Texas' Three Ring Circus

I have an interesting relationship with my husband. It comes with a long story beginning when I was young and innocent and follows through to now, when life has taught me a few hard lessons about forgiveness and what’s really important.

I am also the mother of three beautiful children. They are the light and the bane of my existence. I sometimes think if I was not a parent that I would be better off financially. Perhaps this is true, more likely it is an excuse as to why I have not followed through with the goals of my youth.

At sixteen I was unstoppable; long legged, blonde-hair, blue-eyes, bubbly personality and a brain that just wouldn’t quit. I was the typical girl that you expect to go far and let nothing get in her way. I acted in school plays and was very dramatic. I was always on the honor roll and in advanced classes. I read incessantly. I enjoyed romance more than anything, because it always had a happy ending, but that wasn’t all I read. And I wrote poetry.

Everything, when you are sixteen, is so dramatic. Everything deserves to be explored to the fullest. There is nothing that is too dull or mundane to gush over dinner or to your friends about. So, at this age I had my first broken heart. Of all of the things for a sixteen year old to write about, this is the most over-used and over-exaggerated subject.

I wrote poetry that I thought was beautiful and painful and wrenching. I wrote some that rhymed and then decided to get a little deeper and I wrote poetry that didn’t rhyme. I researched poets like Anne Sexton and I empathized with them. I acted as though I had been the victim of a huge tragedy and the whole world would be interested in my heartbreak.

I look back at it now and it’s silly and trite. I want to go through those pieces of my youth and correct all the over-used, overly-dramatic fragments. I guess I think that if I pick up that poetry and make it something worthwhile then I will have corrected all those youthful mistakes. I know logically this is impossible and irrational, but my subconscious seems to be on another page on this subject.

I think more than anything I want to write. I want to write down what I think and have people sit back and pay attention. I want to be a fount of wisdom or the source of an afternoon of pure literary pleasure. There is nothing like writing something as though you were talking to your best-friend and by doing it, help your reader know you; understand who you are.

I know I have it in me. I can almost feel it waiting to get out. If I could just piece it all together I might get the flow right. I might be able to make my mark on this world as an important piece of the puzzle. I was someone who mattered here on earth. My work is the proof that I was here and I had something meaningful to say.

For now, it resides in my letters, journals, emails, web logs, and my late-night thoughts. After all, my children need me to be their mother now. You see, at sixteen that broken heart molded me like nothing else. I met the man I would marry. He walked on my heart as most careless young men will do. Then when he was all done making me feel like the dirt beneath his shoes, he married someone else and he left me. There is nothing as painful as puppy love, and believe me, I had a wounded heart for a long time. But, I recovered and I was well on my way to following through will all those plans that I had set up.

Then, wouldn’t you know it, he came back into my life. He was divorced, had experienced some of my similar emotions from his ex-wife and was now ready to move on. He apologized and promised he would never hurt me again. A promise that is impossible for anyone to keep. What can I say? I was seventeen by now and no smarter in the love department than before. I took him back. I fell in love for real this time and as is typical for those of us who have become a cliché, I’m sure you can guess what happened.

Eighteen and pregnant is not a way to go into undergraduate school. As a result I put the university track off for a year and moved in with my man. We got used to living with each other and here is where I started learning those hard life lessons. At eighteen you know everything and need no help from anyone. At least you think you do. I know I did. But honestly, you’re just a kid still. You have the body of an adult but your mind and your emotions are not ready for the commitments that you are old enough legally and physically to make.

I had the baby, a beautiful little boy, and leaned quite a bit on my parents. I started community college the next fall.

I had a baby to help support and going away to college was not an option for a mommy who refused to leave the baby behind and couldn’t take him with her. So, I did distance learning classes and some night courses as is the norm for those of us who work a full-time job and go to school.

When it was time for the wedding I was just doing too much so I quit school temporarily. Two new babies and a few homes later I think we are all settling in. I have recently considered going back to college and finally getting at least an Associate’s.

I could possibly then transfer and get my undergraduate degree. At 24 I thought I would be well into the career I had studied for but I was wrong. Sometimes even getting the college degree doesn’t guarantee that you will be doing a job that relates to that degree. My best-friend’s fiancé for instance has a bachelor’s in journalism and yet he is in the management trainee program for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Go figure.

Anyway, I have student loans to pay off and children to support and a mortgage and a vehicle payment, insurance, utilities etc. And yet, when it’s quiet, and I get to think about what I want, it’s always to write. To tell a story, the story, to those who matter most; make them laugh, cry, think, ponder, and argue.

The interesting part about my relationship with my husband is that he knows this. He would support me in whatever I want to do. He would encourage me, love me and push me to achieve it all. I don’t tell him these things. I don’t tell him that I want this sometimes more that I can breathe. He knows though. He understands me that well. When you literally grow up with someone, mature with them, you know them like their own parents don’t. We are lucky in that respect. We have love. We have happiness. But like most marriages we have our problems too.

James and I are horrible at communication at times. We are especially lacking on certain issues, like housework and time out “with the boys”. We have our own resentments of each other and there are times our house is a war zone littered with things we didn’t say and those things that we did.

Marriage is not easy. Love is not easy. It shouldn’t be so hard that it is not manageable or that it is violent or scary but it isn’t for the timid. A marriage takes work and worry. You must decide what issues are worth arguing about, what is an integral part of your spouse’s nature and what made you fall for them.

I know that as a result of my upbringing I will always try to “improve” and “change” my husband. I know that this is something I must fight to manage every day, because honestly, if I need to change him then why am I with him? I sometimes lose my battles with myself and then they spill over into my relationship with my husband. This is my fault and I know that, but even knowing it doesn’t change it. It takes my effort to do that. I can’t just sit back and let my marriage happen to me. I have to be an equal partner in my own happiness. Just as I am responsible for my failures, so am I responsible for my own successes........

Posted by Drama Mama on Friday, January 06, 2006 at 3:43 PM | Permalink