These Are My Confessions

If we’re being honest (and we always are) I did not forget about you or my desires/intentions to pen you heartwarmingly honest essays on marriage; faith; the benefits of coffee, nonstick pans, or butter, etc.; or my cat (I actually truly have a half-typed post lingering somewhere in my email about my cat so…stay tuned.) But if we’re being honest, I have approx. one million and one things to do all the time, and you’d better believe that those things include (but are not limited to) stalking people on Instagram, having my feet massaged (marriage!), talking to Caleb about how awesome Scout is, and running out of butter. But also work and making sure my eyelids have slipped shut each night by no later than 9:17 p.m. (I kid you not. Last night we stayed at small group until close to 10 and this morning I almost started in on a big whine session because I was SO TIRED but Caleb saw it coming and started massaging my feet to offset it.)

Anyway, in this new and bustling season (as they say), I thought I’d get it together and give you what I can give. I’m calling these confessions because I just used my last ounce of creative pickle juice making a magazine, but if you can think of something wittier, I’m open to suggestions.

We actually go to bed by 9 every night. In case you thought I was kidding.

Every morning, Scout jumps on our bed while we’re drinking our coffee and we play “cover monster,” which is where I scratch my hand around under the covers and she pounces on it (cat and mouse, lacking one mouse.) The confession is that I taped this (very cute) phenomenon and sent it to Scout’s grandparents. (Reminder: Scout is a cat.)

Also related to Scout—and I’m only sharing this one so you can be enlightened as to how awesome Caleb is and/or how much growing I have left as a human being: Scout has thrown up no less than 923 times in the past three months (just in case you were worried, it’s because she has long hair and thus a lot of hairballs. It’s cute.) and I have cleaned this up twice. (Yes, I said twice.) Once was only because Caleb wouldn’t be home for another 45 minutes and I was afraid I would forget and step in it or I would have left it for him. However, I did write 95 percent of our wedding thank you cards. #Saint

This just in: I brought fruits and vegetables (OK, vegetable) to work for snacks this morning. But I had eaten all my snacks by 10:15 a.m. and I was waiting on Caleb to join for me a lunch break, so I announced, “I need some protein!” Then I ate a chocolate truffle.

I’m writing this post mostly for my mother-in-law, who is lovely and greets me like this: “Hello how are you I like your haircut where’s your new blog post?” I’m not saying she’s my biggest fan, but…the rest of you can leave your submissions for that title in the comments and we’ll see if someone can edge her out.

Last night (in a room full of people) we had this conversation (while I was eating cake and ice cream):

Lindsey: “Holding this ice cream is making my hand cold.”

Caleb: —

Lindsey: “Holding my ice cream and cake and eating my cake is hard to do at the same time.”

Caleb: “Do you want me to hold your ice cream?”

Lindsey: “No. That would make me look high maintenance.”

(For the record, I am not high maintenance. At least not compared to Paris Hilton and Jack Black. But I do sometimes need help managing my desserts/emotions/mornings, and for that, I look to this superhero of a dude.)

I still play Words with Friends. You can hate if you want, but I think it’s the No. 1 reason I still have my wits about me.

Back to the cat: For all of you people who follow me on Instagram and think, “There is no way this girl can post one more picture of her cat,” you are wrong. I have been thisclose to posting at least five more this week. I restrain myself because self-discipline is a virtue.

I aim to open my eyes every morning and immediately set my heart to think on how good the Lord is (which is good good), but I end up opening my eyes and thinking how many more days till Saturday even though 1. I like my job/ life and have no reason to dread, say, Wednesdays and 2. We usually don’t sleep past 6:30 on Saturdays anyway (because we have been stricken with grownupitis, not because we’re particularly virtuous in that way.)

I started off this marriage with the idea that I was going to be a servant and I still strive to be this way (usually). However, in the area of Closets, I’ve jumped ship. We have two closets, one that’s fairly large and one that’s fairly small. Since Caleb is already sucking it up and working in the large closet (his “office”), I thought I’d be of service and take the small closet so he doesn’t have to study spleens and intestines among my dresses, etc. Until last weekend when I’d had it UP TO HERE with that which is my closet and I revoked the service and demanded the big closet. Now. But did I mention I wrote all of our thank you cards? Plus I make muffins.

Told ya! Alright, that’s all the confessing I can handle for one day, but maybe someday soon I’ll be back with a riveting part II. Or that post about the cat. Either way, let’s chat soon.

What Marriage Means

We got our wedding photos back this week (Cathrine Taylor did our photography and absolutely blew us away.) It was tremendous to look back through them—all 750 of them—because so many of the little moments that I’ve since almost forgotten were brought back into focus. I got to see some moments that I didn’t get to experience firsthand, like when our flower girls scrambled up the aisle, for the first time.

It felt like a long wait for the pictures (I mean, you pretty much want them delivered to you the next day), but what a gift it was to look back, now that we’re almost a couple months out, at the day that we pledged to be BFFs forever. It made me giddy all over again. Now I’m listening to our wedding playlist and reading love poems and texting my husband things like, “Let’s get married!!!!” Also, it made me return to one of my favorite posts on the Internet (ever): “What Marriage Means” by Joanna Goddard. I remember reading this simple, sweet story long before Caleb and I started dating and thinking, man, I’d like to get married someday.

From what I can tell seven weeks in, it’s true what they say: Marriage is hard. But they say it so much. They say it so much that, like I’ve shared before, I got wigged out before we got married that our marriage had no hope to be A Good Marriage. We either wouldn’t submit to each other, or we’d submit too much and feel like we’d lost ourselves. We’d either undercommunicate or overcommunicate (<– something I believe is impossible). Somehow, some way, and probably sooner rather than later, we’d wind up feeling lonely and far away and frustrated.

I can’t say that none of those things will come into play (or even that they haven’t yet). Only seven weeks in, and I can echo the others: Marriage is hard. There are hard conversations and hard days and hard heads. It’s hard in Legit ways—like relationship-building and/or -destroying ways—and in stupid ways. Like one time I cried over Christmas stockings. Wait, that was actually before we were married. Let me try again. I once cried because I THOUGHT Caleb was insinuating that he didn’t love EVERY SINGLE ONE of my (87) coffee mugs. How could he not love them?? I mean, we have one whole cabinet to store our entire collection of kitchen necessities in, and we are all in agreement here that 87 coffee mugs are totally essential.

Wait, we’re not? We’re not in agreement? And I already married you? TEARS. (In my defense, he knew about the coffee mugs before we were married. In his defense, I actually believe with my whole heart that 87 coffee mugs are essential. Also, he is actually cool with 87 coffee mugs. Maybe even 88.)

But we have found the secret, I think. We have found the strongest hope of our lives is the strongest hope for our marriage. Some of you may scoff—I mean, we’re only seven weeks in—but I don’t care. We follow this rule, and the path rises out of the fog until we can walk, steady again. It’s just this: “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” (John 13:34–35)

So anyway, here I am, thumbing through my wedding pictures (again), and thinking about what marriage means. Caleb is better at being married than I am, so most of the what-marriage-means examples involve him being the best husband ever (excepting the coffee mug times, but everyone has his or her flaws, of course, and I accept his. I’m good that way.) Here’s what I think.

Marriage means that I steal his covers every single night (also his space in the bed), and every single morning, he gets out of bed first and brings me my first cup of coffee. Grace in action, my friends. It means that I pad into the kitchen at 7 on the dot every morning to scramble him three eggs for breakfast. It means that yes, I will pick you up, and yes, I will take out the trash because you hate to do it, and yes, you have a back scratcher for life. It means that I can tell you much more about fancy cars and computer parts than I ever thought I’d be able to do; it means that Caleb knows every single time the Gap is having a sale.

Right after we got married, I got sick. It was Christmas Eve, actually, and I woke up feeling terrible. Caleb went out to Walgreens to buy some DayQuil. Usually I kick sickness pretty quickly, but I woke up the next morning feeling sick, too. And then the next day, too, and the day after that. We went on our honeymoon and had lots of fun, but the whole time, I was a hacking, sneezing, snotty mess. It was sexy.

The night we got home, I went to bed early, because I had work the next day and I was still feeling pretty under the weather. Around 11 o’clock, I woke up with ear pain. Yep, a throbbing ear, which I thought stopped happening after age 5. And because it was the middle of the night and because it, well, hurt and because I knew an urgent care clinic wouldn’t open until 7 a.m., I started sobbing. Of course, Caleb woke up. First, he got up to get me some medicine. And then he got up again to get me some more. And when none of the medicine worked and we realized we’d just have to wait it out, he snuggled me close, all night long, as I drifted in and out of sleep.

The next morning, I woke up with fluid leaking out of my ear and very red, swollen eyes. He kissed my forehead and told me I was beautiful. And then, for the next 10 days, he dropped eardrops into my ear every four hours.

You’ve heard, I’m sure, that it’s not romance or infatuation that go the distance. You’ve heard that what counts is when love waves its victorious flag in the ordinary moments; it’s leaky ears and scrambled eggs and watching a whole season of 24 in one week. It’s trying to make it to the gas station before we run out of gas and emails with links we’ll both love and (sometimes) feeling like we don’t understand each other. It’s researching new coffeepots and buying oil for the car and going on a date. It’s saying Big Things—“I think you’re going to be an incredible dad”—and Little Ones—“Thank you.”

Marriage means that the nooks and crannies of your soul, the shadowy bits that you try to pretend aren’t there, get thrust into the light. Sometimes that hurts, because you see how human you are. You watch yourself hurt the very person you get out of bed to scramble eggs for, and you break your own heart. Marriage means watching someone else put all of the pieces back together. It means “I’m sorry” much more than you think it will (once, I told my best friend that I felt like Caleb and I say “I’m sorry” more than we say “I love you.” “Well, those are interchangeable,” she said.) It means setting your hearts on each other’s dreams; it means championing each other when someone feels like he or she can’t go on. It means Getting Over Yourself and it means honesty and vulnerability and honor and a bunch of other stuff that’s hard to do in the thick of it.

“In the same way I have loved you…”

Marriage means all of these things and a million more that I can’t wait to find.

Oh, Caleb. Thank you for making marriage something worth writing home about.

It Had to be You

Thank you, world, for welcoming me back with such gusto! You were all so kind to pretend that I hadn’t been missing for four months and instead of pointing it out, you simply swept me up in your arms, and let me tell you, that was nice of you. But I’ll say what you were all thinking: I was gone for a while. And while a break was not just nice, but necessary, I’m happy to come back and share where I was and what I learned.

Well, not chasing sunsets. As I alluded to in my last post—the one about marriage—I got married. And if you scroll just one post up (posted four months previously), you’ll find a whole bit about getting engaged. And yes, your math is correct: We got married about 3.7 months after getting engaged. Chalk it up to whatever you want, but the only person I’ve heard get it exactly right is Harry: When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. Besides, like I’ve mentioned before, we’d known for much longer that this was the way our roads were going to go—instead of two roads diverging in a woods, two roads would come together, if you will—and we were more than ready to get the show on the road, already! So we put our money where our mouths were (to bring the cliché count up to 16 so far) and set a date.

And with that, we launched into the whirlwindiest whirlwind I’ve ever been a part of. It was both the fastest four months and the slowest four months of our lives. I got stressed out by wedding planning and then chose to get unstressed and then got stressed again. (Girls, I’ll just say this one time: You can have whatever kind of wedding you want. If you’re not particularly inclined toward ribbons and DIY banners, you’ll still be a lovely bride. If you are inclined toward ribbons and DIY banners, DIY your heart out. And as long as you’re marrying your best shot, it will be the wedding you’ve always dreamt of.)

And it was Caleb’s first semester of medical school (we not only survived that, but we also managed to keep a cat alive during this time as well) and I had to move and I had a full-time job and and and…it was a busy time. At the end of the day, I would head over to Caleb’s apartment, luckily located just across the way from my office, drink peppermint tea, and, quite frankly, sometimes cry. (I also ate a lot of cheese during this time. But heck, I’ve also eaten a lot of cheese today.) I hesitate to admit that, mostly because I don’t want to paint a terrible picture of a stress-filled time—it was also super fun to dream and move forward with our dreams. But it was stressful. Caleb would spend hours at his desk, popping out for 15 minutes at a time; I would spend hours trying to figure out things like flower girl dresses and deposits. We’d mutually spend hours talking about the Future and also working out logistics: What weekend(s) would we move my stuff? At whose house would we celebrate Christmas? Should Scout be eating organic kibble? WHERE SHOULD WE PUT ALL THE BOOKS? (This one remains unsolved.)

I remember getting off work one day, after making approximately 673 wedding-related decisions, and heading over to Caleb’s. As soon as I walked in, he asked if I’d like some coffee or tea or something in his kind, selfless way. “Sure,” I said, also kindly, though I’m sure there was an edge of weariness to my voice. “OK. Coffee or tea?” he asked. “WHY DOES EVERYONE EXPECT ME TO DECIDE EVERYTHING?” I ever-so-kindly retorted. Exactly the response he was expecting, I’m sure.

Anyway, I promised to share where I’d been and what I’d learned. That where I’d been: dreaming, cleaning, packing, moving, marrying, unpacking, alphabetizing our library, taking Scout to the vet, discussing which bank to use, emailing wedding vendors, editing a magazine, cheering Caleb on through semester one, telling Caleb to drop out of med school, going to wedding dress fittings, going to the doctor, and so on. But let me tell you what I was not doing. I was not working out. Ever. I was not reading books. I was not writing thank you notes. I was not trying new recipes. Or any recipes. I was mostly asking if it was OK if we had sandwiches for dinner. I was not packing my lunch. I was not blogging or involved in a small group at our new church or discovering new music. And this is what I learned: It’s OK.

I have oft found great pride in the fact that I have seemed to be pretty good at managing life as a whole. Give me a planner, a fancy pen, and some extra paper (for to-do lists), and I’ll never forget a meeting. I might show up four minutes late, but I’ll be there. I have (in the past) thrived when the stakes are raised; as a journalist, most of my life revolves around deadlines and I function well that way. (Ed. Note: It makes me feel Good at Life when I function well.) But then I hit this season where my whole life shifted, and I…well, there were several mornings that I brushed my teeth at work because I couldn’t quite get it together enough to do it before I got there (Mom, pretend like I didn’t say that.) Sometimes, when I got home at night, I snapped at my fiancé over a cup of tea, and then sobbed when he asked if what I really needed was a hug (yes). We ate lots and lots of sandwiches for dinner, and the library sat untouched because there was Stuff to Figure Out all the time, and when we had a break from Figuring Stuff Out, I napped.

All this is not to tell you that this was, like, the worst time ever; though challenging, it was a sweet time. Lots of planning and dreaming and the realization of all that planning and dreaming. It’s just to tell you that this happened to me, this sucker-punching of my pride. And if it happens to you (and at some point, unless you’re a cat, it probably will), get this: It’s OK. It’s good. It feels like you’ve gotten your wind knocked out of you, and you have; it reminds you that you are tiny and that you are as human as they come. If you let it—if you give yourself permission—it can also remind you how small Important Things like deposits and unpacked boxes are. It can remind you—He can remind you—how much you’re loved, despite what you’ve gotten accomplished or how much you’ve napped.

There are seasons when we have time to go on runs and cook spaghetti and get lots of sleep and read volumes of books; then there are seasons when our priorities shift and suddenly we’re paddling like mad to keep our heads up and with all that, we still suck water into our lungs. Those former seasons make us feel pretty swell, like we’ve got it together; the latter ones etch “new mercies” into our prideful, stony hearts until they’re softer than when we started. And seasons are just that: periods that only last so long. Sure as the sun comes up, the leaves will fade and fall and fetch winter for us. One of the things that kept me paddling—besides the grace of Jesus and the jokes of my now-husband and the soothing swells of peppermint tea—was remembering that it would all end. And what’s more, I understood that there was something there I’d miss; it may take many months, but time will turn that season over and over in her hands until we look back with fondness.

And let me tell you this: We are much better primed for noticing remarkable things after we’ve been squeezed and stretched like that. We’ve been going to bed every night by 9:30, partly to make up for all the sleep we lost last semester and partly just because we can. And almost every night, I look around and echo my old friend Kurt Vonnegut: “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”

Inevitably, it will all shift again. We have a whole lifetime ahead of the sunlight breaking through at 6 a.m., of smelling the roses and bearing the snow. There will be days—of this I am certain—when I’ll consider it a real accomplishment if I brush my teeth, and there will be days that make me feel like I’ve got things together. There will be years when we revel in the grace of springtime, and there will be years when we only get out of bed because of the promise of new mercies. Sometimes those years will be the same years.

That’s where I’ve been, and this is what I’ve learned. And because of grace, I am better for it.