THE MARRIAGE MIX

. . . to scroll down a few posts and sign up for the book giveaway!

Names will be drawn tomorrow!!!

Have a great day!

Cara

I am happy to introduce our first guest blogger.  Rhi and I met in blogland, but have had the honor of truly becoming real friends.  She and her husband, along with me and mine, hope to become even better friends next week as we hunker down in their home in Wales to talk and laugh and drink british ale and get to know each other better.  I am thrilled that she agreed to share a bit of their very real and raw love story here.

my name is rhian, i am mostly known as rhi, sometimes cooksey. i am an unemployed graduate with grand dreams of living as a struggling artist. i am pretty good at the struggling, but still practicing the art bit.  i like to read and write, i like to walk barefoot in grass, and i like strawberry soya milkshakes.  i have been married for nearly 6 years to an often wonderful geekboy. and it has been hard.  but we still laugh at each others jokes, he warms my feet when they are cold, i bake him cupcakes frequently, and enable him to leave the house with at least one stray cotton thread on his self. i have a blog that is much abused with youtube videos, random journal pages, and daily ponderings.

This is just a small, highly edited and censored part of my story. One half of how a baby marriage of less than one year has struggled and fought and kicked and screamed its way to regain some sense of normality. To regain some feeling of love and security amidst a time of grief and loss.  And how freshly tweezed eyebrows may be the key to it all.

*****

“Do you pluck your eyebrows yourself or go to a shop?”
The shiny blue Peugeot, big enough to fit an entire drum kit in the boot, sped down the wide open B-road.  It drove down unlit territory on an empty road.

“Uh - myself.” I replied with a mixture of complete embarrassment and horror.

Why on earth would he ask that? Isn’t that some kind of sacred ground that should never be crossed by them; that other, unobservant species more akin to caveman than gentleman.

“They’re really nice.”

The air in the car seemed to take on a golden glow. The pitch black sky blurring by overhead seemed to grow a little bigger, the stars shone a little brighter, and my face grew a lot redder.

Fancy he picked my eyebrows as his target for the first compliment he would pay me!

I mean, the half whispered in nervousness, “I think I like you”, didn’t really count as a compliment. Lots of people liked me. My mum liked me. My brothers sometimes liked me. That boy who took me on a date the week before probably more than liked me. Or, something.

But my eyebrows. That was something special. That was actually quite tangible. And it was one of the many areas I always felt most self conscious of in my 18 year-old self’s body.

I suddenly felt very sure that this boy was terrifically special. He had unknowingly tapped into the one facial feature I had complete control over, and often had spent copious hours worrying over. Were they too bushy? Did they have enough shape? Were they lopsided? Lopsided is not a look I was going for.

Traveling down that unlit expanse of tarmac, empty of any other car to race or be compared too, the world felt a little more exciting.

A little more terrifying.

*FLASH*

We haven’t got time to stop for a Burger King. Why doesn’t he realize this?
As the panic sat in my stomach, and felt like it burned a hole in my heart, I tried to persuade myself to stay calm. To breathe. To not stress him out. Everybody needs to eat.
I will remember that drive home forever. Having talked to my dad just hours earlier, and having been informed that my brother had been taken to hospital, the already planned journey had taken on a new feel. It was no longer carefree and enjoyable. It had become a race to get somewhere as quickly as possible, to get to that safe place where our pictures hung on the walls, and where I could pretend that everything would be okay. Because it always was okay in the end. Always.

That was three days before my brother would die. Three days before I would lose him, and parts of myself forever. Three days before the world turned dark and my heart would be shattered into a thousand pieces. Before I would sit at my dark mahogany family dining table, and sob into my hands. Three days before my marriage would alter inconceivably, and before the memory of a nighttime Burger King pit stop would make me despise my own husband.

Death is something we are all aware of, yet something we all blissfully ignore on a daily basis. Until it creeps in and takes you by surprise.

I am quite certain there can never be a preparation for the overwhelming shock of losing someone. Its as if all the air is sucked out of your world, your lungs struggle to do the job they were created for, your head feels as though it might burst any minute with the incomprehensible idea of never seeing that person again. The world has shrunk, and you have no space or time for the things that came Before. Your life becomes a battle-ground to complete the most menial of tasks. Getting up. Brushing your teeth. Showering.

Time is split into Before and After.
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEDNESDAY . . .

Happy Tuesday, Marriage Mixers!

I SO enjoyed giving away a few books last month that I have decided to do it again.

And again

and again.

In fact, be on the lookout, because once a month you will find a book give away on this blog.

Leave a comment about one thing you like about your spouse (even if it is something you have not seen in years and you can’t think of anything else) and I will enter your name in a drawing that will take place on Friday!

from the flicker feed of Skye Gazer

I mentioned this a week or two ago, but I think I should probably expand upon it . . .

THE MARRIAGE MIX IS TAKING OFF!

My hope in writing this  blog is that it will help other people to realize that they are not weird or odd or alone.  That their marriages are not that different from those of the people around them - but the problem is just that other people are not talking, so they feel alone.  This made me sad.  So, I started talking.  And I have spent the past month telling you one thing, over and over again: “Marriage is not easy for most of us and if you relate to that, you are not alone.” I have been trying to say, “If it is hard, and I mean really really hard, you still don’t have to give up if you don’t want to! There is hope.  You are not alone.”

I realized early on in this blog that I wanted other people to start blogging with me.  I have a lot to say, but not everyone can relate to my story; my voice.  So, starting tomorrow, you will start to see some changes on this blog.  You will see new faces and hear new voices. There will be stories from people who have had it easier than I have . . . and stories from people who have had it harder.  But one thing is sure, there will be stories of real, honest people who love marriage, but know it is hard!  I sure hope you enjoy it.

Then later this week, you will see a new look on this blog, thanks to my tech geek husband!

In all of these changes, I am striving to make this blog the BEST it can be!  I want to spread this message that love and marriage are not perfect to as many people as I can.  SO, can you help out? Tell your friends about this blog.  Add it to your blog lines or your blog reader (that helps with “google juice”).  Write a short post about it on your blog.  Add it to the links section on your blog. Is this shameless self-endorsement? Perhaps, but I think if you have read more than one post on this blog, you know I don’t know how to beat around the bush, much.  The truth is, I need your help.  SO, here I am, asking for it.

Please
And
Thank
You!!!

Hang on, we are off for the ride of a lifetime!

Each week I leave a short story or video blog here about where I saw love in action during the previous week.  Looking for love in the world around us inspires us to look for love everywhere - especially in our marriages.  Leave your story in the comments section about how you saw love in action last week!  Or write about it on your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments section (and be sure to link your readers over here so they can see more stories about love in action!).

There is something about women in our culture who are selling their bodies for the sexual fulfillment of men that is confusing to me.  My experience says that as a women in the United States, I have so many other choices about how to use my body and how to earn money.  I did not grow up as a young girl in the Red Light District of India.  I do not have a heritage of sex trade.  And as a result, I have trouble conceptualizing how and why these choices are being made in a country that seems to provide so many other options for women.  Maybe cycles of poverty, abuse, and lack of options have not lent the same experience to some women in my country; in my city.   Maybe the idea of having a $100 bill tucked into your G-string does not feel like a problem when your alternative is standing on your feet at McDonald’s all day, for minimum wage.  I rarely feel judgement towards women who are strippers, escorts, or prostitutes; but I do feel sadness and regret.  I feel anger towards a culture that has come so far and yet has left these women in a position where dancing in front of a bunch of abusive men strung out on coke is even an option; let alone a good one.

Some feminists would say it is their choice and their right give lap dances and have sex for money.  And that when done willingly, it is even liberating and fulfilling.  To me, that just sounds like a modern day middle finger to all of the men who have scared them and abused them; now THEY get to be in charge.  Either scenario sounds, to me, filled with painful stories.  Well, I am not here to figure that out, but what I do know is that every time I drive by a small, windowless cinder block building that touts any variation of “LIVE*NUDE*GIRLS”, I become a very dangerous combination of sad and angry.  I want very badly to see those women released from what looks to me like a modern day, acceptable form of sexual slavery - women whose circumstances sort of pin them into a corner and leave them without a lot of other options.  I am sad for all of the girlhood dreams of becoming doctors, artists, and airplane pilots that were either never born or used as someone elses’ plaything, until they ceased to exist.

When my friend Kevin sent me  this link and video, I found myself, through tears, relieved to know that someone, somewhere has figured out how to take light and love into what seems to be a very dark place.  They set aside their judgements and agendas and desire to figure out this cultural catastrophe.   They decided to take only one personal value in with them - the value to love other women in ways that are tangible.  They are called Jesus Said Love, and they are doing just that.