Yeah yeah, it's been months and months since I've posted. Tonight is Samhain: the Pagan New Year when spirits walk about, the dead are remembered, negativity can be put behind you to start fresh, the harvest is all in, and we're moving toward the darkest time of the year. I've been spending my time (while waiting for trick-or-treaters to show up) thinking about the past six months' events. I turned 30, my marriage has made it through a serious rocky patch, I've returned to the book...and suddenly tomorrow is November 1st and we only have two months left of 2007.
It's our anniversary today, which also causes reflection in my mind. After all, four years have flown by. I've discovered since turning 30 that I have very little patience for drama, especially drama caused for "fun" by lonely, sad people. I've discovered that I'm far less concerned with looking stupid so I'm much more open to learn. I've discovered that I wasn't being fair to my husband in a truly fundamental way, and while our rocky patch was caused by multiple factors, fixing it required us both to make some changes. By the time Festival started in August I was exhausted in every way. I discovered I wasn't happy and need to make some serious adjustments, and now is the time.
And while we made it through and are now stronger than we were four years ago when we said our vows, I wonder what makes people willing to do whatever is necessary to keep a marriage alive and intact, and what makes them give up. Close friends of ours are currently in the midst of what could end up a very nasty divorce. In some ways their relationship started similarly to ours, so how did we avoid going wrong? It's something I think about a lot, actually, because I don't want to fuck this up by being an idiot. And I don't want to fuck it up by being blind, either.
Halloween makes me think of my grandfather, Ron, who died three years ago. Our wedding was the last big event he attended with the family, and I still miss him. His death has drastically changed my aunts' and cousins' lives, because they were so close. The way people deal with death is so very interesting. Dave tends to be sympathetic but relatively unmoved by death in general: becuase it's a part of life and he's not really afraid the way most people are of dying. If I really think hard about it, death itself doesn't scare me too much because I'm pretty firm in my belief that it's a door, just as birth is, to whatever's next.
No, it's pain that scares me, because underneath all my bravado I'm a wimp at heart. Still working on that.
