Our kind of marriage

Now the neighbours are starting as well…

This morning as I leave the house I bump into the lady next door. I say “Hi. How are you?” and as always I’m hoping to get away with that and not end up having to engage in any kind of deeper conversation. This morning, she doesn’t let me off, though. She has obviously picked up that Tony’s not here. (Thinking about it, I might even have volunteered that information myself the other day when I was mowing the lawn at the front and couldn’t avoid making conversation). “So when’s your husband coming back then?” she asks me and I say: “In the middle of July.” “Oh…” she says. Feeling like I owe her some sort of explanation, I say: “Yeah, he’s on a meditation retreat in Belgium, you know?” And then I add “And when he comes back, I will be off on retreat.”

I don’t know why I threw that one into the conversation but it seemed a compromise between not saying anything and overwhelming her with the whole extent of the situation. As I’m making my escape towards the car, she tries to be funny and says something like: “Well that’s the kind of marriage to have” and I reply: “Yes, lots of freedom.”

I’ve seen the expression on her face on many people’s faces before when they hear how we lead our lives and the freedom we give each other.  It’s a mixture of disbelief, pity and something else that I can’t quite put my finger on.

The thing is, that when those same people tell me that they and their partners are “always together” or “have never spent a day apart” it makes me shudder. It’s the worst I could possibly imagine.

I need space and freedom and I hate commitment. I also get bored quite easily, love to ride the waves of change and am full of desire for new, exciting experiences. As a friend of mine put it: I’m not really marriage material and I actually never intended to marry.

So how did I end up being married to Tony? Well, it wasn’t really a rational decision. I just suddenly knew in my heart that it was what I wanted to do. So I did.

I do have “my phases” (as Tony calls them) that I periodically go through; times when it all gets too much and I just want to quit everything and run off somewhere.

I think it was difficult for him in the beginning of our relationship and back then he often made the mistake of trying to stop me from feeling that way – which of course just made matters worse. Luckily Tony’s quite stable and confident in himself which helped and nowadays he’s more like a rock against a raging sea when I get like that. It just washes over him and when I calm down again he’s still there and so am I.

He can bear my unstableness and the fact that I’m unwilling to give him any guarantees. That in turn, makes me feel like I’m loved the way I am and makes me want to stay. On top of that he enjoys his own company as much as I enjoy mine and is more than happy for both of us to do things on our own – something I really need in a relationship.

So, no: I don’t need pity from anyone who thinks that what we do is really difficult - or even dangerous to our relationship - because from my perspective it’s not. Quite the opposite.

The truth that Tony and I are fully aware of is that there are no guarantees in life or in love. You cannot promise someone that you’ll always be with them and I refuse to do it because it would be a lie. My relationships to anyone are based on honesty and truthfulness. It’s not that I don’t want to always be with Tony but I simply don’t know what the future holds and neither does he.

I don’t find that scary. I find it liberating! I believe the challenge in life is to accept the fact that we don’t have control over how things develop, that things change and that the future is uncertain. To become comfortable with that knowledge brings great peace of mind and makes you appreciate the present moment more fully.

Strange occurrences

This morning, in the car on my way to work, I find myself visualising doing another job, a job that I applied for this week. It feels great. I’m quite excited. I have one interview next week and possibly another one the week after that. Both jobs I think I’d really enjoy.

I’m thinking that once I handed in my notice I want to thank one particular person in the organisation for boosting my confidence when no one else did. She is not part of my team and has no reason to be nice to me but has given me more praise and positive feedback than anyone since I worked in that place.

Strangely I bump into her at lunchtime and again, she’s telling me how amazing she thinks I am. I’m not going to go into what else she tells me, which is what my manager had said when she mentioned me positively at a senior meeting. I just take it as a sign that I’m totally right in taking my skills somewhere where they’re valued.

Later another person, also not from my team but somewhat involved with what I do, also gives me lots of positive feedback regarding a presentation I recently did. She adds that she’s sure my manager (who was also at that presentation but had nothing nice to say) also liked it. How kind. She obviously picked up that praise is a foreign language in my team.

It’s strange that all this happens today when my mind finally settles on the decision to leave this dysfunctional team sooner rather than later. It’s as if everything conspires to tell me that I’m totally on the right track and deserve better.

Well guess what? I got the message.

Stormy weather

I had all these plans and imagined it all to be so easy. I thought once Tony is gone and I have no one to distract me or invite me to be lazy I’m going to be so disciplined and organised: I will do my meditation practice religiously every morning, I will eat a super-healthy diet, I will step up my exercise regime and I will study much harder for my exam in Buddhist studies on 20^th July.

What can I say?

“Pustekuchen!” is what I would say in German. “Nada” in Spanish. In English I’m afraid I have to swear: f*** all is what I’ve done!

Why is this happening? What’s going on?

I’m even more skittish and unfocused than I normally am. I’m all over the place while at the same time it doesn’t really amount to anything. The result: I feel totally stressed with nothing to show for.

It’s like I’ve lost my centre of gravity, like I need Tony’s calm, “couldn’t care less” kind of energy that every now and then asks me to take time out and settle down for a bit. The question I ask myself is this: has Tony become the anchor that keeps me steady in the stormy sea that’s me?

Birthday

It’s my birthday today.

I start the day to peanut butter and jam on toast and birthday cards from Tony and my parents. Tony’s card says that he’s sorry he can’t be here with me but that in a way he’s always with me anyway. I like that thought and it makes me smile.

After a bath, more text messages, e-mails, a phone call from Tony and congratulations via Facebook I'm spending 2 hours volunteering at the Lewknor Blue Cross Adoption Centre. I love animals and I love working there.  

In the afternoon I treat myself to a visit to the hairdresser before making my way to my friend Lisa’s book launch. While waiting at the bus stop for the bus to Oxford (it’s my birthday and I want to have a drink) an old lady asks me if the bus has already been and gone and I assure her that it hasn’t but that it should be here soon. She then calls her husband to tell him and refers to me as the “young girl” she just asked. It makes me crack up inside. I am 36 today.

At the book launch, Lisa gets everyone to sing Happy Birthday to me and I blush because I’m a bit embarrassed. I appreciate it, though.

As I listen to the stories of some of the women featured in Lisa’s book, stories of adversity and turning that adversity into the very reason to thrive, I feel very moved. I remember the old lady from the bus stop and how from her perspective I’m a young girl. In the same way, for these women, adversity put perspective back in their lives. 

It reminds me what birthdays are all about: celebrating being alive. I don’t want to wait until I’m old to appreciate being young or to lose or almost lose the things that matter in life to learn to appreciate them. 

I’m alive. The time to live and love is now.

Dharma, love and football

HH The Dalai Lama just finished his last lecture in Manchester Arena. He leaves me enveloped in a warm, fuzzy feeling of love, happiness and profound gratitude and with tears streaming down my face.

I sit down again. I don’t want to talk to people. I don’t want to interact. I just want to stay with this feeling a little bit longer.

I wish Tony were here to share this moment with me. I’d hold his hand or rest my head on his shoulder and simply enjoy his presence. No need for words. You know you found someone special when you can enjoy each other’s silence.

On the train home I remember one of our first shared moments, which was incidentally during His Holiness’ visit to Glasgow in 2004. Somehow we both ended up in the same room one evening with a group of other volunteers and we spent 2 hours stuffing little bags with items for a ceremony that His Holiness was holding the following day. On the photo that someone took of this evening, we’re just sitting next to each other focusing on the work at hand.

That was before I asked him to take me out to watch various football matches of that year’s European Championship and before I told him that I liked him. 

We're both quite happy to be on our own, we both love football but we also both love the Dharma and decided to make it a priority in our lives. Our wedding vows, which we took not even a year after that evening in Glasgow, read:

“Today we promise to dedicate ourselves completely to each other, with body, speech, and mind.

In this life, in every situation, in wealth or poverty, in health or sickness, in happiness or difficulty, we will work to help each other perfectly.

The purpose of our relationship will be to attain enlightenment by perfecting our kindness and compassion toward all sentient beings.” (By Lama Yeshe).

Today I feel grateful and happy for so many reasons.

Have I already mentioned that the German football team won their group on Sunday and qualified for the quarterfinals in this year’s European Championship?

You might have noticed from what I said earlier that I was quite instrumental in making our relationship happen: I asked Tony to take me out to watch the football (and to be honest I didn’t so much ask as suggest) and I also took the first step in telling him what I felt for him. I went even further than that. I also hinted at some point that if he would ask me to marry him, I wouldn’t say no.

And you know what, I don’t feel one bit ashamed of that because if there’s one thing I realised upon reflection on the whole weekend, it’s this:

In life, in love, in football and in the Dharma, things don’t just happen by themselves. If you want something, you need to get your ass into gear and go and get it.

My new companion

I first made acquaintance with my new companion before Tony left. It was in the early hours of one morning when I was stumbling around the bed to find my socks and I suddenly felt this tingling across my foot. And there he was, small (about the size of a 10p coin), black and 8-legged. Nothing more than a very quiet “oohh” left my lips and I have to admit that the sensation itself was actually quite pleasant. I didn’t bother chasing him as he went straight under the bed or spent even a minute since worrying when or where I might encounter him again.

Around midday I decide to have a bath (just to further indulge in my laziness) and when I go to put my clothes on afterwards he jumps out of them onto the floor. I’m a bit more concerned now. I’m happy for him to roam the house but I don’t want the two of us to get too intimate or him being squashed by accident. So I try to pick him up with a piece of paper but he won’t have none of it and just runs off into the bathroom. A bit later I find him there sitting on a towel. He obviously really likes fabrics.

I remember that I wasn’t always that easy-going around spiders but last year in August I decided to face my fears and handled a tarantula called Octavia. Since then, spiders and I seem to have a special relationship with each other. Just recently I supposedly came across almost hysterical when I tried to save a spider from being trampled to death by panicked women at a party.

Maybe this spider is returning the favour (as a representative of the spider community) by keeping me company while Tony is away. I might call him Brian. That’s Tony’s middle name.

Lazylympics

It's Friday today. My day off work and therefore the day I try to get all the things done that work doesn’t leave me enough time to do between Monday and Thursday. I wake up to lots of space in my bed, enjoy stretching out all the way like a starfish and go back to sleep again.
When I wake up for the second time this morning my head is already spinning and full of thoughts. Thoughts about all the things I’d like to do competing with thoughts about all the things I ought to be doing. This internal warfare of thoughts makes me feel so tired and exhausted before I even get up that I decide not to do either. Somehow, it feels like a clever solution. 

My assumption that I may be more disciplined when I’m on my own is already losing its strength and I am now considering that it could easily turn out to be the opposite: I might be lazier.

Later that morning I start feeling guilty about having lost so many valuable hours of the day already and not having achieved anything yet. I get a text message from Tony. It cheers me up and reminds me that he’s even lazier than I am. Not only that but he will always be better at it too – because he doesn’t waste time feeling guilty about it.

Sugar love

Tony’s off in three days time. Already I’m wondering…

Will I enjoy my job even less than I do now once he’s gone and there’s no one to distract me from that fact? Without the sweetener of his presence, will I have to fully experience the bitter taste of dissatisfaction?

Setting the scene

My husband Tony and I have been together for 8 years and we have been married for 7.

We are both practicing Buddhists and Tony has taken 5 months off work to spend some focused time studying and practicing the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings) in first group and then solitary retreat.

He will leave on Thursday, 14^th June to go to Belgium where he will spend about a month taking part in two group retreats. After that he will come home for a few days before heading off to Spain where he will spend 100 days in solitary retreat.

While he is in Belgium we can still talk to each other over the phone and I will see him for a day or two during his stopover at home in July. Once in Spain he will enter solitude with no contact whatsoever to the outside world. He’ll be back at the beginning of November.

Our spiritual path is a priority for both of us and we have spent time apart in the past going on different retreats. I believe that following a spiritual path is ultimately an individual and very personal endeavour even if – as in our case - both people are following the same path. I feel very lucky to be in a relationship where we are both happy to give each other enough space and freedom to spend time alone on our path.

However, 5 months is considerably longer than 1 month (the longest time we spent apart before) and also, not having any contact at all for 3 months is certainly a novelty.

I’m not worried, though. Rather, I’m curious to see how that feels and how I react in my thoughts, emotions and behavior. Obviously when you live with someone you somehow adjust to each other and your energies and rhythms align to dance together. I wonder how I will dance on my own.