I am currently procrastinating unpacking. There are piles of sandy clothes heaped in the hallway. Our swimsuits have been washed and are hanging to dry. I've managed to shelve beach towels and sunscreen. The feeling reminds me of packing up Christmas decorations and taking down the tree. Sigh.
We still have a few more weeks of summer bliss, but I feel the unscheduled days slipping through my fingers. One of the biggest perks of being a teacher is getting to experience the childlike magic of a schedule-lacking summer.
I love the beach. I find the ocean so utterly peaceful and soothing. It never fails to awestruck me. I love the fact that I feel so tiny with it lapping around my ankles looking at an endless horizon as I feel the sand slipping underneath my feet. It amazes me that although salt is plentiful in its waves, the rain pours fresh. That all Earth's water runs into the ocean, yet the ocean never fills up. And no matter how many times the shore sends it away, the waves keep coming back. The ocean offers so many metaphors and is a component of many biblical stories.
My favorite part of vacation was walking along the shoreline in the packed, wet sand waiting for the ocean to jump up and greet our feet. I find it most beautiful in the mornings and in in the evenings, when the shade is over and the tide comes in, the waves bringing in foam almost up to the dunes. In the mornings, the red sun ball would rise in the east and the ocean would slowly begin to recede exposing an array of half buried shells. I know that my hubby is not quite as talented as I when it comes to being able to just sunbathe without moving or talking very much. I find it easy to just listen to the waves and keep my sunscreen lathered nose buried in a book. (I read Jodi Picoult's Change of Heart and recommend it, BTW.) Although Andrew loves to be outdoors, he also loves to be active. So, I mentioned to him that I would love for him to collect me some seashells if he needed something to do. That was all I had to say. If we were on the beach, that's what he was doing.
I had my beach chair pulled up just close enough that the water would sometimes surprise me but not overtake me. My feet outstretched waiting patiently. I had a floppy white hat on that offered shade to my face and shoulders. I was enjoying the combination of the relentless sun and the just as committed breeze. I love the smell of salt and sunscreen that mixes in the heavy air. I juggled reading my book and
I don't know what it is that is so enticing about people watching, but I etched some of my observations into memory. There was a young, quite plump boy who looked to be about 6 or 7. His mom had led him about ankle deep when he dug his heels into the sand. She pulled on his arm and sighed heavily while exclaiming, "You will be fine." I couldn't help but laugh out loud as he genuinely, fervently protested, "They will eat me. I'm tellin' ya, THEY WILL EAT ME! I ain't gonna be ate by no shark!"
There were two girls, around 9 or 10, that ran from the dunes to the waves holding hands in such a way that it was evident they were best friends. They jumped into the waves, throwing their heads back with laughter and shrieks.
I noticed a mother, young, probably around my age holding a bald-headed, pale child in her arms. She ran into the water in the same way a 5 year old would and swooped him down to meet the water. She swirled him around and moved in all the ways that he seemingly couldn't.
You see chubby people, obese people, "perfect" bikini-model-body people. You see that the very young and the very old have the most clothes on. You see families and couples and a few loners. You see some modest and some obscene. You see mom-suits and speedos. Some people lay right down on the sand, giving over every inch of their body to those grains. While others try painstakingly to avoid the inevitable. You see sunscreen and sunburns, the active and the lazy.
I noticed a sky add flying over the strip of beach that read, "Christina, will you marry me? Heart, Kyle". Though I searched for this Romeo down on one knee, I couldn't find him in the sea of people closest to me. But I smiled and hoped she said yes.
And then I noticed my own Romeo approaching me with a proud smile and an armful of shells. When I think of seashells that I want to put in a vase on the edge of my garden tub or in the center of the patio table, I think of light colored, white or tan shells-- complete shells without cracks or chips. I think of pieces of coral, smooth stones, or sea glass. I was hoping to find a star fish, a conch, or a sand dollar, though I wasn't holding my breath. I had picked up any that I had seen that resembled the most common perception of your typical seashell.
My husband began to line up his finds on the arm of my beach chair. Gray, black, broken, chunky fragments. I wouldn't have called them seashells, but I suppose in essence they were. My first instinct was to toss them back out and let the waves suck them under to be spit back out on another day. To tell Hubs those were ugly and most definitely not what I had in mind. But as he began to tell me that he thought they were cool and to look at the ridges on this one and the way that one was jagged like a tooth, I realized something profound.
My first reaction was to explain what I wanted, what I needed, me, me, me. But my perspective shifted. I commented on his finds and scooped them up to be corralled with our keepers.
He later asked me what kind I was interested in specifically and began to collect only ones that measured up. (Actually, yesterday evening he tossed the black clunkers over the hillside. It was just shells, not a big deal.) But in that moment, I had realized that he just wanted to show them to me. That I needed to take a moment to appreciate what he saw. Because it's easy to forget to do that.
Tomorrow marks our 2 year anniversary. We're babies in the marriage world. But then again, our 2 year marriage has outlived a handful of our friends' and acquaintances' marriages. Over the past two years we've been shocked to hear of sudden divorces and grieved for numerous marriages that ended before they really had the chance to begin. Every failed marriage has had a different story, a different scenario, but of course the public only gets his side and her side and who knows about the truth.
I don't know what the answer is or how to pinpoint the exact problem (except that we live in a fallen world). But I do feel like the way our generation has been raised has a huge effect on failed marriages. Whether the breaking point was an affair or video game addiction, I believe it stems from self-centeredness. And believe you me, I'm preaching to the choir.
I think I can speak for the majority when I say we were given a big portion of what we wanted when we wanted it growing up. I know I had my own bedroom, my own things. It's common to see kids in the backseat each holding their own expensive tablet, because Lord forbid they share.
In my classroom, I like to play a spelling game that has a component of chance in it so that even the best classroom speller can still get out. I explained this to the students, that the game would help us practice our spelling words but would not identify who was the best speller, because it was a game of chance. I even pointed out to them that there were 24 kids in the classroom and only one kid could win. I told them that if they lost they needed to think about all the other kids in the classroom that had also lost. And that it was okay. We would congratulation the winner, be happy for him or her, and play again the next day. My first year playing this game I had a 6 year old boy shake a fist at another boy while threatening to punch him in the face. He claimed the child was laughing at him, though he wasn't, I had been watching. The angered boy just didn't know how to lose. Last year, playing with 2nd graders was no better. I had a 7 year old boy lay down on the floor, kicking, screaming and crying. I had some kids that refused to play, because they were afraid they wouldn't win. When a child did win, and picked a treasure from the box, other children would snub up their noses and tell the winner that they chose a dumb toy that no one wanted to see.
I kid not. Very, very few times has a child genuinely been happy for another child, say even a best friend, to win a trip to the treasure box if it wasn't them.
Parents want and demand that their child be made to feel special. I do not believe teachers should show favoritism. I do think all children should be treasured and valued for who they are as individuals. I also try my darnest to create an environment that fosters self confidence and victory for all....But it can all be very tiresome, because like I said, parents demand that that their child be made to feel special. In reality, that means they want their child to be the best. Not as in the best that they can be, but better than everyone else kind of best. (I'm speaking in general here, I know not all parents have these motives, but gathering from my own experiences and stories from my colleagues, a lot of them do.)
I show my students a picture of two kids that are standing behind a fence trying to see over it. One of the kids is tall enough to see while the other is too short. I ask them if that is fair, and they of course say no. I then show them another picture this time with the shorter kid standing on a crate. Now both kids can see over the fence. I ask them if that's fair and you'd be surprised at how many kids still say no. It doesn't matter to them that the tall enough child can see without assistance, in their eyes that kid should have a crate too. It's the principle of the matter to them. There's really no hope for explaining to them that "fair" isn't everyone getting the same thing, rather everyone getting what he or she needs.
Kids in the classroom show more and more signs of selfishness, a sense of entitlement, the inability to share or lose, and the determination to oppose authority. They absolutely take these traits into their marriage. I know I did.
Marriage is hard. You have to share. Everything. All the time. The money, the bed, the CLOSET, the food, the bathroom, the REMOTE, relatives, and lots of time, among other things. Sharing can become a huge issue. Mainly, because we never practiced that much and certainly not enough to get good at it.
Marriage is hard. You aren't number one. You aren't the best. It isn't all about you. You don't always win a trip to the treasure box. You have to learn to sacrifice. To put someone else's needs above your own. I can't list the things I do for my husband without it looking like I'm tooting my own horn, but I'll be the first to tell you that I don't always enjoy doing them and that I also don't do nearly enough.
Within the first year of our marriage I noticed a huge problem. A huge fault. And it was mine. I had spent the day letting my anger fester, at what I can't even remember, but I had created a mental list of all the (silly, petty) things Andrew had done to offend me or upset me. I was laying on the bed going over how he was the problem in our argument and what all his faults were. I was listing all the areas that he fell short in and what he should do or say to be better. Then I noticed the canvas that hung on our bedroom wall. It was an engagement picture with a scripture from Genesis painted near the bottom that said "and the two shall become one". Through my tears, my eyes glued to the word one.
One. Not two, but one. And I realized that I was wrong. I couldn't condemn Andrew and look for his faults without looking at my own. We were in this together, as one.
It is our human nature to want to fix a problem by starting with "correcting" someone else. This is magnified in a marriage. Even after that realization, I would still trip up on my selfishness. I would identify my own faults but insist to myself that I didn't have it in me to do better if he wasn't going to put for the effort. Even though I knew what I needed to fix within myself, I wasn't willing to do it if he didn't. I didn't think I should be the one to give in, didn't want to give in. Why should I apologize if he doesn't? Why should I go out of my way to be sweet to him if he isn't? Wrong, wrong, wrong. That may be easier, but it isn't marriage.
Marriage calls us to be selfless and in a world that just created the "selfie stick", that's a dang hard thing to be. (Not that I have anything against the ingenious invention; I own one, but you get what I'm saying.) I know Andrew and I have a lot of learning, growing left to do. I pray that we continue to grow in our individual walks with Christ, because I know that this will consequently bring us closer to each other.
In light of our anniversary, I want to say thanks to my hubs for a few things, because just like I am awestruck by the ocean, I am awestruck by him. Yes, he is stubborn, hates to lose, or be wrong. Did I mention that he hates to lose? But there is a whole lot of good in that heart of his, and I am so glad that it is linked to mine.
Thanks for killing the spiders, sharpening tons of pencils, bringing pizza to my students, and sitting through multiple foster parenting classes. Thanks for the massages that come so regularly and telling me every single time I get dressed that I look pretty. Thanks for respecting my parents, letting my niece and nephew crawl all over you, and asking me about my sister you never knew. Thank you for pumping my gas, looking forward to church, and trusting me when I go out with my friends. Thank you for going grocery shopping with me, doing all the heavy lifting, and asking me about the books I read. Thank you for taking turns picking movies, always trying what I cook, and wanting to be in whatever room I am in.
I feel so secure and safe in our relationship. You are my best friend and my biggest supporter. And I am so thankful that God gave me you.
