nin137

My Wife

it's been 4 years since i've married juliann. we've been
together for 8 years. since january 15th of 2002. i
remember that first date well. it was awkward. in fact, my
future wife kindly told me on that first date, "nick, this
is so awkward."

we were great friends before we started dating. things are
awkward when you start introducing new elements into any
relationship...especially an element loaded with as many
implications as sexual intercourse.

but we made it through that initial awkwardness together.
we made it through college. and then we were faced with the
real world. sure...it was one thing to stay together
throughout college. where our worlds were so inextricably
intertwined. same friends. same events. same cafeterias.
classes close to each other. parties together.

and then we made it through our first taste of real life.
we moved in together. i started my job. she started hers.
we both new we wanted more from life. so we made a huge
decision to move away together. to being our puruits of
post-graduate degrees.

but before we were to do that we would have one more
consummation to engage in. marriage. the thought of
marriage is a tough one for many. so many pepole i speak to
even wonder..."what's the point of it?" what is the point?
it's impossible to truly convey it to anyone. it means so
many different things to so many. to a fanatically
religious couple it means the ultimate bond. to a
homosexual couple it means ostracism.

the decision to marry juliann was especially difficult for
me. i loved her very much, but at that time my own parents
were going through a really rough patch in their lives. i
asked their advice and i got a dose of what children don't
get from their parents until they are much older...the
realization that they are not superhuman...but rather normal
people...with normal faults.

they were not so much against my idea of marriage, but
incredibly weary. weary and pessimistic. it made it that
much harder for me to make such a tough decision.

but in the end i went with my heart (i know...cheesy
right?). we started our new lives together...and promptly,
six months after we had married juliann moved away for six
months to pursue and internship. i was alone...really, for
the first time in about 4 years.

and during that time i realized a lot. i realized i loved
and missed her a ton. that even more than just being a
person who was there when i woke up, entered a room, or
left the apartment from...she was a part of me. a very,
very large part. a very important part.

juliann chided me the other day (our anniversary)for always
seemingly writing teh same thing in our anniersary card:
"dear juliann...we have been married for X years and each
year my love for you grows" (or some variation of that).

she asked me how it was possible to love someone more and
more every year. i likened it to the parable of having to
walk half a foot to walk a foot. but then you'd have to
walk 1/4 foot but then you'd have to walk 1/8th......and so
on and so forth. but steps are finite.

love is not. i do not know what the "end" of my loving
capabilities are. i just know that i am surprised every
year by how much more deeply i love my wife. over the past
4 years that we have been married i can easily say that i
love her mroe and more. that's not to say that i didn't
love her a lot when we were first married...but it means
that over the years...each and every year i find new reasons
why she is my perfect soul mate.

love is an amazing thing. people get it all wrong so many
of the times. they watch these romantic comedies where
everything and everyone has a minor flaw here and there but
overall is perfect. love conquers all.

i am here to say that it truly does. but not within 90
mins. not within a year. maybe not even within 2 years.
growing to love someone seems to be at trite phrase, but it
has proven true for me.

one of our favorite shows is "six feet under." in one
episode and old man loses his wife. the guy who runs the
family funeral parlor talks to him about his loss. after a
while the old guy is exasperated..."you don't know what love
is" he says dismissively. "you won't know until you've
lived with someone for most of your life...not until then
will you truly know what love is."

i don't know what love is yet i suppose. but each and every
day i learn more and more. love is what i feel for my wife.
what has turned from explosions of infatuation in my early
20s into a slow burning desire that makes me not be with
anyone else but her.

nooone else can ever make me feel what she makes me feel for
her. that feeling only grows and grows. because of
that...everything outside of our small world has no chance
to break us apart.

that's what marriage and love mean to me. that feeling
that...against all odds and all the slings and arrows of
misfortune that inevitably will befall a relationship and
its component parts...we will never break apart. we will
always be together. and that is truly heaven. heaven for me.