Happy Anniversary, Parents
It's March Ninth, Two-Thousand-Five. My parents got married precisely 24 years ago. Mazal tov, Mommy. Mazal tov, Daddy.
When I was younger, I used to love hearing the story of how my parents met and the courting process that ensued following that initial meeting. But now I look at the story and I'm really confused. My mother got married a month before her twentieth birthday. I'm turning twenty in about a week and on some days I can't ever imagine making a decision that weighty while on other days, I'm convinced that I’m ready to.
It's strange, this whole "love" thing. Do you really love someone when you're marrying him or her, or do you just see a potential there for lifelong happiness together? (Besides, I have my own definition of love that not everyone I know agrees with.)
I had a discussion with my mother a couple of months ago where she told me she wasn’t comfortable with my disregard for something she was sensitive to (although she didn’t say it bluntly like I just did). That conversation got me realizing a lot about relationships I hadn’t realized before.
There was a guy I shidduched once whom I just wasn’t into. At all. But he had such admirable middot, I couldn’t place what I felt was off and when I did figure it out, wasn’t able to articulate it properly. I chalked it up to, “he’s too morally straight for me. I can’t imagine that he’d understand my moral struggles.” But that wasn’t what I meant--and there were a few other things, too.
He and I had different sensitivities. He would never understand my moral struggles not because he was more moral than I was, but because we were sensitive to completely different things. Similarly, my sister and I constantly argue over what turn into ideological differences because she’s only eight hundred million times more sensitive to Halachah than I am and I’m a lot more sensitive to kavod habriyot than she is.
So I decided that the foundation for a successful relationship has to be either similar sensitivities or, something that may take more time to develop, a mutual respect for each other’s sensitivities. But that theory, as all theories I eventually realize (I tend to be slow on the picking-up-on-things-most-everyone-already-knows), will be developed into something profound at some point. Maybe when I’m actually in a relationship that works out.
For now I can just say that Miryam and I are both proud of the fact that we’ve each only cried over one guy in all our lives. Although, I actually cried over the same boy twice--but that’s a whole other essay.
When I was younger, I used to love hearing the story of how my parents met and the courting process that ensued following that initial meeting. But now I look at the story and I'm really confused. My mother got married a month before her twentieth birthday. I'm turning twenty in about a week and on some days I can't ever imagine making a decision that weighty while on other days, I'm convinced that I’m ready to.
It's strange, this whole "love" thing. Do you really love someone when you're marrying him or her, or do you just see a potential there for lifelong happiness together? (Besides, I have my own definition of love that not everyone I know agrees with.)
I had a discussion with my mother a couple of months ago where she told me she wasn’t comfortable with my disregard for something she was sensitive to (although she didn’t say it bluntly like I just did). That conversation got me realizing a lot about relationships I hadn’t realized before.
There was a guy I shidduched once whom I just wasn’t into. At all. But he had such admirable middot, I couldn’t place what I felt was off and when I did figure it out, wasn’t able to articulate it properly. I chalked it up to, “he’s too morally straight for me. I can’t imagine that he’d understand my moral struggles.” But that wasn’t what I meant--and there were a few other things, too.
He and I had different sensitivities. He would never understand my moral struggles not because he was more moral than I was, but because we were sensitive to completely different things. Similarly, my sister and I constantly argue over what turn into ideological differences because she’s only eight hundred million times more sensitive to Halachah than I am and I’m a lot more sensitive to kavod habriyot than she is.
So I decided that the foundation for a successful relationship has to be either similar sensitivities or, something that may take more time to develop, a mutual respect for each other’s sensitivities. But that theory, as all theories I eventually realize (I tend to be slow on the picking-up-on-things-most-everyone-already-knows), will be developed into something profound at some point. Maybe when I’m actually in a relationship that works out.
For now I can just say that Miryam and I are both proud of the fact that we’ve each only cried over one guy in all our lives. Although, I actually cried over the same boy twice--but that’s a whole other essay.
posted by BrownsvilleGirl at 1:21 AM
