A few Saturday’s ago I was home alone. My wife went to pick up our son who stayed at a friends house the previous night while we had a wonderful evening at our dear friends wedding. After the wedding we went to my brothers for a bonfire with many of our friends that also attended the wedding. I spend most Saturdays filming weddings now. I feel like every weekend I get a day-long reminder of why my wife is my best friend. I have seen about 7 beginnings in the past month. I have seen couples like our friends who are so perfect together it’s evidence of divinity and I have seen couples that are fighting to make things work at their wedding ceremony. Their faces and the faces of their loved ones say that this hasn’t been an easy road. I don’t think either is a guarantee of future bliss or problems.
The bottom line is that marriage is work. Every day I am realizing how big an ass I am and sometimes I correct it. My wife and I decided that when we got married we were married for life: That divorce wasn’t an option. So, we talk and talk and yell until we come to an agreement. Then we hug eachother. Sometimes, this process takes minutes and sometimes it takes days. Our relationship isn’t a fairytale romance but I have yet to meet a couple that has a castle and a dragon. Being made for eachother only takes you so far. If you can’t admit you are a jerk sometimes, or if your partner can’t admit that you are, there will be unresolved issues that will derail what started out so perfectly.
I say all of that to preface why the short film I watched while my wife was picking up our son was so powerful. I watch a lot of PBS and sometimes they throw on these short films to round out an hour. This Saturday they played a short film from Story Corps. I have never heard of Story Corps before but I became an instant fan. They take audio from interviews with real people and animate it. Halfway through this short film I was blubbering like an idiot. It was the perfect way to cap a crazy couple of months of weddings. We need to see how more people end their lives; if they had the same stamina and commitment that they had on their wedding day. It doesn’t matter how perfect you think you and your wife are on day one, It doesn’t matter on your last day: It matters everyday. I’m not just speaking about staying married regardless of the pain in the relationship. I’m speaking of loving your spouse enough to fight through their bullheadedness and your own blindness to your flaws. I love my wife more today than I did ten years ago when I said “I do.” Nineteen year old Jordan said I do because his wife was a smoking hot beauty that intoxicated his brain. But now I say I do because she doesn’t allow me to walk away. She is the only reason I am who I am today and she has stuck by me through the muck and the mountains. I am so grateful to have a friend like her. And she is still smoking hot.
