Love: Something’s gotta give
If you’ve stayed married for over 25 years, you’ve been married too long. I was 25 when I got married so that number became a start-off point when I (secretly) kept a close watch on my husband to see whether he meant every vow he uttered, “I will make you happy and grow old with you.”
I also kept another perspective: If this man can give me a better life than what my loving parents gave me, he is truly the one.
You can say that the steeple bells rang louder when I heaved a big sigh during our silver wedding anniversary because it proved that “this man was truly here for the long march.”
Staying married was a joint effort, filled with adjustments, compromises and, as marriage counselors emphasized, a firm, cerebral decision to stay in this marriage. However, life together did not eliminate the little irritants that sometimes blew out of proportions because he’d go ballistic (using his stentorian voice to scare me) and I’d meet it (equally) with raging fire and brimstone (if I stomp on my right foot, he’d know I mean war).
Consider this: A Scorpio versus a Virgo? By our zodiac signs alone, you could pick the winner, right? Who would dare unleash the deadly sting of a scorpion? A virgin?
When the children came, our relationship changed. No more a couple but now partners or comrades, both challenged to be at our best in bringing up these little precious darlings who suddenly took over our lives and became our prime inspiration. Even so, we fumbled and made mistakes. Sometimes, hard and long but still and all, we plodded on and shook off the dust of rejections and disappointments.
Forty-three years hence, we still go out on movie dates, this time, brandishing free movie passes, one of the perks of turning 60. We became seasoned film critics that we gauge the success of a movie by how it can make us sit up in full attention or make us doze off in plain vanilla. Last week, we walked out because the film was going nowhere despite the impressive cast. We giggled together, “Good thing, it was free.” With time to spare, we ended up in a shabu-shabu restaurant picking out all the veggies, seafood, and mushrooms to cook in a hot, boiling pot. We’ve become so comfortable with each other that we can even check our respective cellphones, swapping messages and jokes and not carrying any serious conversation between us two.
I’ve become a whiz on his likes: movies with no-dialogue, all-action (the kind where everybody runs from a detonated bomb yet remaining unscathed and not a hair out of place), watches, golf, blue jeans, statement shirts, his devotion to the Divine Mercy and Mary Undoer of Knots, parmeggiano reggiano, the finest red wine with delicious character from that side of the Rhone, fresh dates, rockettes/arugula, and the one-tone, same-tune music of Abba and Air Supply (they even start with the letter A).
It startled me therefore when my friend Mav Rufino sent me a list of famous love letters ever written in history. Love. How could I have forgotten that?
Quickly, I opened a glass chest containing faded notes, postcards, telegrams, and cables to check what did he send me when he was just an ardent suitor? Short, sweet messages that were definitely over the top. If it were a cake, the icing was rich and heavy that it was cascading down the edges. But, isn’t that what love is? Emotions running so high that you’d literally be floating on air or swinging on a star or flying up to the moon? How lovely to remember that feeling.
Tonight, we sat next to each other on our double LazyBoy chair. Hubby switched on the TV set while I held the cable channel control. Hubby remarked, “Let’s watch Pope Pius XII (on Netflix). I’ve always been intrigued by this pontiff.”
In the cool, cool, cool of the evening, we were off to Rome, the romantic city. Wrong. It’s the eternal city.
So, how is married life?
Like Jack Nicholson singing La Vie en Rose to Diane Keaton in the movie Something’s Gotta Give. Jack was absolutely funny, loving, tender, and so awkwardly romantic.
It was coffee and classics, at its best.
