Commitment to the Rescue!

Writing is a funny thing.  It is that paradoxical zone where nothing and everything is sacred; where real life and the spectacle we create on the page coexist.  One cannot exist without the other, fear has no place here because it will offset the delicate balance that one must achieve to write something worthwhile.  I am completely aware of this because I am afraid.  I guess celebrated writers like Hemingway and Poe relied on substances to alleviate their fear.  Although I am no expert on these writers or what they actually feared, I do know mine.  Yes, I know them well. 

The first is good old fashioned confidence.  Do I have what it takes to be a good or even great wielder of words?  I guess this remains to be seen.  But it goes even deeper than this.  I think that this greatness might only be discovered if I am willing to pull the veil off of some of the things that make me unhappy.  And when I do this I have to be unapologetic.  So here it comes.  Last night I had a date night with my wife, which is already a step in the wrong direction because the very sound of words “date night” are analogous to nails on a chalk board to me.  I remember my friend once clowned us for having such a night.  He decided to announce to everyone on the street as we passed by him on our way to the restaurant where our legendary night would take place.  I was mortified, because in my mind his laughter highlighted the cliché’s that are cosigned by so many married couples because in our search for sanity, common ground, and spontaneity, there is the irony that marriage by its very nature is often in direct conflict to these goals.  I suppose last night was no different.  Every date night I find myself saying a little prayer to God that my cynicism doesn’t rear its ugly head and undermine our efforts.  I guess I’m a purest in the sense that I feel like date nights, Valentine’s and anniversaries seem too unnatural to evoke any real bliss.  Not to mention, it always helps when you have something in common with your date.  There are days when I feel that besides bills and parenting my wife and I are often hard pressed to find something that we both enjoy immensely.  Of course there are those things that we both kind of enjoy, but that immense joy seems to always be out of our grasp.  And whenever we are given the rare opportunity of a date night it doesn’t take long before this unfortunate reality is exposed.  Now here’s the part where I must be honest and unapologetic.  Although I love my wife and I know she loves me, I can’t ignore the nagging little buzzing in my brain that says “you are boring her to tears” whenever we go out and I would be lying if I said that she didn’t bore me a little as well.  Feelings like this scare the shit out of me because there is always another gremlin in the back of my mind that makes me wonder what will happen if I continue to bore her or vice versa.  We have had countless discussions, which often morph into long drawn out arguments where ex-boyfriends and girlfriends are thrown into the mix and the conversation spirals into a dark murky place that sometimes takes days to dig ourselves out. 

One of the major catalysts for these explosions comes when she starts going on about her past and how glorious it was when she was in her twenties, a time that was not as glorious for me because I was in my thirties and dealing with the pre-midlife crisis that occurs after obtaining a liberal arts degree and the bubble bursts on all of the rock star fantasies that artsy folk like me hold so dear.     Although it was a time when I obviously fell in love with her (We met when she was 23 I think), there were many growing pains that came after, most of which could be attributed to her adjusting to life in committed relationship with a man who was 7 years older.  I of course had to adjust as well.  Needless to say these adjustments led to many painful moments that I would sooner bury than engage in nostalgia.  Another factor is that our nostalgias don’t match.  Her coming of age occurred in the nineties, the age of Bad Boy entertainment and Biggie Smalls, soon to be followed by everybody’s friend Jay-Z, a time that I view as the dark ages of music and art in general.  My time came just before that in the age of Native Tongue, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul.  Need I say more?  So the question remains, how do two people with such contrasting sensibilities manage to hold it together?  The answer of course is love but often more paramount is our value of commitment. 

Commitment is the blessed and cursed glue that holds us together.  So during those times when I’m rolling my eyes when she is shoving pictures in my face from Instagram or going on and on about her hair or how her sense of fashion has evolved since the nineties; when she feels a migraine coming when I’m going on about how much pop culture has changed for the worst or raving about some comic book I just read, commitment often swoops in and saves the day.  Commitment is the caped crusader of our marriage.  Although it saves us often from imminent disaster, its methods are unconventional and often messy.  Like when extinction level events like arguments occur it will unabashedly send in children armed with cute little faces and high prepubescent voices to redirect our attention to seemingly trivial things like juice and Chef Boyardee.  It will often redirect our attention from internal strife to greater threats of stability like shut off notices and threats of foreclosure.   It’s in moments like these when we transform from enemies to allies never questioning why we must band together.  And when the dust settles, we discover that without love, commitment means nothing.  And sometimes getting to that place requires superhuman strength.   I think the theme of our next date night should be a celebration of our collective superpowers.