10 Years of Marriage

I will start by saying, this is going to be a long post.  First I have to talk about being married, then I have to talk about our actual anniversary, and then I have to talk about myself, because what kind of beautiful blog post about the selfless love of marriage would this be if I didn't end by talking about myself.

First, on being married.  Of all of the things I've done in my life, being married is one of the easiest.  That's not to say that Greg and I never disagree or that we're perfect, but it's pretty easy.  Mostly when compared to raising children.  With children I constantly fret over which extra curriculars I should sign them up for, which shoes will Alice wear, whether or not I'm disciplining too hard.  What is the best for my children?!?!  But with Greg, who is an adult, I just ask him: What do you want?  What can I do that will help you reach your goals and become the person you want to be?  And then as a rational adult who knows what he wants and needs, he responds and I react accordingly.  It's wonderfully easy.  The conversations don't go exactly like that, but you get the idea.  It's pretty easy.

And what about those disagreements?  We had a lesson on marriage today in Relief Society based on President Hinckley's sermons.  He talked about forgiveness, working in unity with your spouse, being anxiously concerned for the well-being of your spouse and growing accustomed to each other.  And yes, all of those are true.  And that's about it.  So what do we do when we disagree?  As adults with large vocabularies who can express themselves, we each share our side, what we think should have or we would like to happen. And usually one of us is right and one is wrong and we go from them.  Because the concern is for the well-being of the other, there issue of who is right isn't really an issue.  Though I do often mutter, just once I'd like to be right.  Just once.  Sometimes it takes a few days for one of us to come around, but we get there.  It's really not that hard.  Especially compared to trying to reason with a child.  Why?  Why? Why?  Why?  I'm pretty convinced that Henry thinks Why?  means ok.

I say all this about marriage, as if I'm the expert.  But really, it all comes from Greg.  I make fun of him a lot for being emotionless, but that has worked to our advantage as he often keeps emotions out of many of the most difficult decisions so we can make clear choices.  For example, he recently bought a new truck and as we discussed funding it, we were able to simply look at the numbers and see what made sense instead of wanting to cuddle with and love the money.  It's taken me a while to get there but Greg is really patient and even more forgiving.

So I guess what I'm saying is that being married to Greg is easy.  I should feel bad that not everyone can be married to him, but I'm not.

Part 2: The Trip

For the past few years, or whenever Obama said he was going to loosen sanctions with Cuba, we've talked about going to Cube for our 10th anniversary.  But then neither one of us applied for new passports, or booked flights or did any of the things necessary to go to Cuba.  So we ended up staying two nights at a tiny house near Ashville in the mountains of North Carolina.  And it was pretty fabulous.

We got there late Thursday afternoon.  Checked the place out and got some dinner.  We spent the evening on the porch watching the fireflies and I played with the settings on my camera trying to capture what felt like hundreds of fireflies.

Friday Greg slept (I've lost the ability to sleep in) and I read.  We made breakfast and ate on the porch.  Then we were off to do some mountain biking.  Greg wanted to do a black diamond trail that met up with a paved trail so he did the black diamond and I coasted down the paved trail.  And then we had to turn around and ride back to the top of the paved trail to get to the truck.  It was 4 miles.  I've run 4 miles in about 30 minutes before; I currently run 4 miles in about 45 minutes, but now I was on a bike so it was going to be much faster than that.

Nope.

It was just up hill for 4 miles.  Nothing flat, not even a little down.  Just up, and up, and up.  It was...hard.  And Greg was just messing around trying no hands, eating raspberries.  I thought I was going to die.  Not really, but it was pretty tough.  I kept telling myself, just around this corner here it will level off.  Nope.  Just more up.  I could handle all the climbing if I just got a break, maybe something flat or not as steep so I didn't have to constantly pedal.  Nope.

We eventually made it back to the truck, which was actually another mile or so past the trail head but more level, and headed back to the tiny house.  Greg clocked himself at 17 miles; he did a few more than me because the black diamond trail he did was a bit longer and he rode around looking for me at the bottom for a while, so I probably did 13 or so.

Then it was my turn.  The deal was I would mountain bike with Greg, and he would do a photo shoot with me.  Between the two of us, our somewhat limited knowledge of F-stops, and a tri-pod, I'm pretty please with house they turned out.

Then we went to dinner in Asheville, walked around Asheville for a while, which really does have a very Mission District San Francisco feeling to it, then headed back to the tiny house to watch the fireflies again.

Saturday went much the same as Friday.  Sleeping in/reading, breakfast on the porch, and mountain biking.  And I made the same stupid mistake that I made the day before.  A guy at the bottom of a paved hill to the head of the biking trail told us it was a rough 2-3 miles to the top.  I can run 3 miles in about 25 minutes, so surely I can bike, even if it's uphill 3 miles in about 30 minutes.  An hour later we'd only made it 2.6 miles with no end in sight.  We kept going up, hoping for some sort of overlook or other majestic view to justify all the hard work.  This mountain was so steep at some points, I could walk, pushing my bike up faster than I could ride it.  Eventually, we just gave up and turned around.  We got to the bottom like 10 minutes later.  Then I drove Greg to the head of the trail, which still did not have a scenic overlook and then drove back down.  Greg beat me to the bottom.

Then we headed home.

It was a lovely weekend with no kids.  Turns out Greg and I can still manage to spend days at a time together without killing each other, which bodes well for our empty-nester stage, in about a million years.

As I labored up these hills, I thought to myself, what do I like to do?  What torturous thing could I do to Greg to get back at him for making me ride up these hills?  And I couldn't think of anything.  I don't like to do anything.  So I really thought. Then I passed some rock climbers.  And I remembered that I like rock climbing.  I also like water skiing.  And I used to be decent at both.  Not good, but not bad either.  I felt better about myself.  I did like to do something.  So I kept thinking.  What do I like to do?  I like to do what other people like to do.  Greg likes mountain biking.  I don't think I'd ever go on my own, but I like to go with Greg.  My kids are generally well-behaved while hiking, so we hike.  They like swimming so we swim.  I just like being with my people and doing what my people think is fun.  That's what I like.  But if I were alone for a day, what would I do, just me?  I had to keep my mind busy to continue to pedal up the mountain.  If I had a day of just me, I would go for an early run and then get things done.  I really like to cross things off my to-do list.  I'd probably spend the day cleaning and organizing.  Around lunch, I'd read for a bit and then take a nap.  I'd spend the evening reading or updating my blog.  I like to work.  That's what I like to do.   I felt better about myself once I could name several things that I really like to do, unfortunately, I still wasn't at the top of the mountain when I came to this realization.  Pedaling uphill is hard.  Much harder than being married to Greg but worth it if Greg had a good time.