Even if

I was at church one Sunday, and the pastor was talking about the age-old topic of what it takes to be a christian.  It was the usual speech about how we typically bargain with God - i.e. I'll go to church if you help me get this job.  I'll be a better Christian if you help me get a boyfriend.  I'll pray every day if you get me out of this pickle.  In usual pastoral fashion, he re-framed the question to say that as Christians, we should be saying the opposite - I'll go to church even if I don't get this job.  I'll be a better Christian even if I am single forever.  I'll pray every day even if I never get out of this pickle.  To be honest, this didn't have much impact on me bc I've heard this sermon hundreds of times before.  I know the answer between the "even" and the "even if" scenarios. 

But something changed.  I looked over at Sy sitting next to me, and I thought about our marriage.  Could I apply these questions to him?  I thought about our early days of dating, and how those "if" questions had been so important.  I'll go on a date with him if he asks me out.  I'll say I love you if he says it first.  I'll marry him if I feel like he's got all the characteristics I want in a husband.  Everything was so conditional.  But now that we're married, there's no getting out of it - we're committed, and that's that.

So I wondered, what are the new "even if" statements that faced me now?  I will love you even if we fight.  I will keep fighting for our marriage even if it feels too hard.  I will follow and submit to you even if I don't agree.  I will be selfless even if I want to be selfish so badly.  Thinking about those statements, I realized how hard it is to be married.  "Even if" events will occur in our marriage for sure.  There's no uncertainty about that.  But I committed to be his wife, and that means that I don't walk away even when our life is riddled with "even if" situations.

As we journey further into our 2nd year of marriage, I am learning more and more that marriage is not just about creating as many happy memories as possible - it's about being there - and not leaving.  I love being married, but it has shown me very acutely how nice it was when I lived only for myself.  Relationships are wonderful - but they come at a cost - whether it's with your best friend, your husband, or your God, relationships require sacrifice.  I still think it's worth it - even if it's harder than I'll ever imagine.

The girl in the gray toggle coat

Recently, I've really been enjoying the act of purging my closet.  It feels so cathartic to watch my closet have some breathing room as I remove more and more pieces of clothing. But for anyone who knows me well, they'd be surprised to know that this is my new pastime.  I wouldn't say that I'm a hoarder, but I definitely have hoarding tendencies.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not some crazy lady who can't differentiate garbage from necessities.  But I am a very sentimental person.  I see the meaning and symbolism in most objects, which makes it very difficult for me to say goodbye to them.  My clothes definitely fall into this category.

I recently acquired a bunch of new winter coats, and my hallway closet has become overstuffed to the point where a puffy coat needed to re-puff itself once I took it off the hanger.  I knew it was time to get rid of some of my coats.  As I scanned the row of wool and down, my eyes fell upon my old gray, toggle coat.  I immediately flashed back to my 26 year old self.  That Mia was a lonely, idealistic, daydreaming romantic.  She had been single for a couple of years and was ready to embark on the love story of her life.  One day, while shopping, she laid eyes upon this perfect gray toggle coat and thought, "Oh my!  What an adorable coat!  It's the kind of coat that looks mature enough for a late 20-something girl, but had enough cute embellishments to stand out with girlish flare."  I imagined wearing the coat while out in the city, and stumbling upon a handsome stranger, who thought she was cute.  They would go on romantic winter dates with her wearing that coat.  He would kiss her on the nose as the snow gently fell on top of her hood.  He would hold her hand as they ran through the streets looking for cover.  All this would happen because of this coat.

So I bought it!  And you know what?  I did meet a boy when I wore that coat.  We dated for a few years, but broke up.  As I looked at that coat now - wondering if I should throw it away - my heart tugged at me for a moment.  Can you really throw away all those memories?  You're throwing away that 26 year old girl!  My hoarding tendencies came roaring out, and all my justifying thoughts came rushing in: you can still wear this coat!  you don't have a gray coat in your repertoire! you need a coat that you don't care about getting dirty!  But as my new sensible 34-year-old brain kicked in, I knew it was time to let it go.  That coat fulfilled its duty.  It was time to donate it to someone else who could use it and find joy in it.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to throw away the dress I wore when Sy proposed to me, or the sweater I wore when he whisked me off to Boston for a birthday surprise.  Those clothes have too many special memories in them for me to let go of.  But either way, I feel it's important to pay homage to these clothes and memories - whether I cherish them forever or scatter them to the wind.

When it's all said and done

Last night, I was watching the Grammy's, and I was suddenly drawn into one of the performances.  I was mesmerized as Alicia Keys and Maren Morris sang "Once," and crooned beautifully sad and wistful lyrics.  These are my favorite kind of songs - the kinds that tug at your heart and make you remember and feel all your pain from the past. 

But one line stuck out to me - "when it's all said and done, don't forget that you loved me once."

The words "when it's all said and done" kept haunting me.  In life, when do we ever really say that phrase?  You read that line in books; you hear a narrator telling a story; you hear it hanging off a singer's lips.  But do we ever say it ourselves?  in real life?

And I realized no.  Why don't we?  Because it's just far too dramatic.  Everything you say after a phrase like "when it's all said and done" feels like a compositional embellishment.  But I love it.  I love when words and phrases have a heavy impact like a thick winter blanket weighing down on your body.  I love how no matter what I write after this phrase, it evokes a deep sense of longing and yearning in your heart.  Let's try it out:

When it's all said and done - I still can't forget.

When it's all said and done - you can't change the past.

When it's all said and done - I will be alone.

When it's all said and done - we move on.

I even tried to put silly things after this phrase:

When it's all said and done - the cat will meow.
When it's all said and done - chicken is the best.
When it's all said and done - I will go to bed.

No matter what I write, it may sound less dramatic, but it still has a feeling of finality, concreteness.  What a powerful phrase.   So while I soaked in the beauty of this song's melody and voice, I also fell deeply into the pillowy depths of its words.

After all - when it's all said and done - the words are all we have left.

A Slice of Humble Pie

Every morning, on my walk to work, I always pass by a man wearing a sign on his body, as he calls out to the cranky pedestrians on the sidewalk to get a massage or spa treatment at the store above.  I always ignore his advertisements and try not to make eye contact.  To me, he is just a nuisance on a crowded sidewalk as I try to navigate my way through tourists to start another day of work.  I'm always unhappy in the mornings as I walk to work because I dread going to the office. 

But this morning, as I walked on my less-crowded sidewalk (thanks to the empty-ing out of humans in nyc in the holiday season), I found that man sitting inside a deli.  He was resting on a chair, gloomily looking out the window.  I wondered why he was sitting in there, and I quickly realized that he must have been cold and tired and wanted a short respite.  And as I walked past him, again dreading my work day, I thought about how much it must suck to have this job.  To be outside day in and day out, whether it's blistering cold or unbearably hot, spritzy rain or gusty wind, he is out there getting ignored by a city of apathetic and grumpy individuals. 

I suddenly got a flashback of my weekend.  I was at a diner with Julia and Dennis, and Dennis asked me how my job was.  I answered, "It's okay."  Perhaps this wasn't the answer that Dennis was expecting to hear, and he asked, "You're not enjoying your job?"  And I looked at him wearily, and said, "Not really.  It's just my job.  Pays the bills.  It's fine."  He then gave me a look - a look of Wow, I don't know how to respond to that.  I didn't feel an ounce of guilt for my comment.  It was the truth; it was how I felt. 

So as I pushed through the turnstile to my building, I thought about much I normally dread work, but what a fool I am for being such an ungrateful brat.  I could be doing this man's job - but I'm not.  I'm sitting in my warm office, surfing jcrew.com, drinking my free tea and eating my free bagel.  I'm not being subjected to the whim of the weather, I'm listening to my spotify playlist.  I'm not running my voice ragged asking people to go get a massage - I'm gchatting with Sy.  What a brat I have been.  I have been so bitter at my job for months now.  Sure, I have reason to be bitter - but is it necessary for me to be so thankless? 

I'm glad that I have been awoken from my self-centered stupor.  But I hope I don't slip back into a self-indulgent flood.  Friends - help remind me to be in awe of all the blessings I have.  I want to see the world again through fresh eyes.

Standstill

I think one of the hardest things about marriage is the fact that 2 people must somehow be able to co-exist forever.  It was hard enough living with roommates because roommates all have different standards of aspects of life: cleanliness, finances, noise, personal space, etc.  Living with roommates gets tough bc having different standards for life can make your co-existence filled with friction.  That's why eventually people choose to live on their own because it's so much easier to be alone than with someone else.

But when you get married, you're not only living with this person, but you're stuck with this person with no end in sight.  Now, don't get me wrong - I love marriage.  But when you're making friction, it can feel like there's no end in sight.

Sy and I have different standards for certain parts of our lives.  And lately, I've really been struggling with how you reconcile those differences.  How do you live with someone who believes in something that you just don't believe in?  I'll give a harmless example:

Let's say that a wife loves golf.  She spends money to go golfing at the range; she spends hours away from her husband and family playing golf.  The husband thinks that golf is not a good sport due to its high cost in money and time, and would prefer if the wife were to quit.  What do you do?  The wife enjoys golf - do you take it away from her?  Or do you tell the husband to ignore it for her happiness - even though it makes him unhappy? 

There's nothing wrong with golf inherently - it's not an evil sport.  and yet, 2 people have different standards of what is an acceptable sport or not.  There are pros and cons to both.  What are you to do? 

And this is where marriage gets tricky.  No 2 people are ever going to be 100% in sync with each other on everything.  So then what do you when you reach this point?  What do you do if these differences are actually major passion points in their lives?  How do you reconcile such deep differences? 

This is where I am.  I don't know what you're supposed to do.  What would Jesus do in this situation?  I have no idea.  I really wish I knew.

Happy Anniversary To Us!

Sy and I recently celebrated our 1 year anniversary!  It's shocking how fast a year has gone by.  Wedding planning memories still feel super vivid to me, and yet, an entire year of 4 seasons has come and gone.  I still feel like we ought to be considered newlyweds, because we certainly don't feel like seasoned veterans just yet. 

In the weeks leading up to our anniversary, I was pretty busy planning our trip to Korea and also our trip to Seattle.  And me, being the crazy-planner that I am, also was trying to plan our actual anniversary celebration as well.  And it really got me reflecting about our first year of marriage.  Questions like, did we have a good first year?  what did we get better at?  where did we fall short?  what can we do better?  how far have we come? kept creeping into my mind any time I had a spare quiet moment.

Before we got married, I was pretty nervous.  I had been thoroughly warned that the first year of marriage is the hardest.  And while I knew couples who breezed through their first year, I certainly knew plenty who had a hard time.  I had feared that we would land on the unlucky side, and had mentally braced myself for it.  To be honest, our first 3 months of marriage were hard.  By the time we came back from our honeymoon, we were thrust into the holiday season, and neither of us had foresaw how chaotic and stressful it would be to manage 2 very needy families.  We ended up fighting a lot and it freaked me out a lot.  You hear about phrases like "the honeymoon phase" and it scared me that we could fight so much in what should be our honeymoon phase.  Did we make a mistake?  Should we not have gotten married? Those were terrifying questions to have to answer.

But time kept moving on, and we somehow managed to survive that storm.  We came out of it beaten and tired, but alive.  Perhaps this was part of how we were able to rise above it.  I think we just got tired of fighting so much, and wanted some peace and quiet and chose to let some things slide, or figured out how to prevent certain arguments.  And things got better.  Perhaps that is what marriage and relationships are like.  You start off full of energy, ready to change the world and your spouse, and then you realize it's too hard.  Let me work on the smaller stuff and get better success rates this way.  And then all of a sudden, you look back, and you have all these months of happy memories piled up to land on when you get knocked down from a fight.  And when you fall down, it doesn't feel so bad.

I'm really proud of our first year.  Sy and I are two very different people.  We think so differently and react so opposite-ly that it could have been a much harder year.  But at the end of the day, I always knew he loved me like crazy, and having that nugget to hold on to gave me strength to keep pushing through.  When I think back on our first year, I remember so many happy memories. It really was a good year.

So, in true Mia fashion -  I made some Year 2 Marriage Resolutions to make our 2nd year better - not just for us, but also for myself.  I want to be a better wife, and I want to be a better "helper" that God has called me to be.

1. I will cook us more dinner.  
I'm not saying I want to go back to the '50s and become an apron-donning stay at home mom.  But I think there is something valued at being a mom who's cooking the whole family loves.  But how can I become that kind of mom if I'm always ordering pizza and thai bc I'm too lazy to cook?  So, it's time that I start practicing cooking on a more regular basis, save us some money, eat healthier home-cooked meals, and make my husband happy!

2.  I will pray for Sy more.
I'm ashamed to say that I prayed for him less this year than I did when we were dating.  I spent so much precious prayer-real estate on things that I wanted selfishly, that I just stopped praying for him.  But no more!  I will be his prayer-warrior wife and always have him covered in prayer as the head of our household.

3. I will work on reviving my own spiritual life as a wife.  
It's funny.  I don't think I fell away from God, but I know that God stopped being a priority somehow.  I was so focused all year on making sure we had a happy marriage that I figured God would be okay with this.  But in recent months, I've noticed a feeling of longing for the past.  I had wondered if it was that I missed being single, but I've realized that it's that I miss feeling intimate with God.  I associate my single days with my best times with God.  So I've decided that in year 2 of marriage, I will prioritize God AND my marriage.  I know what it looks like to be single and have a great relationship with God.  But I'm not so sure what it looks like to be married and have a great relationship with God.  It'll be a big learning curve, but I'm ready.

I hope my readers out there will pray for me and Sy, and will also encourage me to stick to these marriage resolutions throughout the next year.  I'm hoping it's gonna be a really wonderful year full of more blessings than I can imagine! 

Marital Bliss(ters)

Whenever I talk to my single friends, I'm always filled with sadness when I hear about their loneliness and their fears of being single forever.  I remember those sentiments all too well.  I remember feeling so much relief when Sy and I got engaged, and I thought I finally had my happy ending.  No more breakups, no more single girl loneliness, no more jealousy at happy couples, no more fear of being alone.  It was wonderful.

But people don't ever talk about the hard part of marriage.  In movies, we see all the effort and journey of going from building the courage to ask out someone to the bliss of the beginnings of relationships - and then the predictable plot twist where a relationship seems tenuous, and then the happy resolution.  But this is where the movie ends - a wedding kiss, a happy embrace, a tearful reunion.  They never show you what happens after - the difficulties of 2 becoming 1.  I think we just assume that because you're in love, you'll never fight again.  Because it was so hard to overcome that first battle, you'll never forget it and always be eternally grateful.  But it's not true.  Humans are so forgetful. Within a day we forget the considerate things people do for us.  Within hours, we forget about our diets.  Within seconds, a good mood can turn sour and emotions flare up. 

Just because you get married doesn't mean forever anymore.  The D word still looms over you like a dark cloud, no matter how christian you are - because the sad truth is - divorce happens to everyone.  And when divorce comes knocking at your door, asking to hang out for a few hours, it may not stay for long, but the stench of it lingers for days. 

In a book I'm reading, I read a quote, "Piece of free advice --  never try and work out what's going on in someone else's marriage." - The Light Between Oceans.  I've learned that every marriage is different and every marriage has its struggles.  Yes, every couple seems picture perfect on instagram and facebook.  They look so happy!  They go on all these cute dates and they're so romantic!  But I'm learning - every marriage is hard.  Every marriage has its ups and downs.  You just never know which curve you'll get when you ask the question - how's married life? 

Friends - pray for your married friends.  Pray for their marriages.  They need it as much as the single people do.  Maybe even more.