Are we programmed?

I will be reposting several things posted on the blog I had prior to this one. When I experienced technical problems with my old blog, I was forced to find another, and here I am.

Originally posted December 8, 2006....

We have "On Demand" cable... it's nice to be able to watch certain shows when the urge strikes. I never had HBO until moving back here almost two years ago, and for the first time I've been able to catch the unedited version of "Sex and the City".

Tonight I watched Episode 63 - "A Change of a Dress" , and had to agree with Steve when he told me how much like Carrie I can be. She struggles with pressures to get married, feels duty bound to marry yet questions why she is different from most on this topic, and becomes physically becomes ill when she tries on a wedding gown. She wears her engagement ring around her neck, not on her finger. In the end, her fiance', Aidan, leaves her because he realizes she's not ready and may never be.

If you've noticed, I don't write much about marriage, my own in particular. After 29 years you'd think I'd have settled into the way of life most women embrace so naturally. What's wrong with me, I ask myself often. I dearly love my family life, I love being a mother, I thoroughly enjoy the company of men, I love to "nest"... fuss with my home, cook hearty meals, make things special for my loved ones. But I've never worn a wedding ring or quite adjusted to marriage. I haven't shared a check book or a credit card in 15 years. I never check the "married" box when filling out a form.

I kept my maiden name professionally back when I was doing editorial illustration. When the time would come to select a greeting card for my husband I found myself avoiding any card that had the word "husband" on it. And I always introduced Steve to others this way... "This is Steve", never "This is my husband, Steve". Over the years I have lost both my engagement ring AND my wedding ring... (probably since I seldom wore them) ... very odd for a woman who is as sentimental as I am and saves some of the smallest little keepsakes.

I have left him three times and lived apart from him almost six years during our 29 year marriage.

I'm sure I've come to be thought of as the nut that fell far from the family tree. (People in my family stay together no matter what.) It matters not to me how others see it. My very survival depended upon leaving. To stay meant I was risking the loss of "me".... if that makes any sense at all.

I met Steve when I was seventeen. I was a devout Catholic girl who was very active in the neighborhood parish. Saint Rita Church, south side Chicago...

The first time I saw him was in our church walking near the main aisle, and I swear this is true... I heard a "voice" say to me "This is the man you will marry." Imagine my shock when ten minutes later I saw him on the altar wearing a chasibule and stole, as the priest saying Mass! This is the very place....

Intimidating, isn't it!

I thought I was going insane. Seniors in highschool don't have things like this happen to them... but six years later, after many twists and turns, we DID get married. Part of me fought it tooth and nail, prayed my heart out, yet struggled to believe it was my destiny. He didn't force it upon me in any shape or form. There is nothing forceful or demanding about Steve. It felt like the right thing to do, the right place to be in life.

In the "Sex and the City" episode, Carrie asks... "Are we programmed?" Maybe that was part of it. I was merely doing what generations of women had done before me... you meet a good man, get married, settle down, have kids...

He wasn't driven by hormones by any means, he was quiet and slow paced. He was incredibly kind, selfless, giving, gentle and patient. He'd come to the house and do my chores for me, believe it or not.... wash dishes, especially. Later I learned he was drawn to our wild, crazy house full of people, our warmth and caring and laughter. What a contrast he was... reserved, proper, dignified, lofty, remote. We were always very down to earth. He astonished me with his intellect and the simplicity he applied toward his life. He wanted to teach. He wanted to be married and have children. That was it. (Yet, he had become a priest!)

Fast forward, six years... we married. He taught in a Catholic high school and loved it. He never objected when I hopped church to church, always spiritually searching, dabbling in various activities. He never complained when I went off to do things with my own friends, or when I followed my own drummer. I was puzzled when he quit his job one day to enroll in grad school, without ever discussing it with me. I was freelancing and teaching art part time, hardly enough for us to live on without his pay check. I had to forgo my own career and get a "real day job", so that he could complete his doctorate. It was the first of many concessions I was to make. I didn't mind at the time, afterall it's what a good wife does.

I dabbled in various creative ways to make money, in addition to the "real" jobs I held to pay bills. Part of me starves when I'm not creating. I sewed wedding gowns and clothing for others, I did display art for a jewelry company, did odd illustration jobs and a few art projects for hire including a mural for an elementary school entrance. I babysat. I also made dolls and teddy bears and eventually taught lessons at Marshall Field's downtown, designing an exclusive bear only Field's customers could learn to make. My endeavors were never main stream. Steve didn't take an active interest, but he didn't interfere either. I felt he was proud of me and a bit bewildered. Slowly these side gigs gave way to practical necessity. I had to focus more and more on making money for my family. But always I put his desires first, his goals, his dreams and worked around those.

He wanted to teach. He was born to teach. He was the kind of teacher that touched and impacted students' lives... I saw it happen over and over. I come from a long line of teachers... my mother, my sister and my aunt (godmother)... all teachers... and I'd grown to revere this underappreciated, woefully underpaid, hardworking, dedicated group of professionals. It made me happy to see him happy... to see how his work bettered this world of ours. My own dreams seemed small and selfish in comparison. Weren't the needs of my family what mattered most?
What happened over time is that a long habit of conceding gave way to resentment, and that gave way to me asserting myself, taking back some control over things important to me in life. Mind you, he never asked me to give up a thing. I did it because it felt as if it was my duty to do so. Sometimes I did it with joy, sometimes I did it because it was the right thing to do, not because I wanted to do it.

Fast forward another 25 years... older, wiser, things came full circle, it was MY TURN... I could not silence the calls of my soul. I took time for my interests once again, and felt the power forging my bones, the fire igniting in my tummy, the stirrings opening windows in my heart... the fresh, clear, soothing air bringing sweetness back to my soul.

It was never a good thing, to deprive myself of the very things that make me who I am.
Nothing had changed, but everything had changed.

Today we live very different, separate lives... it's family we share. We respect each other, treat each other well, support each other's interests and give each other space.

He is an academic and functions best on the level of brain and information. There's nothing wrong with that. This world needs people who can remain level, without letting emotions influence what they say and do. He still loves to teach, still enjoys being married and being a father. Very little about him has changed in all these years. He reveals nothing of who he is inside, his feelings, his beliefs, his fears... aren't these the very things that reveal a person? Who is he? And how can I fully love someone who can't let me know him? Does he even know himself? I wonder....

Me, in some ways I'm a different person today... I wear my restlessness and constant spiritualality like a glove that knows each contour of my hand. And yet, in so many ways I've never been happier. I have myself again... and I love the qualities God gave me and want to use them. When God gives (this I believe) it's not just a gift for me (or you) alone, but one for all the world to have... through me (or you).

What of the gifts I have as a woman... of the love I have to give... of the capacity I have for real intimacy? It's the last frontier... but I stay grounded, even as I dream of flight.

Yes, Carrie... "Are we programmed?"