alexis in the city

.Eight Years.

Today is our anniversary. I almost forgot because we’ll be “celebrating” it by Ryan and his other incubator classmates pitching their startups, and then jetting off to Google. Last year we “celebrated” by me going on a business trip to NYC with the startup I worked for at the time. So you can kind of get an idea for what our lives revolve around.

I usually say we don’t celebrate our anniversary - it’s too close to Christmas and too mainstream (we celebrate the anniversary of our first date instead). And then Ryan says I’m a cold-hearted shrew (not in so many words) which is mostly true, and something I’m not really a little bit proud of. But when it comes to these sort of things I am sort of unemotional and unromantic or - to put it in one word - a man.

But it’s not at all that I don’t value Ryan or our relationship. I’ve written before how wedding vows are worthless, so in an effort to prove that I do, in fact, have more than a hole where my heart should be, I decided to jot down a few things I would say if I were re-writing my vows today.

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What am I Doing That’s Unreasonable?

Since I’m perfect, it’s really irksome to me when I see people making unreasonable decisions - based on emotions, selfishness, impatience, instead of reason, facts and rationality - that are going to screw up their lives (I’m also clairvoyant).

Of course I’m kidding. I’ve made some pretty unreasonable decisions over the course of my life. Maybe this is why when I see people doing the same I want to jump into their lives and press the “pause” button. I’ve been lucky in that my ill-advised choices haven’t caused long-term dysfunction or narrowed my options in any extreme way. The most “unreasonable” choice I always point to was getting married too young - that one took the longest to bounce back from (two years and a well-qualified therapist) - but there have been others: Ryan and I becoming self-employed within a week of eachother; getting two dogs; moving to SF with no apartment and no jobs.

I’m not at all risk-averse and wouldn’t necessarily lump “risky” in with “unreasonable” but it’s knowing the difference that has recently given me pause to think. We’ve made a lot of risky decisions too: buying investment properties; traveling Asia; moving to Portland for Ryan’s startup. And while these things haven’t always worked out incredibly smoothly, I would say the difference is a). they didn’t/don’t have the potential to wreak real havoc on our lives; b). if there were/are hiccups, we’re equipped (financially, relationally, logistically) to handle them without severe detriment to our long-term goals; and c). if things go well they have the potential to actually bring us closer to our goals.

But how to know the difference? When I’ve made unreasonable choices in the past, of course I didn’t think they were ill-advised. Which is perhaps what’s so scary to me, and why I want to kick people when I see them making unreasonable mistakes: things like having kids on an unstable income; getting married without considering the implications; taking out loans; etc. When Ryan and I see people making decisions we question, it’s compelled us to look at our lives and ask - what’re we doing now that we’ll look back on later and deem was unreasonable?

I think the above criteria is a good place to start but it’s also hard to be objective when you might have to tell yourself “no” regarding something you really want. I had a big breakthrough this year when I decided to take time off from grad school. We could’ve finagled a solution that would’ve allowed Ryan to be in Portland for his startup and me to be in NYC for school but it just wouldn’t have made good sense and it ran the risk of significantly damaging our relationship and our finances. Since Ryan’s opportunity was time sensitive and mine wasn’t (I could defer for a year), I decided that waiting a year and saving ourselves from the potential fall out was well worth deferring my immediate wants.

I was pretty happy that I was able to remove myself from the situation enough to make a (relatively) objective decision and I hope this shows I’m not just getting more anal in my old age, but also a little wiser. In what areas have you been able to remove your blinders and start making reasonable choices?

Being Chivalrous

Ryan and I haven’t really done the airport pickup/dropoff in years. When we first moved to SF, we didn’t have a car so it was a moot point. Once we did get a car, street parking was such a hassle it was worth the cab fair not to lose our parking spot (plus we found the most amazing car service that made riding to the airport a joy).

But then I found myself having volunteered to pick Ryan up from the airport at 11:45pm - since the trains stop running at 11:49 (i know, i know, don’t get me started). I tried to back out of it when I realized how late he was getting in, and he half-heartedly volunteered to take a cab only after pointing out his willingness to do the same for me. So in a sense I was guilted in to the near-midnight pick-up.

But then I got to thinking - he’s right of course (shhh, don’t tell him I said that). He’s carted me around at all hours of the night. Picked me up in the pouring rain when I couldn’t get a cab home. Rented a car in the middle of the night and drove an hour to come get me from a bachelorette party I deemed too low-brow for my tastes. And of course these are only the driving-related instances.

Yet I realized I wasn’t holding myself to the same standard. I was subconsciously expecting him to do all those things out of chivalry (for lack of a better word) toward me without requiring the same of myself toward him. In short: if I was expecting chivalry, I wasn’t being very chivalrous in return.

I’m not one of those people who gets mad at a guy for holding the door, but I’m also not a fan of the notion of chivalry. What I DO support is mutual respect, doing unto others, and all that good stuff. Ryan and I have even had lengthy conversations on this topic, yet here I was with this unexamined double standard waiting to rear its head at 11:45 on a Sunday night.

So of course I went to the airport - yes, based on principle and logic … and also because this is the guy who drove 100 miles for me, round trip, at 1am because I was too snobby to endure an overnight bachelorette party.

Wedding vows are worthless

I’ve been married for almost eight years. Shocking, I know, since I’m only 25. Eight years isn’t an exceptionally long time - especially not compared to a lifetime of seeing the same person every.single.day wedded bliss. But it’s long enough to know that the words we said at our wedding in no way spoke to the reality of marriage. We even wrote our own vows - I have them around here somewhere - I’m sure they were good (I’m a writer!) and very personal. I don’t think they were invalid or impersonal or ill-founded, but just that I had know way of knowing what we would truly end up needing in our relationship.

Our first two years of marriage were hell; but by the grace of God - and a gifted therapist - we stayed together and (re)built a wonderful, happy, healthy relationship. How do you write a vow about something like that?

I’m sure we’ll go through many other things I couldn’t foresee then and I can’t even foresee now. My vows were beautiful, but they didn’t carry the weight of knowing what they actually meant and they didn’t have the stupid necessities I would include now. Things like: I promise not to mess with your stuff. I promise not to cook. I promise to make the bed if you clean the toilet. I promise to move for your startup if you promise to let me go to grad school just for the hell of it. I promise not to bitch about you eating out, if you promise to shut up about all the clothes I buy.

And so forth.

These days, we’re all about getting things in writing (like the as-yet-unsigned contract we have about kids) and I feel like my initial pass at vows wasn’t deep enough on both an emotional and a practical level.

Because the bizarre thing about wedding vows is you’re promising to do something without any inkling of what that “thing” is.

Circumstantial Housewife