Eighteenth of January

Every year on the 18th of January I post about my marriage anniversary. This year I forgot. I can’t remember what I was doing. Rushing about like a headless chicken, probably. My husband worked late, I recall. It was our Big Ten. A decade of marriage.

I am not soppy or sappy. A pragmatist, I think. I enjoy romance but not too much of it, and romantic gestures make me want to laugh. I think proposals are silly and believe public proclamations of love to be suspicious. I like romance to be intimate and personal. Only for those involved.

My husband thinks I want him to be Mr Darcy, and after re-reading Pride and Prejudice this year I decided that I very much do not want him to be Mr Darcy. I am perfectly happy with his flaws, thank you, and prefer them over the perfection of storybook heroes. Not that Mr Darcy is portrayed to be perfect by any means.

I am content with our differing tastes in films and books. I am happy that he enjoys laughing at things I shudder at. I can lie next to him reading Wuthering Heights while he chuckles himself silly over an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, both of us in our separate worlds, but happy in each other’s company. I don’t even mind him doing irritating things like mixing coffee with chicory – and I came to the conclusion that although he drives me insanely mad, I enjoy having him around to be mad at.

I think that is what it boils down to really.

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On Tantrums and Chicory

I had a terrific tantrum with my dearest husband the other day. He emptied my jar of chicory into the coffee jar, saying ‘it took up too much space’ and ‘it tastes the same anyway’.

It most certainly does not.

He did it, too, after I told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to mix the two, when he suggested it a night prior to the event. He said the result of mixing the two was a creamier coffee, but I begged to differ. Coffee is coffee and chicory is decaffeinated, child-friendly, and the pleasant accompaniment of a cold wintry walk in a flask. When you boil chicory with milk and a little honey, it’s a delicious drink that all members of the family can partake in.

But when you have a jar full of coffee mixed with chicory – it’s an abomination. I can’t do anything with it. I can’t drink it because it’s disgusting and I can’t serve it to my kids because it contains caffeine.

I can’t go out and buy a new jar of chicory because my frugal, non-wasteful nature forbids it, and I can’t buy a new jar of coffee because we HAVE some, even though it is mixed with chicory.

But it wasn’t only that, it was the blatant disrespect of my wishes. He did it just because he wanted one less jar on the shelf, no other reason. That man would happily munch on mashed paper if I served it to him and told him it was food. He eats to live, not the other way around, and does not care for the taste of things, as long as it provides him nourishment and stops him from passing out with hunger. Which he is often close to because that man… forgets to eat. I wish I bloody forgot to eat.

So, when one does not care much for the taste of food, one is not bothered if his coffee is mixed with his chicory, because to him it’s just a hot beverage.

TO ME, it’s an energy-boosting drink on cold dark mornings when I don’t want to haul myself out of bed to serve my family and educate my children. TO ME, it’s a delicious drink I serve to my children to keep us warm when the wind is biting. TO ME… it’s comfort.

So yes, I had a colossal tantrum.

First world problems, ey?

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That Guy (On 9 Years)

I have to write a post about it because I do every year.

Even though I don’t particularly feel like writing it this year.

But nine years ago today I married this guy. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. Dancing on a rainbow. Sunshine in my eyes. He felt like the luckiest guy in the world too. He better have. He is still the luckiest guy in the world.

But yes.

Begrudgingly I say it today, I am very lucky still to be married to this guy. Who drives me up the wall, but in the same breath makes me so joyful. If anybody on earth can make me laugh when I am in a bad mood, it’s him.

My daughter has his smile.

She smiles with her entire face. Her dimples dance in and out of her gorgeous cheeks and her eyes could light the entire world. Her teeth flash in a way that is so unique to her, to him, and I promise you, when she smiles, your heart will move an inch to the right.

I see it all the time. Even strangers are not immune to her smile.

And she gets it from her Dad.

When we first began ‘courting’, I wasn’t too sure about this guy. I was impressed by his biceps, I will admit that. He smelled so good too. But I knew it would take more than an attractive body and face to make a relationship strong.

And one day he sat on the sofa adjacent to me, and we were talking about this that and the other. I said something. And he smiled. It was a small smile at first, but then his entire face lit up. I saw dimples where I had never seen them before. His eyes drew me right in. It moved me in ways I had never been moved before.

That smile could move mountains, I thought.

It’s a special smile, I can only get it out of him rarely, and not many people can coax that particular smile from him.

Our daughter, though? She graces me with his special smile every day, multiple times a day.

So I am thankful for the gift of him, his smile, and the joy that he has passed on to the next generation.

Even though, right now, he is THAT guy to me, because I am upset with him. (I say this with a smile, marriage is full of ups and downs. I still love THAT guy.)

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8 Years

Today, after the kids were in bed, I asked my husband to make me a mug of green tea.

He did, and as he brought it to me, I glanced at my watch. 18th of January.

‘Hey,’ I said, taking the tea from him, ‘We’ve been married 8 years today.’

‘No way! Really? That’s today?’

‘Yup,’ I said, taking a sip.

‘Wow.’

‘I know right, feels like we are newly married.’

He snorted as he sat down with his own tea, ‘Yeah, sure.’

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Red and Black

This is how I want mine, that is how you like yours.

Chilli flakes, lemon, tangy tangy sauce for me. Mild and juicy, plain chicken on rice for you.

I like mine sweet, savoury, bursting with flavour. You like yours safe. Warm. Known. Clean.

I like mine messy, tumbled, piled on a plate. You like yours tidy. Neat. Michelin star.

I like red, you like plain. Red on me, black on you.

You like me, I like you, but the mess gets in between.

I like books, you like films, so I can read while you watch things. Hand on thigh, foot on foot, head on shoulder, reading nook.

I like storms. Rushy wind. Messy hair. Chaos and crayons, bric a brac on a tottering tower. You like calm. Green. Black. Sharp lines, white blinds, no rug and clean chair. Leather. Perfume. Smart shoes.

I like spice, shake it up, hot hot hot.

You are still. Sailing ship. Planning calendar. Secure. Control.

When life is chaos, I am at its helm. Hair streaming in the wind. Face turned to the sun.

You need control. So you break down.

Hold my hand. Sail through the tempest.

Chaos meets chaos.

Storm meets calm.

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Preordained?

When I was 11 years old, I prayed for my husband. I prayed hard for him, every single day, for weeks on end.

I wasn’t praying to GET a husband. Or to find one or to obtain one. I was praying for D____. My current husband.

He was not sick, I was not married. I did not pray for him like old women pray for people in books.

I just got on my knees daily and said, ‘Oh dear God, please please let me marry D____ when I grow up.‘

Just like that.

I have no idea why I did that. I knew him since I was 4 years old. He was just my friend’s older brother. He had this huge smile and these really white teeth, and the blackest hair you ever saw.

When I was eleven he ceased to be just someone I saw from time to time. I was so in awe of him that I could barely look at him. And so I totally ignored him, did not look at him, and just prayed every single day…

Dear God, please, please let me marry D____ when I grow up.

And then, just as suddenly as the crush overwhelmed me, it was gone. I grew up. Grew older. Grew taller. My prayers were peppered with other dreams, possibly equally as fleeting. I moved across the globe. I fell victim to dastardly plots. Miserable schemes. I obtained an education. I did regretful things. I totally forgot about him.

And then I married him. It was a sudden thing too. It felt pre-ordained. I always tell him it is that big smile of his. The minute he smiled at me like that, when we were both adults, my heart did a funny funny thing in my chest.

It was a courtship and a marriage. We were both so young and so…. small.

We have a photo book of every year of our marriage and in our first year, 7 years ago, we looked like children. Heck, we WERE children.

Green as green can be.

A few months into the marriage I was standing somewhere, and he was walking towards me, and he smiled that big smile of his, and suddenly, as though it were an echo through time, I heard my own little voice say, ‘Dear God, please please please let me marry D______ when I grow up.’

I was pretty shaken up to be honest. I had completely forgotten about that episode in my life. Some things are fated to be.

This year was a pretty tough year on our marriage. When I wrote my 7 Year Anniversary post in January, I had no idea what was about to implode. We are not a soppy pair. We are pretty regular and don’t really do public displays of affection. I think I might have put D____ on a pedestal a bit. Something which has certainly crumbled this year. When you forget each other, negative things are bound to creep into a marriage.

I think, in my hopeful and growing mindset, that I finally understand what those old couples who have been together for decades and decades mean when they say ‘love takes work, love means sometimes turning a blind eye, love is choosing each other despite the heartbreak and pain.’

Some things are preordained.

I don’t know what possessed me to pray relentlessly for my husband.

But I guess and hope I will be doing that until I die. Pray for him, that is. In the way old women pray for people. YOU know, like in books. Pray for their souls and whatnot.

Unless he does something truly truly awful and he knows what it is already as I have vividly described the scenarios to him.

Dear God, please please please let me marry D_______ when I grow up. And let this marriage work.

Do you pray? Do you believe things are preordained?

Anniversary

Yesterday was our seven year anniversary and we both forgot.

I don’t know what we were doing. It was a Monday so D was working. In his office. Slash second bedroom. Slash nursery.

I was downstairs with baby. Who is not a baby anymore. He was sliding his teddies down his little slide in the living room and I was sitting on the sofa trying to get work done. And getting interrupted, so really nothing was done. It’s ok, I told myself, as I got up for the millionth time to do something or other, I will work once he is in bed.

Then it was lunchtime. For baby. I gave him leftover pasta from the night before. And then hustled him upstairs for his nap. As he fell asleep, I did too. The exhaustion of being 8 months pregnant, working, caring for a toddler and doing the million other things people have to do just took over.

I woke up at 3pm, and baby was still sleeping, so I stumbled groggily and in a bad MOOD to the office slash nursery slash second bedroom where D was still working. I grumbled about not doing any work, dragging my laptop towards me. We started talking about things one talks about when they are parents and trying to make a life together.

And then five minutes later a small voice called from the other room, ‘Mamaaaa! Mamaaa!’

We laughed, because it’s the first time he has done that. I got up and went to him. He was sitting up on the bed, smiling at me.

D closed the office slash nursery slash second bedroom door, as he had a meeting.

I sat on the floor, feeling heavy and deflated. Baby ran around the bedroom making a mess and being joyful. He grabbed all his books from the windowsill and made a little hill out of them which he attempted to climb. Then he picked one out and spread it open on his little legs and began to read in gibberish. Some real words made their way in there too.

‘Ann done!’ he clapped for himself, slamming the book shut. All done.

My friend called. I debated whether to answer. I had to work, I had to cook dinner, I had to sort out the baby clothes, I had to clean the room.

I answered. We hadn’t talked in weeks, so it was a good catch up.

Then it was 6pm. The room was messy. I’d been playing with the little one. D finished his meeting and took over. I was still on the floor, feeling achey and tired.

I pulled myself together, got up. Went downstairs. Made cauliflower cheese and mashed potatoes, with a side of fish fingers. D and our little came down, tidied up downstairs. We had dinner. We cleaned up. Baby boy ran around. D played tag with him. Then he began running up and down the stairs, in the slow and stumbling way little toddlers do. Lots of chuckling ensued.

Then it was bedtime. Wash, brush, PJs, books. Left him with his dad, closed the door. Sat down to work. Baby boy crying for 15 minutes straight before I went in there. He was sitting on his dad’s chest, looking at me with tears in his eyes.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘He wants you,’ D said, looking drained.

‘Mama.’

Ok. It wasn’t my turn to put him to bed so I felt stressed out and irritable. NO WORK was done. That means an all nighter which, in my state, I am not equipped for.

‘Ok.’ I said. ‘Let’s switch.’

‘Are you sure?’ D asked.

‘We can’t have him sobbing himself into a state. He won’t sleep. Then we’re really screwed.’

I put him to bed. It took two hours. At 10pm I stumbled out again, and sat at my laptop. I tried to work until 2:45am. Not much got done. I felt groggy and achey.

At 3am I fell into bed. D was sleeping soundly.

At 7am the alarm went off. D got up in a rush to start a meeting.

At 8am he popped his head downstairs where I sat, trying to work while the little ate porridge around me.

‘Hey’, he said, ‘We were married seven years ago yesterday.’

‘Is that so.’ I said, absently.

‘Yeah. Have to run.’

Up he goes to another meeting. Tap tap tap I go on my laptop.

Crash, goes something in the kitchen. The little one is pulling saucepans out the cupboard.

I think I will let him.

Tweezers

How are you doing, folks?

Have you heard a lot of that lately? How are you doing? No, how are you doing?

It is nice to see people checking in with each other more. There are still a lot of terrible things happening, but so much positivity too. It’s totally up to you, what you want to pick up when you sift through the piles of panic and mess.

My husband has started using my tweezers lately. I only have one pair. My husband likes to think he is the tidy one in this relationship but that is so not true. He never puts things away! I always grumble about this, and put the things he has left out away. He is a lovely guy though, and cleans our house beautifully, and makes sure I come down to pristine tidiness every morning because mornings can be chaotic with a baby. He is caring and sweet (he doesn’t like to be known as ‘sweet’, it is not ‘manly’), and although he is a ball of stress, he is the only one who truly knows how to calm my stormy nature.

Except he keeps taking my tweezers from their designated space and never puts them back! So now, for three weeks, they have been missing. We have both hunted high and low for them but with no luck. I feel so annoyed with him. My eyebrows are growing out and they are itching to be tweezed!

I know that is something petty to say considering the state of the world right now. I know I have the luxury to focus on petty things right now as we are staying indoors for the foreseeable future. My son is asthmatic so I worry about him. And of course, I worry about those who are so much more vulnerable and who are at dire risk if we unintentionally pass anything on to them. So we are staying indoors.

And I am focusing on petty things! Like my missing tweezers! If you have seen them, can you please tell them not to be so dramatic and send them my way?

Dinner and Charlotte

When Charlotte made dinner, the kitchen was a bomb site.

A no-man’s land of waste and debris.

Two children flailing their arms, running in and out of rooms.

Screaming.

The smaller one, with the large, round, peachy cheeks, chasing the older one.

Large, fat tears rolled gently down her cheeks, which wobbled with each step she took.

Charlotte wailed, taking her burnt chicken out of the cracked oven. Her blue bows twitched atop her head, sitting on a pile of chestnut curls, all askew.

The older ones watched, shell shocked, from the corners.

Charred vegetables. Broken chair legs. Fire licked the stove ring, the choking sound of gas a gentle, whirring background noise.

‘What’s wrong, Emilia?!’

‘She isn’t giving me my balloon!’

‘You should share with your sister, Emilia.’

Charlotte wiped the sweat from her forehead.

A car drew up outside. The engine rumbled, jittering, vibrating, humming through the floor. Then silence as it switched off.

The screaming indoors worsened.

A sigh, in the car.

Then he emerged, his shirt rumbled and his face drawn.

When he darkened the front door, the screaming stopped. The children froze. Charlotte bit her lip, staring at the charred remains of dinner.

He took a deep breath. The damage could be heard from outside, but it did not prepare him for the abhorrent sight before his eyes.

‘Let us go out for tea,’ he said, calmly.

Charlotte dried her hands on a dishtowel.

‘It appears,’ she began slowly, ‘that a tiger came to tea already.’

Her crimson face, in all its weariness, broke into a gentle, oh so faint, smile.

The End.

N.B. I didn’t like this at all. I wrote it, it needed to be written, but it left me with a strange, disgusted feeling in my gut. So I tried to insert a Carlotta-the-fourth feeling around Charlotte, although I’d hate to think of Carlotta-the-fourth feeling like that. Given her era, however, it must have been inevitable. I also wanted to try a ‘Tiger Who Came to Tea’ ending, because making reality a little surreal takes the harsh, uncomfortable edge off it.

My mum says my dad drives her mad. My aunt says her husband drives her nuts, and that he intends to retire in a remote, mountainous area and she doesn’t want to retire there with him. My old neighbour buys her groceries separate from her husband, and they bicker like cats and dogs. They have been married for fifty odd years. I told my mum, ‘I really don’t want to end up like that.’ She replied, ‘well, you will, eventually. Married couples do eventually get sick of each other.’

I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to rely on my kids to make my marriage interesting. My mother in law doesn’t like to travel or be alone with her husband unless her kids are there. They just don’t have a relationship. And, I don’t know if its because I am 23 and ‘inexperienced’, but I strongly feel that that situation can be avoided. I feel like you can make an effort to like each other, and change with each other, and complement each other over the years?

What is your opinion on the matter?

 

A Toothbrush Away from a Happy Marriage

I stood in the bathroom, my face blinking back at me in the greenish mirror. I look disgusting in white light, that’s for sure. The toothbrush was too high up and the toothpaste required too much effort to squeeze anything out.

Maybe I shouldn’t brush my teeth. I thought to myself. One night doesn’t matter, does it?

Gross, I KNOW. But I was feeling lazy.

But then my mind went to the inevitable scenario when I did get into bed.

D: Did you brush your teeth?

Me: No.

D: Why not.

Me: I am tired.

D: Go brush your teeth.

Me: I don’t want to, I’ll have to put my clothes on.

D: *moody silence*

Me: *ugh* *Gets up to brush teeth*

To be honest, I would have got away with it if it were any other day. But he is moody with me. Disguising it with a few jokes and a fake smile here and there. But he is unhappy with me. And frankly I have no idea why. Maybe I am too fat. Maybe I am too unsuccessful now that I don’t have a job. Maybe I don’t look good because I haven’t bothered to try lately. Maybe I said something mean about his family. Maybe I annoyed him. I DON’T KNOW.

But I won’t add fuel to the fire by not brushing my teeth before I go to bed.

So. I sigh. I scrub at my teeth and rinse and spit, and scrub again. And rinse and scrub and rinse and – for three minutes because my dentist said so. Then I grin at myself from different angles to see if I would get that classic *TING* only the pearliest of pearls can give you.

Nothing.

I brushed my teeth to make my husband happy. I wouldn’t have brushed them if he wasn’t around. I did it, for my husband.

What does that make me? Annoyed, that’s what. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

ALSO. Brushing my teeth is good. So, I did myself a favour there. Hahaha. What am I even complaining about?