Let
me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments
9 January, 2000
I baby-sat for my nieces and nephew last night, and didn't get home until nearly midnight. Deb was about to go to bed when I got home, but said there had been some e-mail for me. She had a look on her face that I couldn't quite place.
There was an e-mail from her in my in-box.
Subject:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds... Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2000 20:40:14
+1300
From: Debbie
To: mike@maupuia.com
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh no! It is an ever fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
At yet today we fought, at times, as we do so often. And cut and hurt each other, wondering if we really should just say, "it's over, we tried our best … in the end it wasn't good enough".
I don't know why trivial things, petty things, misread things, escalate the way they do for us. I know that Matthew runs from one to the other, looking at each of us in turn, worried but trying to smile, trying to make it better.
Trivial as it sounds, I think a part of it has to do with lack of sleep and lack of money. We're both exhausted much of the time, and family obligations over Christmas and New Year have sometimes seemed like a never-ending treadmill we have to run on. It's hard to be passionate and understanding and considerate when all you want to do is curl up and go back to sleep. And the lack of money is worrying. We're back to buying groceries on credit card — which I know isn't poverty, but it means we still have to pay at some later date. The situation provides a dull background to all we do, sapping confidence from me and causing Deb to ask why she works all week and we get no further ahead.
Deb's just read what I've written. She says,
"You know, maybe the wonder of it all is that we are still together, not that we think of breaking up. Maybe the thing we need to look at is that we're survivors. Over the past three and a bit years, we've bought a house for the first time, we've had a baby, you've changed jobs twice and are trying to start up a new business, both my parents have died, there's been the whole online thing with you, you've suffered a crisis of confidence, a depression, I'm trying to complete my Master's degree, we've bought a car, our income has halved … Is it any wonder we snap at each other?"
Sometimes I wallow far too much in whatever rut I'm in. The bigger picture says that if we're still together after all that, we've got something worth keeping.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.