Birthday Madness and Thoughts on Marriage

I completely forgot!!!

March 7th rolled around this year, and that meant that I was lucky enough to celebrate my husband's 30th birthday. It's a big one- not as big as 40 from what I understand, but a milestone nonetheless.

We invited the whole Tennessee crew out to McLeod's on the strip on Friday night for Karaoke, as that's what Scottie likes to do more than just about anything else. I indulged the birthday boy with dark chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting, and his friends indulged him by buying him his weight in jack and cokes. All in all, a successful endeavor.

I've been around for 4 of this man's birthdays now, and this is the first one that I can remember him smiling the entire time. It was great to see that his friends came out to help him celebrate, and drinks aside, I know that being with people that he's come to love over the past few years meant a lot to him. And it made ME feel good as his wife to know that he is loved by others, and that they see the same kind of fantastic qualities in him that I do. Well, probably not the same kind of appreciation for his idiosynchracies, but I'll take what I can get.

Marriage is a funny thing, really. You commit to someone, and it seems like the biggest thing you'll ever do is in that moment. The awesome part is, that's not even close! The big things are always ahead of you, and the REALLY big thing, the absolute test of the commitment that you made to each other is that you weather things together. It's hard not to retreat into your own being. It takes work to constantly be engaged in someone other than yourself, to think about what they want, what they think, how they'll react to any decision that you need to make. Scottie and I are learning how to handle that, and it seems to get better every day. I've been feeling very disconnected from my husband lately, ironically because I'm trying to apply the principle of "we". I have to admit, I feel obligated to attend certain functions that I probably don't have to in order to (as I see it) support him, but I spend most of my time complaining that I'm there....it would probably be better served for both of us if I stopped doing that, and focused on something that I needed to do. We'd certainly have something else to talk about (other than cleaning up after the dog, and whether we'd fed lunchbox the cat), and I think it would help us to further retain the sense of self that can slip away. I need my "I" back! I think his is intact, but mine feels like it's wandering out on a leash somewhere. Completely attainable, though, and having just acknowledged that, I know I can fix it.

Things are in the works for employment for Scottie- I'll post when I know more details.
Night, all!