9.03.2009

To Wife...or Not to Wife?


Ahhhh....the glory of being a wife. Oh wait, I'm not totally sure what this glory is...can someone help me out? Someone? Anyone? Any takers? COMMON! I have spent the first month of my marriage unpacking boxes, traveling to Boston, Cape Code, Yakima, Rivera Maya, and Colorado. Andy and I have hardly been home and rarely are we even alone...especially with a certain, small, hairy, black and white individual hanging around needing something, at almost all times. 

"What's the best thing about being a wife?" asks Nana.

"Do you feel different?" says my mama.

My answer, unfortunately is, no. I don't feel much different except when I spend money, I ask Andy first (especially considering my current state of unemployment). When Nicole came over yesterday for dinner and chat time...I told Andy, making sure he didn't have plans to use the floor in our bedroom for a chat sesh and at-home pedi as Nic and I had already booked the space. Sure, maybe I "see" things differently...driving around I've noticed things I've never seen before, Mini has changed her eating habits, all of a sudden it has become windy in Seattle...or am I just making it up...so that I feel "different" as a wife? 

Now now, don't get me wrong....PLEASE! I love being married. I love sharing a space with my husband that is just ours (minus the small area in bed that Mini insists belongs to her, not to mention our couch pillow...which apparently no long
er belongs to the couch). 

I enjoy playing wife...if you will. I, being not only completely unemployed, but confused on how and what I really want to spend my time doing...(enter deep sigh), enjoy doing daily household chores (of course, as a reminder I will say again...Kirsten=fairly freakishly clean. Thus, how could I not enjoy these tasks?). Laundry thrills me, cooking dinner for Andy when he gets home makes me feel like I have a purpose in our little Newlywed World. And get this...I actually make the bed...daily! Talk about growth. 

But there has to be more to being a wife than checking in with your husband before you make plans or buy something. There has to be more depth than growing up enough to start making your bed daily (about time...HELLO 23-year-old!) and cooking for not one, but two...always. 

So, I decide to do some research...Great. The first thing that comes up when I google, "the role of a wife" is a (in my opinion) misinterpretation of 1 Timothy 4:15 which, according to http://www.bible.ca/marriage/wives.htm,  says, "get married, bear children, keep house." 

Fantastic...is that all that my future holds as a wife? Once I get married all there is to it is to pop out some kiddos and make sure the dishes get put into the dishwasher and the toilet gets cleaned weekly? Of course, according to the NIV, 1 Timothy 5:14 says,"So I counsel younger wives to marry, have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity to slander." Ah, so perhaps that's a part of being a wife...to be a protector? 

The research continues. I am beginning to feel a bit burned, as I'm your classic girlie girl. Keeping a wedding book since I was literally 14-years-old, full of magazine clippings and event planning advice...it sat next to my scrap book of website print outs of houses and gardens I loved....yeah 14 going on 35. I had high hopes for that magical feeling that would wash over me the moment I became a wife...funny thing is....as much as it feels like such an honor to be a wife (which it IS) it also feels normal. I easily began to call Andy my husband, and only the first time I uttered the word, "husband" did it feel like I was lying. It feels refreshing and, (yes I'm going to be exceptionally cheesy here, bear with me) right, to be a wife. I feel like I always have felt and that I believe is a blessing. To truly feel like one, after attaching your life permanently to another...

Search, search, more searching for my purpose as a wife, I am disappointed. Every sight says something about housework and being a mother, or how things have changed and women are going out of the house looking for higher levels of education and and work and HELLO  21st CENTURY?? These things, all important and valuable are just not what I am
 looking for. What is it about being a wife..again SOMEONE THROW ME A BONE HERE?


Here is what I've found thus far (yes, I've been married for just over a month...humor me). Being a wife doesn't start with making the bed and cooking dinner....it doesn't even stretch to cleaning the toilet and having children. Being a wife is about committing your life to another life. To say to that person that you will be there, and be honest, and be loving, and protect that person with all of your being. Becoming a wife is more than making your left ring finger a tad heavier....no, no, that's just the fun part. Becoming a wife makes you the same person, born new again. It is an honor and a blessing and as important as it is to take care of a home (apartment, condo, or 4 bedroom house!), to have and take care of children, to work in and out of the home, becoming a wife focuses on taking care of oneself so that one is able to, in turn, take care of their husband. To stand side by side in love and commitment...the rest will come later. In the words of Fredrick Buechner, "they both still have their lives apart as well as their lives together. They both still have their separate ways to find. But a marriage made in heaven is one where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together than the changes are either of them could ever have managed to become alone. When Jesus changed the water into wine at the wedding in Cana, perhaps it was more or less a way of saying the same thing." 

2 comments:

  1. Hello Kristen,

    I am a friend of Andy's from long ago (ask him about Evergreen Rec. Center). I was just cruising through the blogosphere and landed on your blog - looks good. Congrats to you and Andy. I remember when he was just a young pup. If you'd like, you can read our blog at: n2future.blogspot.com. Say "hello" to Andy for me.

    -Bruce Dotterrer

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  2. Okay did no-one ever tell you about the postpartum that comes after the wedding? Well, let me be the first to welcome you if not. It's not so much a depression as it is sheer bewilderment, the not knowing what to do now since everything under the sun has been planned out for at least the last year. It is a little like graduating, like you take that step and magically you are supposed to know what to do and "feel the change". You, my girl are well on your way to having a lovely life, and fear not you will find your way, but that is part of the lesson in being a wife or the other half of a whole. Learning how to bridge both. I have been married for 7 years and we have been together for 12 and I feel like we are just now hitting our stride, being who I dreamed we would be, with less money and adventure than what I had dreamed but what can ya do? Being a wife is compromise, being brave when you don't want to be and being as honest as you can. It's about loving even when you don't like. It's about making yourself a better person and making the one your with strive for more. It's a big job, but I believe you are qualified even if you don't yet ;). Love ya!
    Megan

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