“I love this photo of you,” you said, after all our guests had left and it was just you and me in the house. “It’s so… you.”
We had had a little Open House, a housewarming of sorts and an early birthday celebration for me last weekend. And though we didn’t take too many pictures because of the hosting we were up to, we enjoyed every minute of seeing long-long friends and receiving birthday wishes from everyone.
Our invite had specifically told everyone not to bring presents (donations for the books and the causes we were supporting were more then welcome though). But everyone came with flowers, and that thrilled me- I love flowers! Only to have everyone leave at the end before I realized it was the loveliest surprise and scheme by Cliff and my best friend Jo to have hidden a huge stash of flowers at the basement with a sign so no one would steal them… to pass to every one of our guests and have them give them to me as a housewarming gift!
Very scheming, and very well thought-out! (Poster designed by Cliff, ha!)
…You showed me the picture again, saying, “I love this photo of you. It’s so… you.”
And at that moment, I realized, how important it is to marry a man who was, is thoroughly in love with you and adores you. At that moment when I saw you looking at that photo again, I realized how blessed I was.
Nowadays, people keep telling us we shouldn’t maintain high standards. They say, raise them any higher and you’ll be left by yourself. So people settle. They find somebody “decent”- never mind if he doesn’t share the same spiritual beliefs, never mind if he doesn’t have a heart of compassion, never mind if he isn’t generous. But I say, hey, you can afford to keep one eye shut to accommodate each other when you’re married, but before that, keep both eyes wide open. Ironically, we do the opposite: we keep an eye closed while dating, then get a shock while having both eyes opened in marriage; we lower our expectations while settling for someone, then get disappointed when our expectations aren’t met in marriage; we settle for less, then settle for the easy way out later. 50% of marriages dissolve after 8 years.
What I realized is this, unless you find someone or are found by someone who is a hundred percent in love with you and for you, Forever will just be an ephemeral reality.
A few days ago I woke up slightly late with a splitting migraine, rushing to the bathroom to get ready for work- only to come out finding breakfast waiting, the water boiled- and all my three breakfast spreads (yes, I’m odd that way) on the table- kaya, jam and peanut butter. I realized you had spent early marriage studying me without me noticing, and thus knew exactly what I needed. You always have breakfast later in the day, so this was specially just for me, not an act of convenience.
Personally, being only just married for less than 4 months, I never feel worthy to be in a position to give people advice regarding relationships. But I do hope, that if you’re waiting for and dreaming of someone, you will pray for someone who loves you through and through for who you are, and who can pick up a photo of you and, with his eyes lost in dreamy captivation, say, “I love this photo of you. It’s so… you.”
Because it’s that same someone who is willing to hoist the sail of his heart in the winds of inconvenience, distress and trouble, who will hold your hand to the very end of time.
Thank you for the lovely early birthday surprise.
