Living Happily Ever After

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My Signature

Note: In honor of this month of love, I felt a few love-related posts are in order…

“A man’s kiss is his signature.” (Mae West)

I was raised in a physically demonstrative family—that is to say I grew up in a family of kissers. My parents kissed me before I went to bed each night; my grandparents, aunts and uncles always welcomed me with a kiss; my great aunt, Aunt Ireta, a tiny woman infamous for puckering up her brightly painted lips to greet me never failed to warm my heart with her hello kisses.

With kisses playing such a role in shaping what I’ve become, it comes as no surprise that they led to second marriage moment #30.

One night my new husband, my boys and I were driving in the car. Somehow the subject turned to kissing and of course, my sons just had to make comments about me and how I kiss “everyone.” (In my defense, I’m not the lone kisser in the world. I think it was Jimi Hendrix who said, “Excuse me while I kiss the sky.” I’ve never done THAT! Lol.)

And then suddenly, an epiphany dawned in the minds and faces of my sons. They looked at each other, laughed and one of them gleefully taunted my husband: “HA HA! Now YOU have to be her victim!”

My husband just smiled, looked at my son and replied, “That’s ok. I don’t mind!”

I’m glad he feels that way. Because, “A kiss is a rosy dot over the ‘i’ of loving.” (Cyrano de Bergerac—my favorite play, by the way.)

And because of how I was raised which contributed to making me who and how I am, I don’t see my thoughts on the subject or my propensity to administer kisses changing any time soon.

I believe there is power in them, for sure. They can make you something. After all, “A kiss from my mother made me a painter,” said Benjamin West.

And remember to give them the focus they require. “Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.” (Albert Einstein)

Smart man.

Speaking of Battles

“Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.” (George S. Patton)

Ok. So it’s time for a little too much information. About #5. And the way he “fights.” Get this:

1. He doesn’t yell. He discusses issues, calmly and patiently, in a rational manner. I appreciate that. (It’s how I’m inclined to resolve things, as well.)

2.  He is loving and affectionate, even in the face of a disagreement. For example, when we’re discussing an “issue,” he is touching my shoulder, holding my hand or has an arm around my waist. (I have to say, I love this one. I’ve never seen anyone “fight” like this, but I appreciate it!)

3. The one or two discussions we’ve had since the infamous conversation pre-marriage when he “dumped” me and that I would consider a “fight,” #5 either doesn’t remember them or he doesn’t consider them “fights.” I think three times now he has told me,” “Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been mad at you before!” (I appreciate his short term memory in this regard!)

4. He’s got the “kiss and make up” part at the end together! (SORRY! Just had to throw that in there– I’ve already shared TMI in this post, what’s a little more?) I guess you could say he has learned what Bob Marley has: “The harder the battle the sweet of jah victory.” Whatever that means.

However, if, “The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree…but hold hands,” (Unknown) then #5 and I have passed the test. Each and every time.

Knowns and Unknowns

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” (Donald Rumsfeld)

When #5 and I were dating, shortly after he told me how he felt about me, he showed up one night with a book. It was titled something like, “1,000 Questions For Divorced People To Ask Before They Get Married Again.” He told me he thought we’d work our way through the questions in the book that night, and on future dates. That book and the whole idea of it caught me off guard, and while I thumbed through it a little bit as he drove, we didn’t really utilize it for our conversations. In fact, I probably made some jokes about it and assured #5 we didn’t need a book like that. (I mean, I interview people for a living!) And eventually, over the course of our unexpectedly long engagement, I forgot about it.

Then it came time to marry. One night I looked at him and exclaimed, “Wait! Where’s that book? We should read it!”

“What book?” he asked.

“The one about everything we need to know, and ask, before we get married,” I answered.

“I got rid of it,” he replied.

“WHAT?” I asked. “Why did you do that? We didn’t even read it.”

“You told me we didn’t need it,” he answered. “So I got rid of it.”

I took a leap of faith…and married him without the aid of that book. Everything went quite well until last week,  when I went to a bridal shower to honor the fiancee of #5′s oldest son.

During the event, they played a game where the fiancee had to answer a long list of questions about her intended. If she didn’t know the answer to a question, she had to chew a piece of bubblegum–adding a new piece to the blob that was accumulating in her mouth for each wrong answer or any answer she didn’t know. And although she ended up with a mouth full of bubblegum, she knew a LOT about #5′s son! I sat there marveling at all she knew about the man she was marrying and I came to a realization: I didn’t know #5–AT ALL.

Honeymoon over.

When I got home, #5 asked me how the evening went. I replied, “Fine, but it made me realize something.”

“What’s that?” he  asked.

“That I don’t know you–at all!” I answered. “I feel like I don’t know you at all and I’m trying to remember what we talked about the whole time we dated and were engaged, since there is so much about you I don’t know!”

“Like what?” he challenged.

I began to rattle off questions from the bridal shower I didn’t know:  favorite actor, favorite play, favorite song, favorite color, first girlfriend, first kiss and many other facts. I wanted #5′s answers; I’m married to him, I probably ought to know him!

That quest, however, brought me to additional realizations, like the realization that there is a reason I don’t know #5. To every answer except the favorite movie  one (his favorite movie is the original “Parent Trap–” he had a mad crush on Haley Mills, I think!) he either didn’t have a favorite or he needed more clarification: did I mean his first girlfriend (from 1st grade), his first REAL girlfriend, or his first girlfriend after his divorce? If experts say intelligent people tend to over-analyze questions and situations, I guess you could say the biggest thing I learned that night was the extent of #5′s intelligence; he is even more intelligent than I had originally thought! He asked for so much clarification I gave up and asked him an easy question I knew he’d know the answer to.

“Never mind, just tell me, where was our first kiss?”

Without missing a beat and without absolutely any hesitation he quickly answered, “At my house, by the door leading to the garage…” and he went on to describe everything in great detail. There was just one problem. That wasn’t OUR first kiss. THAT I knew.

“Must have been someone else,” I joked.

“It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” (Will Rogers)

Apparently, I’m not the only one who doesn’t KNOW things!

Second marriage moment #10. That instant where I realized, again, that I was so happily married to a man I love despite the fact I don’t even “know” him! (Or at least, trivial details about him.) And that’s ok, because as Katharine Hepburn said, “Someone asked someone who was about my age, ‘How are you?’ The answer was, ‘Fine. If you don’t ask for details.’”


The One That Left Them All Behind

“If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.” (J.M. Power)

I woke up.

It was the day of my wedding.

I was calm, at peace, happy, excited and really didn’t have anything to worry about, except #5 showing up! (A snowstorm was in the forecast, and he was driving down with my two oldest children that morning.) It was getting pretty close to the time we needed to be at the Manti L.D.S. Temple, and just as I noticed that and began to worry about the snow and wonder if #5 was going to show up, I heard his voice in the kitchen.

He had arrived!

I confess, my heart did a little leap when I heard him.

I walked out to greet him and I confess, again, that my heart did another leap when I saw him. (Do I have a crazy crush, or what? I should probably marry the man!) He looked so handsome, standing there in his new wedding attire–dark suit, red tie–and his “longer” hair. (He auditioned for a film role that requires longer hair, so he’s been growing it for awhile. He was worried about the long hair and joked he’d have to photoshop his head onto our wedding photos because he looked so scroungy, but honestly, I’m kind of liking it!)

I rushed to finish getting ready, #5 soon informed me it was time to go, so I grabbed my dress and we drove to the temple.

Totally happy.

Totally in love.

Totally calm.

Totally at peace.

And then we were at the temple. As we walked toward the front doors, I couldn’t help but reflect on the previous generations of my family members who had done the very same thing at that very same temple: my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents  on both sides and many others. It was a beautiful building and the perfect place for me to embark on an entirely new adventure (slightly more expected than the last one, I might add!)

As we walked the halls of that sacred place, climbed the famous spiral staircase built by pioneers that still stands as an engineering marvel today, and entered the room we were married in I had only one thought: “This day is worth absolutely everything I endured to get here. Every single event that led to this moment, the waiting, the enduring, the challenges, everything…I would go through every single one of them, again, to learn what I have learned and to end up here with #5 today.” I believe that sometimes we have to go through very difficult things to get to exactly where we need to be.

And then we were married. The whole thing could not have been more perfect (except for my damp palms, I don’t know why I had them because I wasn’t nervous, but that wasn’t very romantic of me; my sincerest apologies to #5.) What I remember most about my wedding is that it all couldn’t have been more perfect! Through the whole thing I kept thinking, “This is absolutely perfect! This is my favorite wedding I have ever been to!” And it was.

At the end of the ceremony, the man performing our marriage and sealing told #5 to kiss his bride–so #5 did. Afterward, the sealer commented that it was one of the lengthier, thorough, and more “romantic” kisses he had ever witnessed in the temple, and without missing a beat #5 explained, “That’s because we’ve had a lot of practice!”

Although I’m pretty sure #5 was referencing my age, since I’m a newlywed, I’ll let it slide:) But let me say this:

“Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.” (“The Princess Bride”)

But I may be slightly prejudiced.:)