s been since you’ve showered, changed your shirt, or washed your hair. They never mention how he’ll bend over backwards to make you happy, even if his methods are unexpected in your ontology.

They never tell you how much they care — husbands. At least mine. He just does.

It’s the most frustrating and difficult challenge, something I’m constantly irritated at, and yet…it’s one of the very reasons why I even fell in love with him in the first place.

Too many silver tongues charmed me in my past, trying to woo me with their poisonous lies. That’s what made my husband different than the rest: he simply acted as he felt. Loyal to a fault. Devoted beyond normal human capability.

Ironic, then, I find it irritating when he uses actions and not words to express himself to me.

I’m breaking my unplanned silence to share these musings because I had two questions from two separate friends recently. (Well, one question; the other a comment.) Though both were from completely unrelated conversations, both sparked an array of thoughts to life, which might also be nurtured by the lull between the holidays.

1. How is the transition from being single to being married?
2. Life this year has been rough, but thank goodness the new year is coming soon! (She’s not Jewish, but I still wanted to immediately comeback with, “Really? Because I thought it just started?” Inside joke.)

While the first I think I may have answered to a degree, it’s the second comment which stirs my musings.

Just because life is rough, just because 2020 has seemed like the year from hell for a lot of people, just because we as a society, as a people, as humanity have endured some of the worst tragedies in history does not mean we should just bury our heads in the sand like a bunch of ostriches waiting for 2021 to come.

Yes, we should want the bad times to leave us, but are we wanting them to end for the right reasons?

Let me take a step back before I attempt to explain what I mean. The question I think we should be asking ourselves is not, “When will this end?” but rather, “What am I doing in the midst of this tragedy, during this trial, to overcome it?”

I say this because there’s a concept in Jewish thought and tradition, which I will botch trying to articulate because I poorly remember my Talmudic and Midrashic references. The concept is that whenever you finish one test, one trial, Hashem gives you another to overcome. Thus, the tests, the trials, never end because they are always refining you as gold in a fire.

This year of 2020 has been a test for all humanity. For me personally, it began with being a newlywed and ends with still being newly married, but with a teeny tiny bit of experience to soften the coming years ahead.

So yeah; this year has been rough, the transition of being a single, independent woman of almost thirty into a married, dependent(ish) woman has been…weird. Interesting. But it’s not over. It will never be over.

We are, all of us, being transformed day to day, moment to moment, for either better or worse. What we choose to do amidst these moments determines how we progress.

Life will always be a journey, its destination one at which most will not arrive.

For me, right now, my life is about figuring out how to navigate this new marriage, and what I want to tell both my friends is as I mentioned before, “They never tell you how good it can be.” Except to find the good, my husband and I had to do a lot — a lot — of work.

But it was worth it. Every moment.

Thus, as this year ends, as we near the time of rededication when the world will be its darkest, there will be thousands of tiny lights sparking to life to dazzle and sparkle in the blackest of nights; so we too must remember to seek out the light in the midst of the darkness.

As always, dear readers, remember: find the light.

Shalom.