Odd as it might sound, I am 26, have been married over half a decade, have one 4 year old and another on the way. I am young, comparatively speaking, for the stage of life that I am in...most of my friends, if they are married, are still in the glorified dating stage...and many are still working towards the marriage stage.
As a result of being an early arrival at the Matrimonial Gates, I have had the opportunity to hear about the "love languages" many, many times.
Many times.
That's not really a complaint, since the longer you're married the more you need to reflect on how you love your spouse, and work to ensure that you are showing them affection in effective ways. I know that Sheri and I have missed each other from time to time, but I'd like to think that for the most part we connect; our marriage is better now than last year, or the year before, or the year before that.
I give gifts. Sheri wants my time and thoughts.
One of the obvious ways to combine the two was through making her a mix tape.
In the old days (when a mix tape was actually a tape...as opposed to the CD that it is now...) I would make her music using my handed-down boom-box, a gift I received once my parents got a better system for the house. I would cue up my original tapes or CD's, and press record and have to sit and wait an average of 3.5 minutes until the song was over, and then stop the recording, to cue up the next song I had meticulously chosen. Frequently the mixes would serve a duel purpose; it was to send her a message of my affection for her, and to educate her musical experience. The girl hadn't even really listened to the Beatles by the time she was a senior in high school...the situation was dire.
Still, first and foremost, I was trying to send a message. The music expressed in a different way the emotions that i felt, and I wanted to share those with her.
Once she was mine...well, my music library was hers. She listened to whatever I had, and I stopped making mixes for her...there hardly seemed a point.
Except that, she needs to hear and know how I care for her.
I made her the first mix I have made in years today. A disclaimer: if the song seems lyrically inappropriate for a mix for my beloved, I probably chose it for the music, not the lyrics. Here are my selections:
That's How You Know: Amy Adams, Enchanted (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)
The Way I Am: Ingrid Michaelson, Girls and Boys
Here Comes the Sun: Phil Keaggy & Randy Stonehill, Together Live!
My Brilliant Feat: Colin Hay, Going Somewhere
He Came to Meet Me: Hem, Funnel Cloud
The Fire Thief: Hem, Eveningland
Hooch: Everything, In the Juju Underworld
Love Story: Taylor Swift, Fearless
Overkill: Colin Hay, Man @ Work
Bolero: InsideOut A cappella, Sharing Time
Lost Cause: Beck, Sea Change
Fresh Feeling: Eels, Meet the Eels: Essential Eels 1996 - 2006 Vol. 1
Fighting for My Love: Nil Lara, Nil Lara
Falling Slowly: Frames, The Cost
I Want You To Be My Love: Over the Rhine, Drunkard's Prayer
In the Sun: Joseph Arthur, Come to Where I'm From
Coming Back Soon: Randy Stonehill, Can't But a Miracle
How Bizarre (Mix): OMC, How Bizarre
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5 comments:
Chris (this doesn't really have to do with the main point of your post, just a tangent really)
I have always sort of wondered why you refer to marriage without kids as "glorified dating." My personal experience was that being married was WAY different than dating, mostly because it was so HARD! Had I know just how hard being married was, I might have considered just dating a wee bit longer :) I'm also glad we had a couple of years before baby, because honestly, it took that long for us to work out a lot of stuff in our relationship (maybe it's different for different people, I don't know!).
I'm just curious, because I've heard you say it a couple of times but never actually asked you about it. Was pre-baby marriage for you really easy? Or is post-baby marriage that bad (ack! Please say no :)
Becka,
There are two reasons for this:
1. It's what my dad always called it. As a Christian, you get to enjoy all the perks that you couldn't while you were dating...but have essentially none of the added responsibilities of being parents. Sure both have their unique challenges...but you're freer as a married couple without kids than you will be with kids. Just one of the realities. Much like having a pet...life may not necessarily be better without the pet...but you have more freedom without it.
2. Dating was both easier and harder. Hving cildren, as with every major change, brings its own set of new challenges and joys. I think I can unqualifiedly say it is better with kids than without. You know (you were on vacation with us!) that there are new challenges...but kids make life better. They make life fuller.
I think most people are supposed to get married and have kids. There is a place and a need for those without either...but I think generally our default function is to have both...and I think life is better as a result. :)
Hope that helps! I'm so excited to meet your kiddo, and to have good friends going through some ofthe same tuff as us at the same time...2009 is gonna be a good year! :)
I should also add...the idea of "glorified" is intended to communicate that marriage without kids (again, for Christians) is little more than dating plus.
Dating 2.0, as it were.
Dating with perks.
Because, if you've already made up your mind about this person you're dating, and that's where you're headed, then from that moment on, until you get married, you spend most of the time wishing you were married so you didn't have to go to separate homes, to worry about parental concerns, to deal with dividing interests, etc. Marriage relieves all of that pressure.
Sure, your bank account gets smaller (a strange feat considering there are now two of you...but there it is...) but you get to enjoy other, better realities.
I beg to differ with the glorified dating thesis (I know, you're shocked), but it's the typical kind of acceptable prejudice that flies around church groups... okay, okay, getting off the soap box.
But, I have to say you are very good at mix tapes. I remember you made one for Nate and I when we were apart for six months - still awesome, especially since you didn't know it, but you put the song that is my parents' love story on it (Fogelberg's Same Auld Lang Syne).
So we'll agree to disagree on the kids thing. But I really do think you cheapen the sacrament of marriage if you restrict it to the production of children.
You can be on your soap-box. I only mean to suggest that children complete marriage, in most cases. I know that, during our first Christmas as a married couple, before Sheri was even pregnant, we knew something was missing. We were still happy, and we would have preferred to be a little incomplete for a little longer (at the time...wouldn't trade Aiden for the world now) but there was something missing.
However...I am happy to admit that this might be mostly my own perception. I think it makes sense that this is the way things works, which would suggest to me a design on the part of our creator...but then, it took my until I haqd been married for about a year to realize that marriage is not necessarily the best good for all people, and certainly not at all times, something I was also fairly convinced of prior to getting married.
Eh.
I say, as long as there's no actual Biblical teaching against it, and it's not causing others to sin...enjoy your liberty and your personal walk with God...and never mind what others think about your decisions; you're accountable to God, why worry about judgy-judgers?
:) And I am really delighted to know that the mix I made for you was helpful. That's so cool. Music is such an awesome gift of God.
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