Marriage: Try to be a Nicer Person

A great sorrow for Matt, when we first got married, was discovering the shifts and darknesses of my personality. He was charmed that I could cook, charmed that I had a brain (it turns out to be the little the things, in marriage), charmed that I wasn’t excessively hung up in any one direction. But the honeymoon has to end sometime. He got sick in the middle of writing his thesis–probably one of those short barely noticeable colds that happen to you when you live in a warmer place, like Virginia. Nevertheless, I recoiled from him in horror. I wasn’t mean to him, whatever he may tell you about it, but I wasn’t particularly friendly either. I probably brought him boullion and cold medicine, but I really did let him know how offended I was that he had allowed himself to succumb to a cold of any kind, let alone a trifiling one. (That reminds me, I need to make a trifle for the weekend.)

As we carried on, having babies as if we were rabbits (that’s just a little joke) my children also began to experience this dark side of their mother. When they Get Sick, she gets Reallt Mad at them. I mean, not really mad. But supper annoyed. Ready for them to be well as soon as possible. Never letting them have a day off school. Bringing them drinks in a matter of fact and none too sympathetic manner. Life is a veil ot tears. Buck up. Stop snotting all over me. That kind of thing.

Well, one of the purposes of marrajge is to make you into a better person.  Children, also, bring a hefty measure of sanctification. Through many years of Matt pointing out this black spot on my soul, and the looks in eyes of all my little chillens as I tell them they’re probaly not that sick, go ahead, do one more math problem, I have very slowly become a little bit nicer of a Mother in Times of Sickness. This recent illness of Matt’s, for instance, I was down right sympathetic. I kept things running without recriminations, I texted occassionaly to see if he needed anything. I was kind, in my manner and tone. I inquired after his health. So also, as every single child has fallen before this horrible cold, I have expressed sympathy and let them actually lie around.

All this is to the good because I spent yesterday in bed myself, once again, the feeling of death and disease and sorrow making itself at home and ruining everything. I was So Mad at myself, and frustrated. And then I was humiliated because everyone was cheerfully nice to me. The crowning trauma was Matt hauling my new fake fire place up here and plugging it in. It’s so cozy, dammit.

And he hung hooks for towels. Twelve years of children flinging their bath towels on the floor because they had no where to hang them. Twelve years of washing piles and piles of towels. Well, no more.

It is a touch garish. I see that now. I mean, we did paint the hallway bright red. And then I did buy a different colored towel for each child. It’s not a soothing bath experience. We don’t seem to be able to do Calm Minimal. Anyway, I know it was the last thing he wanted to be bothered with. Marriage, it’s a give and take. It’s a becoming of a better, kinder person. Its a letting of the other person be ill or weak. It’s a gradual leaving behind of recriminations. It’s a forgiving for the dark twists and turns of human nature.