Crazy Love

Do you ever feel like everything in your life is moving by too fast? If I'm honest with myself (and you), I completely feel this way. It feels like I want everything to just slow down but it's moving at the speed of light and I am really helpless against it all.

My children are so old! Okay, they're not literally old in the earthly definition of terms, but they are quickly rounding the bend towards their next birthday. It really does seem like just yesterday that they were born. It seems like a week ago that the Lobster and I were in the hospital and he was rubbing my forehead over and over again in the same spot and I yelled at him to "STOP TOUCHING ME!" and all of my coaches immediately put their hands up (like they were being arrested) and took a step back. In my mind I wasn't that upset about it, but I was in the process of pushing a baby out into the world, so I completely believe the reports that I was feisty.

I look on my wall, and there is a picture of the lobster and me that was taken the day before we got married. I look at those two people and I wonder if he and I could sit down and talk to them, what would we say? How do you explain eight years to two people who are crazy in love? How do you explain all of the endeavors and experiences that he and I have embarked on, together? How do you say to yourself, eight years younger, you know, it'll be okay. Just remember that. Even when you completely believe with every fiber of your being that is entirely impossible for it to ever be okay again...


When I think back to those times, they seem so close, but yet so far away. I was such an idiot then. I knew nothing about love. I was a complete fool. Love was a contract. It had nothing to do with emotions. It was entirely logic. I got along with him. He was my best friend. I wanted to be beside him forever. So we got married. Yes, I was crazy passionate about him, but it was much more about the logical answer to a math equation than it was about throwing caution to the wind and getting married. I took little risks. Everything was carefully controlled.

There were glimpses, though, of how much I really needed him. For instance, the wedding day itself... It was a terrible day (and I had an ENORMOUS anxiety about anything 'commitment' related). I was already incredibly terrified about the process of the promise. If I'm honest with you, I didn't want to "get" married. I wanted to be married, I just didn't want to have to be a part of the process of actually doing. I wanted to wake up and have the whole ordeal over with. My sisters treated me quite frankly like trash, which aided in the whole horribleness of the day. There was a tornado, so the humidity was just sky high on the fun factor list (you can imagine what this did to my skin and hair...). It was just nothing like what the story of "us" was and is. It reflected nothing of me and the Lobster. But that day, I was so upset, that as soon as he got to the church, I went running out there and I just needed to be alone with him. So everyone else went away and I just talked to him. After I did so, I felt so much better. I needed him then...

Now I can't even remember what it's like to not need him.

You know what's so great about being married? Chicks are emotional. We fret. We worry. We have horrible amounts of anxiety. You know the kind I'm talking about... We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and we'll lay awake half the night trying to figure out a way to make everyone happy, even if it means our own misery. We will tell someone something they don't want to hear, and then we'll proceed to panic for the next seven weeks about whether or not we did the right thing, and whether or not that person is handling it well. We toss and turn thoughts and feelings over and over again in our minds. My husband? Not like that at all! He can literally cut through the hurt feelings (or possibilities of letting someone down) and immediately say the truth.

"Is it stressing you out?"
"Yes."
"Then quit. No activity is worth this much emotional effort."


"Do you really like going?"
"Well... no not really, but people expect me to go!"
"Um, then STOP GOING! Tell them I said you can't go anymore. Then it's my fault and not yours."


When I was stressing about homeschooling the kids and the ten thousand activities I was a part of (and knew I needed to step away from to adequately educate our children, but didn't want to let anyone down or make people feel unspecial...) he said:

"Your priority is to me and our children. God is NOT "discovered" or "loved" or "valued" in your morning "Bible" activities. If you are not honoring what I've told you to do in regards to pouring your heart and soul into educating our children, then where is Jesus in your activities?"


Aaaaannnnnndddd sucker punch right to the gut. So I quit. And because he was the one who told me to do it, I was freed from the guilty conscience or the feelings of horrible guilt that I would've had every time someone said to me, "Why haven't you been at so and so?"

My husband makes me stronger. I had a friend tell me a long time ago that submitting to your husband is like walking around under his umbrella. When you are submitting to his direction, then you are protected from the hail and arrows that are being thrown at you by the world, because you are under your husband's umbrella. The hail and arrows will come, but your husband's umbrella will shield you from them.

I realize I have gone far down a rabbit trail. I know I do this a lot. The lobster and I are like a bowl of spaghetti. We are so tangled and connected together that it is difficult to pull one noodle out of the batch, without getting another noodle along for the ride. This is how I like to think of my rabbit trails. :)

Anyway, the point is, of all things, time is going so quickly. I'm afraid to blink, because then we might be on the porch at an old folks home reflecting on our younger years. Oh how I look forward to those days...