25 Years in the Making: An Inconvenient Gift

 

This is one of Katie's favorite pics from our wedding. Sneaking a kiss, so stealthily. 

Katie and I are celebrating 25 years of marriage today. Some of you may think that sounds like I'm bragging. [I'm not.] Some of you might be condescendingly thinking, “Hmph, that’s cute. Tell me when you get to 40 years.” [I will.] Some of you may wonder what 25 years looks like. Well, I’ll tell you. At least, I’ll tell you a little of what our 25 years looks like. 

There’s the emotional shorthand of being able to skim or completely skip details because we already know the history, backstory, opinions, and feelings about sooooo many things. There are the millions of inside jokes, quips, and idioms … and for some of them, you really can’t remember how they began, you just know they’re a thing you say to each other. There are the hundreds of subtle, non-detectable-to-the-public glances you share that indicate, “We already know our feelings about that” or “That’s not how we would do this, but whatever” or “We’ll talk about this later” or “We’ll talk about this person later” or “I’m so grateful you’re the one I’m going home with after this party.” 

• We’ve been married 25 years. A quarter of a century. That’s 9,132 days. 

• We’ve lived in 9 different houses/apartments. 

• We’ve had 8 children – all 8 with a midwife, and 7 of them at home. 

• We’ve owned six cars – three of them vans, and one of those a 12-passenger van. 

• We’ve owned one cat, two goats, a dozen chickens, one guinea pig, two mice, one rabbit, and several subpar goldfish. 

• We’ve homeschooled all of our children since 2003. 

• We’ve watched the entire series of The Office, Seinfeld, Chuck, Cheers, and Parks & Rec. [And ER, but I don’t want to talk about that.]

• Together, we’ve been to Grenada, Israel, Portugal, England, Scotland, Canada, and 40 of the 50 States. [We were supposed to be in Europe for our 25th, but COVID punched us square in the throat, instead.] 

• We’ve had careers or side-hustles in copywriting, doula work, improv/acting, public speaking, account managing, philanthropy, and sales rep’ing – with three separate stints of unemployment. 

• We’ve lived in Las Vegas, where we never thought we’d live, and in Utah, where we never thought we’d live. And we've realized we don’t want to live in California, where I grew up and always thought I’d live. 

• We’ve met and fallen in love with some of the loveliest people that we get to call our friends. 

There are a lot of memories crammed into those 9,132 days. A lot of moments. Some of them are these unremarkable moments that somehow punctuated a feeling or an impression in that instant and stayed with me. Taking the kids trick-or-treating and looking over my shoulder at Katie, standing in our doorway to hand candy out to the trick-or-treaters coming to our house – both of us loving our stations for the evening. Holding each other’s hands at concerts. Making a meal together that we’re both excited about. Or like this one time when Katie and I were watching Saturday Night Live and fell asleep, spooned on the couch. I woke up when the musical guest was performing. Katie was still asleep in my arms, our house was quiet and still, the kids all asleep in bed – and I felt this warmth come over me like a blanket. I don’t know how else to describe it – it was just a sense that everything in the world was right. I didn’t move, worried that I would disrupt this glow. I just felt grateful.

There are other specific experiences that stand out as marriage moments. Those sometimes predicable or expected life moments that you share with your partner, because you are on this path together – but they are uniquely yours, because it’s your path. When we got to honeymoon in Hawaii and it literally felt like the world paused just for us. When we hid in the bathroom at my parents’ house on Thanksgiving Day to take our first positive home pregnancy test. When we bought our first house and realized we were committing to staying in Las Vegas longer than we’d planned. When Katie had a miscarriage between Becca and Lucy. When we decided to move from Las Vegas to Utah. The moment we both knew we were done having children and cried. When my dad suddenly passed, and I’d immediately left to be with my mom, and Katie joined me three days later and we found our way into a bedroom so I could tell her about the last 72 hours and I completely came undone and was unintelligible and just sunk my head into her chest. 

Twenty-five years holds a lot of unpredictability, with the occasional plan coming to fruition. When Katie and I were dating, I knew it was different from previous relationships. I had this spiritual, visceral confidence that we could build something happy together. And that was everything to me, because I have never had the gift of “vision” – being able to see what the future could look like. I’m not that savvy or wise – especially if you’re comparing me to Katie – but from experience, I can tell you that we’ve built our life and our home on faith, laughter, compassion, and quick forgiveness. And ice cream to fill in the cracks. And I would say we have definitely built something happy. 

As one of those non-life-events that was unremarkable and extraordinary to me, I thought I’d share something that I wrote for Katie some time back and never published. Please enjoy! Or don’t, I’m not the boss of you. [But you should know that this is the only thing I got you all for our anniversary.] 

An Inconvenient Gift

Timing is a crucial ingredient for romance. 

This is what Katie tells me every time I grab her bum in the kitchen and there are one or more of our children around. (And there is always more than one around.)

Timing hasn’t always been on our side anyway. Like, since day one. The day I met Katie, I was dating someone else. The day I decided I wanted to ask her out, she was dating someone else. And I’m not kidding, on the very day I mustered up the courage to ask her out, in the precise moment I walked up to her on our college campus with concert tickets in hand and my mouth open to say the words, she turned to me and with all the excitement of someone who had just figured life out, she said, “Hey! So, guess what – I decided that I’m going to serve a mission, so I’m not going to date this entire semester!” “That’s awesome,” I said, one hundred percent certain it was the least awesome thing I had ever heard in my entire life. And I had heard a lot of bad a cappella music in college. Including an a cappella version of U2’s Mysterious Ways that still offends me. 

Fortunately for me, Katie was easily worn down. And by “worn down” I mean I waited 24 hours for her to change her mind and/or completely forget that she’d said anything. And then I asked her out – and she said ‘yes.’ 

See?! Timing!

Decades later, the struggle is still real. 

It was early evening in late October when we met up with some friends for dinner in downtown Provo. Station 22. A restaurant that is so contemporary that it gives you one of those electronic buzzers that light up and vibrate to let you know your table is ready. This means you have the convenience of cruising around downtown Provo and visiting the cute shops instead of just sitting in a crowded restaurant while everyone except you is eating and enjoying the merriment of no longer waiting for their turn to eat. Oh, red vibrating buzzers … where were you in the mid-90s?! And why didn’t you stop that a cappella group from arranging Mysterious Ways?! Or at least Enya’s Book of Days, which was also not ok. 

Katie and I wandered into a nearby store called Here, a quaint little place that, among other things, featured art from local artists. Sadly, the store has since closed, so Here is actually no longer There. I was casually browsing pithy greeting cards and Katie was thumbing through some books when we suddenly found ourselves staring at the same painting … and we both stopped moving as our hands found each other and locked. 

Right before us was this painting, by Brian Kershisnik. It’s titled This Splendid Inconvenience. 

Let me tell you something. You don’t get something that accurate without having lived it. Dear Brian, we get it. That exact moment? We get it. The trying to take advantage of those last few minutes of snuggle time, only to be interrupted … but to be interrupted by your other favorite people? Timing is indeed everything. 

And without a word between us, we both immediately welled up. 

I knew in that moment that I was going to buy that painting for Katie for Christmas. Sure, it would be the third Kershisnik painting hanging up in our home. But so what? We aren’t hurting anyone. It’s not like we arranged an a cappella version of the Pointer Sister’s Fire and made people pay money to come listen to us sing it. (You also don’t get that kind of detail without having lived it.)

I wanted to surprise Katie, so I knew I needed to keep the purchase off bank and credit card statements. So I did what every single citizen of Utah County has done at some point in their life. I donated plasma. I donated a lot of plasma. This painting wasn’t cheap. But I was so excited to surprise Katie with this painting that resonated so much with both of us. 

On the day I wondered back into Here and purchased This Splendid Inconvenience, I felt like I had just won Christmas. It was worth all the times some random teenager with weird facial hair jammed a thick needle into my unsuspecting vein and promptly forgot all about me as he or she went off to flirt with coworkers. 

Here was kind enough to giftwrap the painting for me. It was a plain brown paper, but the string was tied in some fancy way that made the whole thing look pretty. I kept it at my office, safely hidden from Katie throughout the entire season. Each day when I walked into work and saw it by my desk, I got excited all over again. 

On Christmas Eve, I brought it home from my office and hid it in my closet. I was so stealthy, you guys. Like an a cappella group who decided that now that they had your money, they were going to blindside you with their version of Suzanne Vega’s Blood Makes Noise.  

Christmas morning had exploded all over our living room, and with wrapping paper everywhere and candy already eaten for breakfast, and toys and gadgets being played with … I turned to Katie and said, “Oh, I still have my present for you.” To which she literally, physically jumped up and responded with, “And I still have mine for you! Me first!” And she ran into the other room … and came walking back in with some very familiar-looking packaging. Brown paper with decorative string. The Christmas tree lights were dim compared to the light in Katie’s face. She was so excited for me to open my present. 

I tore off the paper – and there it was, in all its glory. This Splendid Inconvenience. I stared at it, and apparently my expression was not what Katie had anticipated, because she started to coax me. “Don’t you remember it? We saw it in that little store last October! While we were waiting to go to dinner! We were, like, both emotional! Remember?!” Of course, I completely remembered. Katie went on, “I babysat for our neighbor for the last three weeks so I could have the cash to buy it without you knowing. I wanted to surprise you!” 

I looked up at her and we smiled huge at each other and I hugged her and kissed her and thanked her and gushed. I was thinking how now I didn’t have this surprise gift for her … but I also so completely loved that we were both on the same wavelength and had the same idea and made similar secret plans to surprise the other one. I retrieved her gift, and as I walked it over to her and she recognized precisely what it was, her eyes grew even bigger, and I wryly commented, “You…don’t need to open it.” 

It was this uncanny Gift of the Magi moment. 

Maybe the timing was actually perfect. 

UR TXTNG 2 MUCH

In case you weren’t sure where I stood on such key principles, I’m really not one of those dads who feel that his kids watching a DVD on a road trip is ruining “Family Time.” Today’s world offers such amenities, and that’s fine. Of course, this isn’t the same world that I grew up in. If it were, my kids would be unbuckled, lying down in the back of the Family Van, going to wherever, sharing the space with six siblings, listening to Unforgettable Fire on their WalkMan while they “rewound” their Listen Like Thieves cassette tape by sticking a pen in the spokes of the tape and whirling it around in order to rewind it by hand, thus saving the batteries in the WalkMan for strictly playing cassette tapes, rather than rewinding them. (And yes, in the next life, when the pioneers try to tell me how rough they had it, I am planning on bringing up this hardship in my defense.)

So I’m not your middle-aged fuddy-duddy neighbor who poo-poos all technological advances and thinks they are the demise of our children’s’ character. On the whole, I actually embrace such advances. However, I do have my limits.

Recently I had the unanticipated opportunity to put my head in my hands, angry and appalled, and weep at the thought of our future world leaders.  It began innocently enough; I was summoned to listen to a co-worker weave a tale of her daughter’s first date with this “super-cute” boy. (I cannot emphasize those quotation marks enough.)

“So,” the female co-worker begins, “they were sitting in the movie, and about 10 minutes into the movie he texts her!”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “Were they sitting next to each other?”

“Yes!” she said, not detecting my disdain, “and do you know what he texted? He texted, ‘Can I hold your hand?’”

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHOOOOOHHHHHHHH!” cooed all the women in the office.

I stood there, stone-faced. I did not coo. I did not cheer. But I had the restraint to not say what I wanted to say, which was, “THAT IS TOTALLY CHEATING!”

I’m sorry, but that is not how the game is played. I understand how the power of texting provides a false sense of bravado and you can say (or ask) things you would never in a ba-jillion years do otherwise. And I can see the allure of going that route. I mean, I’ve wanted to quit jobs, inform somebody their fly was down, and tell-off my waitress all through the power of texting, rather than the more direct and traditional manner of talking face-to-face.

But brother, you are not doing yourself any favors by skipping the entire dance that is hand-holding. You are missing the joy and satisfaction of one of life’s greatest accomplishments. The patience, the reading of body language, the nuances and subtleties of movements, the wishing, the hoping, the fear, the anxiety, the pit in your stomach, the palm-sweats, the glances, the skin brushing. And when those fingers finally lock, it has all been worth it.  You can almost hear angels singing.

As an authority on the art of hand-holding, with mucho know-how and enough experience to write a book brief pamphlet on the subject, allow me to walk you through what the experience would have been, won’t you?

Where were we, 10 minutes into the movie? That’s not when you text to see if you can hold the girl’s hand; that is when you are wondering if she is going to be appalled at the amount of popcorn you can eat in one sitting.

15 Minutes: You observe the boundaries. What are the physical obstacles between you and her? A bucket of popcorn? Sodas? Her purse? A wall of anticipation so thick you have to poke it to measure the density?

30 Minutes: You lean towards her, possibly brushing shoulders. First contact. You realize you are paying very little attention to anything going on in the movie at this point.

45 Minutes: You casually place your arm on the armrest of the chair, and slyly look out of the side of your eye to see if she has done likewise. You leave it there for 20 minutes to give her ample opportunity to A) notice it, B) appreciate the opportunity to eat some of the popcorn that you are no longer inhaling, and C) casually move her own arm in that direction. Hands now in the same proximity.

60 Minutes: What the WHAT?! Your hands were so close, and now she has just as casually put her hands in her lap! You do the same, not wanting to appear desperate.

70 Minutes: Hands are inconspicuously back in proximity of each other. You’ve observed and retained about 15 minutes of the entire movie so far, completely preoccupied now by how dangerously close you are to lightly brushing up against her hand with yours – just to see what kind of reflex you get from her. Then you make the move – hand sweeps past hers, lightly touching. Does her hand move? Does it begin to take the direction of opening, fingers prepared to go inter-digitary with yours? Does it completely sit still? Does it actually recoil, going back into her lap, with her saying, “Oh, sorry,” assuming you accidentally bumped her? You both retreat, hands back to yourselves.

75 Minutes: The side of your pinky is now flat up against hers on the armrests. There’s contact, and nobody is withdrawing. You lift your pinky slightly, and her hand begins to slide into your now-shared space. It’s happening! Your hand slides over the top of her hand, she slides under yours, and your hands both turn and CLASP!

Euphoria!

Somewhere, the Hallelujah chorus is being belted out. To the on-looking movie goers, nothing has really changed, but internally, you are a volcano of emotions! You go deaf and can’t hear anything going on in the movie, your heart is visibly pounding in your chest, and your hand immediately begins to sweat, but you don’t dare break away and wipe it on your jeans. It might break the spell!

In fact, you consciously avoid any movement of your entire appendage whatsoever. You don’t want to draw too much attention to your date that you are, in fact, holding hands and probably going to get married some day. You are now a team as you watch this movie. You laugh at the same parts, even making comments to each other (which up to this point had been taboo).

90 Minutes. You remember nothing of the movie – other than it was your favorite movie EVER because you got to hold hands with your date!

Give all that up for the ease of a text message? I think not. Don’t surrender life’s delightful nuances to the crassness of technology. Please, join me in being a responsible tech-user.

(However, that being said; if my fly is down, as an act of goodwill, please consider texting me about it, rather than discussing it. That’s the kind of awkwardness we can all sidestep with the appropriate use of technology.)