Merry Christmas, TW ~ Blog 39

A few years ago, I made a misguided attempt to write The Wife 25 Christmas love notes in the month of December. It was misguided for obvious reasons (25 is a lot) and not (work used to keep me absurdly busy).

Inspiration comes in strange forms. So it was this morning while watching a music channel. It was a summer festival in Glastonbury, England and Coldplay was playing. There's a lyric at the start of one of their songs that hits home: When you try your best but you don't succeed; When you get what you want but not what you need; When you feel so tired but you can't sleep; Stuck in reverse.

The last three years have been tough. People tell you not to define your life by what you do for work, but most people don't feel passionate about what they do. Three years ago, we thought there might be something other than journalism I could do for work. According to my records, I've applied for at least 75 jobs in the past three years. I've interviewed for exactly two non-journalism jobs; one was a three-month temporary job. Stuck in reverse.

A journalism degree isn't a license to print money; it also isn't a license to do anything much other than journalism, which isn't exactly a growth industry.

Through all the false hopes and layoffs, TW has been solid as a rock. They tell you a lot of things about marriage when you're getting married. It's about loving unconditionally and giving yourself to the other person. What it's really about is having the other person's back.

We're at an age when a "normal" 30-something wife would have certain expectations about what her life would look like. There would be a house and normal 9-to-5 jobs. There would be a retirement fund being contributed to on a regular basis. We'd like all of those things, but it hasn't worked out that way. Yet.

We fight. Oh, we fight. If a coffee filter is left in the coffee pot or someone leaves food that the dog destroys, we get annoyed at each other. It's easy to get carried away with day-to-day pettiness.

Then Something Big rolls into the scene and I am reminded how incredible TW is. The bigger and more stressful an issue is, the easier it is for her to handle. You could say she's got my back. Big time.

We've known each other for 10 years, minus a year or so we didn't talk to each other. More on that here. We have mundane days, and nights we sit on the couch watching TV, cuddling with the dog and not talking.

Hopefully, Big Things will stop rolling onto the scene. We're ready for stability. We're ready for mundane. But if a Big issue comes along, I know it's not really a Big deal. She's got my back.

That's not a sexy image of marriage. They don't tell you about that in pre-marital counseling, but it's exactly what the vows talk about: Through thick and thin, richer and poorer, health and sickness, I'll be there.

The last three years have been dramatic. We quit our jobs and moved from Utah to Maine. I didn't have a career. I got laid off. I spent months on the couch, losing my sanity. PA school happened. We moved to Boston. I got laid off a second time. You wonder when it's all going to stop.

There is one constant: We can handle it all. It's been 10 years and we still like each other. Usually. A few years ago, I never figured out how to express that in 25 different love letters. That's a lot of letters. Coldplay has my current mood explanation. I know it's cool to hate Coldplay, but they've captured how TW takes care of me in this song. Lights will guide you home; And ignite your bones; And I will try to fix you.