Living Happily Ever After

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A Miracle

“Don’t rush me, sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.” (The Princess Bride)

My husband came home from work the other day to report a new study he’d heard about: marriages where both partners share the duties of housework have a 50% chance of ending in divorce, isn’t that interesting?

Actually, it got me a little riled.

“Wait a minute,” I replied. “If 50% of all marriages supposedly end in divorce, and if 50% of remarriages are supposed to end in divorce, and if differences related to children, money, satisfaction, expectations, life stress and everything else supposedly cause 50% of marriages to end in divorce, and if helping each other around the house is now supposed to cause divorce…how is ANYONE supposed to stay married these days? Much less, how will WE stay married? We have every single statistic stacked against us and more—”

“Because we’re a miracle!” my husband exclaimed.

“But—” I began.

“We’re a miracle, and we always will be! We’re a miracle!” he exclaimed again, laughed, and ended all other conversation with a very shall we say…convincing…kiss.

“That married couples can live together day after day is a miracle that the Vatican has overlooked.” (Bill Cosby)

I’m grateful for the “miracle” that is mine and for the “miracle” of many other happy, committed marriages and families in the world. I’m a fan—I believe in marriage and family and what a blessing both have been, and are, in my life.

We need more miracles.

And if you don’t have your miracle yet, hang in there. Don’t give up. I’m rooting for you. After all, you can’t rush a miracle.

It’s A Lot Of Fun

“I can rock out anything. I mean, I can rock out a little ‘Time After Time’. I can do a little ‘Greased Lightning’. It depends on the mood…and it’s a lot of fun.” (Kristen Bell)

The extent of anything even approaching rocking out in my life took place, for the first and last time, during high school. I was the lead “singer” in an airband. I imitated Kim Wilde, we rocked “We’re The Kids In America,” and I have the pictures to prove it. Cut to 2011.

In honor of my husband’s 50th birthday, we went on a leaf peeping cruise with some of his family and friends. I wasn’t sure what to expect. We’d only been married 7 months, I didn’t know some of the people we were cruising with at all and I was nervous about leaving my children for 10 days. (In my entire 20 year marriage, all 7,300 nights of it if I’ve done the math correctly, I left my children a total of 16 nights–discounting hospitalizations, but those are another story! In fact, to avoid that very dilemma of leaving my children and for the sake of creating family memories, I’d taken my children to Africa, New Zealand, Turkey, Russia and many other places so that I could see the world and share it with my children without having to leave them. ) But my new husband is a big believer in couples’ “getaways.” So although wary about the whole thing, I agreed to go.

The closer we got to our departure, the more nervous I was, to which my husband would reassure me, “This is going to be great! Traveling without children is a WHOLE new world! You’ll be amazed at how fun it is, all the fun you can have, staying out late, dancing and socializing with adults!” So we went.

And the first night on the cruise ship, wouldn’t you know, we ended up in a karaoke lounge? I’m married to a performer, so it’s something he apparently is familiar with and participates in on occasion, however, my only brush with karaoke in my entire life was the karaoke scene in “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” when an apparently intoxicated Cameron Diaz belts out an awful performance and everyone claps and cheers her on anyway. But here’s what I learned that night in the Carnival karaoke lounge: I was surprised to discover how true-to-life that movie scene was.

Good, bad, or really terrible…anybody stood and sang for the room. The audience listened politely every time, cheered the singers on and actually clapped for them at the end! The really good performers got a louder show of appreciation, but everyone received pretty generous applause. I actually became a little more impressed at my fellow man after seeing them participate, on stage or in the audience, of karaoke! And I sat there innocently watching, not feeling threatened in the least by what was going on around me–it wasn’t my business or my world, at all, after all–until my husband said to me, “Ok, it’s your turn. What are you going to sing?”

NO.

I don’t “do” karaoke.

Never.

No way.

My husband wasn’t about to let me off easy, he insisted I participate, so I finally said, “I’ll only do it if they have ABBA,” knowing they’d never have music like that at karaoke. (I TOLD you I didn’t know anything about karaoke!) They had it. And before I knew what was happening, I found myself heading to the stage. Alone. Head spinning. All I could think was, “This is not me. This is not my life. This is not what I do. If someone had told me two years ago I’d EVER be doing karaoke…” Just the usual disbelief my old self has for the new me living the unexpected life.

I ended up singing a duet with the karaoke hostess who guided me through the whole experience because it was my first time. We even harmonized. Our own little version doing what Anni-Frid and Agnetha did best—”Dancing Queen.”

I don’t drink, so I can’t be sure, but I think it may not have been QUITE as bad as the movies.

“Everybody’s a filmmaker today.” (John Milius)

I wish I could say that was my last foray into film, but it wasn’t. It gets worse. Much worse.