Married Life

My wife and I recently celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary. I could not believe it has been eight years. For fun we went to the Cheese Cake Factory and then to see the notorious Blades of Glory with Will Ferell. I am not sure how to spell his name. Anyway when we got home we got out the big box of college pictures. it was so funny to see our lives as we were so young and carefree, no responsibilities except whether or not we would go to our classes the next day or sleep in and what party to attend on the weekend. It was a hard life. We laughed as we stumbled upon some pics of an "eighties party" that we had and all the funny outfits and dancing to Depeche Mode and Def Leopard, (if you can dance to that). We laughed as we saw old friends and how young and skinny I looked.

I found some pictures of Abby and I when we were dating and how innocent she was, (now totally corrupted by me) and how easy things were. I realized again how college is just not real life at all. It is this serene adaptation in which everything is almost as close to perfect as it can get. People have not really known each other long enough to know their secrets, to know what their addictions are and struggles. You can almost mask them the entire 4 years and know one will really know. John Mayer says that dating and college is like an "A" movie. You show all your "A" movies first to people. Like maybe the first Die Hard, or Titanic, or Raiders of the Lost Ark, but sadly given enough time some of those B movies will come out. For instance given eonough time a "Police Academy 7 will slip out". Real life I think is what my wife and I experienced while we looked at those pics. We have been through a lot in those 8 years. She has found out alot about me, how selfish I am, How I have a very addictive personality, how I have a temper, how mean and selfish I can be. I have found out alot about her like how strong she is having lost her mom to a drunk driver when she was 11 and how she has dealt with that. At first I thought I wish that she had never found those things out about me, and that it could be like college and fun and utopian. But then I realized that is the fake aspect of life, and it is not real life at all. Real life is struggle, relationship, true relationship is work. It only happens when all the cards are on the table, and even though all through college I may have appeared to have a full house, all I really had was a 2/9 off suit, or if I was lucky "a pair of twos".

Real life is having kids and being able to not lose my temper with them when they are doing what it is that kids do. Relationship is loving my wife as Christ loves the church and trying to make a covenant with my eyes every day. Married life has really been an eye opener for me. After 8 years I realized that for one I have not been married that long comparitively speaking to that of my grandparents who have 55 years under their belt. But I have learned that real life is not college. Married life as Paul says is the mystery of Jesus and the church. That tension, that struggle, that love, that committment, that self-lessness, that sacrifice, that daily sacrifice. As my wife and I looked through pictures we laughed and we cried. In a sense we missed the old times, but not as much as we love the new times..