Be like a glow stick

There is a story going around Facebook, more of a status that has been shared over and over.  I'm going to admit that I skimmed it pretty quickly, but the story was about a gal observing two little boys in a store.  The oldest boy was getting a pack of glow sticks and of course the younger brother saw this and wanted one.  The older boy gave his younger brother a glow stick and the little one was delighted.  Then the older brother took back the glow stick, not to be mean, but to snap it and make it glow.  The little brother was devastated about the loss of his glow stick until his brother returned it all shiny and beautiful.

The author of that status compared that situation to her own life.  She made the connection that, throughout her life, she went along thinking things were going pretty well, like the little boy with his dull glow stick.  But then there would be a rough patch in her life, a snap, a crack, to show her that things could be so much better.   I, too, could make this connection.

In the times since my divorce it has never ceased to amaze me how my life just keeps getting better.  It took some really awful times, that snap/crack to wake me up and show me how to make my life better.  I look back on the earlier versions of myself and kind of want to crawl in a hole and die of embarrassment.  But I also want to jump up and down and celebrate how far I've come since that person.  I used to be bitter, judgmental, angry and scared so much of the time.  I had all these walls up around myself that I refused to let anyone behind.  And I thought this was just how it was.  This was as good as it got. 

Marriage is an example.  I've probably talked about this a dozen times before, but I really had the wrong idea of marriage.  I thought it was supposed to be hard work.  Husbands complaining about their wives, wives complaining about their husbands.  Lack of physical intimacy, because really, wasn't that just young "puppy" love?  Escaping from each other with friends and hobbies. Arguing and compromising.  Lying, hiding, sneaking, frustrating, forgiving and asking for forgiveness.  I thought a lot of things about marriage and most of them were a load of crap.  But I thought it was just how marriage was.  I thought my marriage was fine.  It took that snap/crack to show me how wrong I was. 

And that snap/crack was a painful one.  It brought me to my knees more than once and forced me to take a long, hard look at myself and who I was.  Not just as a wife, but as a person as a whole.  Not surprisingly, I didn't like all that I saw.  So I had my work cut out for me to be a better person. 

Marriage can be and is so much better than that.  I know Tim and I are still new to this second marriage, but I honestly can't imagine life without my husband by my side.  I've never experienced this level of a partnership or this much love.  He's the person I can't wait to get home to and the person I can't wait to wake up next to.  It's wanting the other to be happy, even if it means not getting your way or not getting to be right.  It's having someone to talk to, bounce ideas off of, lift you up, be your person in your corner.  It's holding hands and kissing and.... (keeping it real here folks).  I'm sure we will have a real argument sometime - but part of the not arguing is being thankful for your partner and realizing that some of the little annoyances in life are just that - minor details. 

I could go on, but I guess how happy I am today isn't the real point of this blog.  The real point is this - the hardest times in our lives aren't the end.  They are the snap, the crack that means better things are coming.  What we need to do is learn from them and know that sometimes it just takes a little break to propel us toward the best.