This Is Marriage: Day 874

We hit a milestone savings goal on Saturday. Pete thought it felt anticlimactic. I ran around the house excitedly singing a song I made up about it. Pete said nothing has changed. I said everything has changed. At the beginning of our marriage, we had three mortgages. Now we have zero mortgages and we've hit this goal, meaning we are solidly on track to retire early. That's a lot in 2 years. Pete seemed unconvinced. I remained ecstatic. When I was younger, I never longed for marriage, I never dreamed about weddings. I longed for financial independence, I dreamed about this particular net worth goal. (Admittedly, I was a weird kid. Which probably surprises no one). We didn't do anything elaborate or groundbreaking to achieve this goal. We spend money on the things and experiences that make us happy (travel, experiences, a comfortable bed, races and socializing with friends, Pete: computers/tech gadgets, Jen: 8' tall giraffe) and not on things that don't. We put money in our 401Ks and Roth IRAs. We put a sizable amount of money well sizable to us, maybe not to others) in our non-retirement investment account every month, which is just invested in an index fund. But mostly, we are so incredibly lucky (to have similar attitudes/habits about money, to have gainful employment, to have sold our 2 houses from our single lives for more than we paid for them, to live in a low cost of living area). I'd be lying if I said the money wasn't nice. I don't think money can buy happiness, but it sure can make a hell of a lot of things easier. But true wealth is not measured by the amount of money you accumulate. True wealth is living life with a richness and depth of relationships, gratitude and meaning.

I wanted to do something fancy to celebrate. But I didn't want to spend any money. So I'll have to wait and see if I can think of something creative to satiate those competing desires. In the meantime, Laura and Jon were coming over to meet George and so we could go eat at Brooklyn Ramen Rochester (which was meh) and see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (which was fantastic). Laura asked Pete what he thought when I brought George home, he smiled and said "Jen was just so excited about it." Though I didn't make up a song about it and run around the house singing it, my heart did explode in feels. We are different people. Pete wasn't expecting marriage to include living with a giant stuffed giraffe. I wasn't expecting marriage to include watching my husband sitting on the couch peeling an orange and then nonchalantly putting the orange peels on a pillow as if that is where orange peels belong (no, really, this is a thing that happened). But it's those differences that make us who we are, a fact that I sometimes forget, such as when I am horrified and frantically picking orange peels off a couch pillow. Things will change, we will change. That is inevitable. We vowed to weather the changes together, the bear markets and bull markets, our best moments and our worst moments.

The thing that I want to celebrate isn't that the stock market went up or we're saving more money, it's that we're building a life together and that life is pretty freaking sweet. Marriage is building a life together that is bigger and better than both of us.

Lyric of the moment: "And the only way to last. And the only way to live it. Is to hold on when you get love. And let go when you give it..." ~Stars "Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It"

A series of spectacular failures

I had a minor epiphany during a restorative yoga class, in a warm room lit with candles, supported by blankets and bolsters. It felt restful. I was resting. No, but like for real. I was still. And it was enjoyable. The kind of joy I usually only experience in motion. My mind had wanted to go to the gym. But my body was like no, dude, go lay on the ground for an hour. So I did. I made time for stillness, which I used to think was just a failure of motion, but now I think is a necessary compass. And it was glorious, this stillness. A glorious failure of motion, a glorious triumph of rest, relaxation and restoration.

I had a minor epiphany on a party boat, being yet again the only person not drinking in a sea full of people drinking (and playing icebreaker games. I hate icebreaker games or any sort of mandatory fun. Being forced to participate is the opposite of fun). At times like these, I feel isolated and irreparably weird for not doing the things everyone else is doing, even though I have no interest in doing those things. I feel like I'm failing the Turing Test, a lone robot amidst the humans. Then I had a sudden realization that many times when I've felt like I'm failing at everything, the only thing I was actually failing at was in being someone else. I was failing at doing the default traditional things or being what I thought I should be. Most of the time those should be things weren't even things I wanted to be, they were just what is expected or idolized by society. I was failing to be what other people wanted me to be because I was busy being who I was. (And the few times I did try to be what someone else wanted me to be, I became profoundly unhappy, which festered into seething resentment, which blossomed into relief and happiness only when I gave up and went back to being who I wanted to be). Looking at it that way, I hope my life continues to be a series of spectacular failures. In failing to be others' expectations of me, I succeed at being myself. In failing to do what others are doing, I succeed at doing what I want to do.

It's easy to get caught up in what other people are doing or all the cultural noise telling us to do certain things or be a certain way, to buy this and that and of course that too. Part of stillness, I'm coming to realize, is a break from all that external noise. It allows me the space and the silence to figure out what feels right to me, what I want to do and what I don't want to do, what will bring me joy and what I can let go. I used to rely on running for this space but now I know it's always available to me, if I pay attention to it. The external noise will still get through sometimes, but I can just think to myself "That's not true" or "I don't accept that" or "Not for me" and keep blazing my own weird, ridiculous trail to Awesometown. With stops for giraffes, obviously.

Lyric of the moment: "The walls in my mind. But I can climb. In the darkest of days, when I think I've lost my way, I step into the light..." ~Matisyahu "Step Out Into The Light"