Now it's getting interesting.

One of my favorite television shows of all time is Mad About You. I think Paul Reiser is hilarious, and I always loved the relationship he and Helen Hunt had on the show. Their marriage was the one I wanted, especially on those long days of singledom when it seemed like everyone was paired up and just Bridget Jones and I were on our own.

I loved the show so much that I even bought the soundtrack which, to my delight, was filled not only with really great songs (including one that never fails to make me cry - The Things We've Handed Down, by Marc Cohn) but also with clips of dialogue from the show. When Beloved and I were putting together the bulletin for our marriage service, I dreamt of including little words of wisdom about marriage here and there, like clip art, and if I had been able to pull that off and if the word "crap" was not - well, a little inappropriate for worship - then I would have included this gem from the show:

Jamie: I just don't know why this is always so hard!
Paul: What?
Jamie: This...everything! Marriage...it's supposed to be different than this.
Paul: Says who?
Jamie: Everyone!
Paul: Well, they're wrong. It's just like this. It's exactly like this.
Jamie: According to WHO?
Paul: Everybody. I asked around.
Look, there's always going to be...stuff, you know? But I put up with your crap, and you put up with my crap.
Jamie: That's marriage?
Paul: This is what I'm thinking.

It's been a little Mad About You (which is different than Mad At You) in our house this week. I put up with your crap and you put up with mine - and some days, that's marriage. But most of all, it's been a week of "I thought it was supposed to different than this - easier than this." And it's not.

Don't get me wrong: it's been a good marriage week in our house, but a hard one. The idea of moving has usurped almost all other discussion topics. And we have had some hard, emotional, complicated, teary conversations about it. At the end of the day, we both had to make some confessions to each other: primarily, that this is a lot harder than you think going in. It's one thing to imagine that you might have this conversation one day; it's a whole other thing actually to have it, and to face the hard facts of I-want-one-thing and I-want-another, and figure out how to land somewhere inbetween. When there really is no inbetween: there's one thing or the other, and you can't have them both.

I don't know what will happen. I know that for the first time ever in the relatively short life of our marriage (not quite three years), I actually thought to myself in the darkest moment, "maybe this isn't going to work out. Maybe we won't make it." And that scared the shit out of me. We got through that place and to a much better one, and for that I am tremendously thankful - to the good Lord for watching over us, and to my astonishingly patient husband who can remain calm when I am, well, not.

I do know we are facing this together. I do know that there are a lot more hard conversations to come. I do know that I am still really, really loving my yoga class and that its emphasis on calm, peace, and breathing is exactly what I need right now.

I do know that my very favorite prayer is the one that I will hang onto:

Lord God, you have called us, your servants, to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Amen, maranatha, Amen.