Husband and Wife Talk
I don’t know that I ever felt like I knew everything in my twenties. In fact, I may have been in so much fear that I didn’t know enough. And so, rather than to suggest I was pretty well put together back then, I want to actually say that I had hopes of finally having it together one day.
It was no surprise I got married at a young age. I was searching for more than what was around me. I have mentioned before that getting married allowed me to finally play house with essentially a dollhouse that was mine to put together and play out. However, I don’t know of any dollhouse that comes with a manual. Mine definitely didn’t. All I knew was that it was my house and I could have a say in its process of development.
I, now, eventually arriving at my fifties to my husband having found himself planted within the age group, both look back having some wishful thinking of how we could have handled our twenties more wisely.
It is important to point out that in retrospect, we hold no regrets. While we generally have discussed the same understanding of the following notes in our talk, we most often smile back to having our greatest accomplishment being that of raising our first three children to now, what we call being in our Phase Two, of raising our two youngest.
This Phase Two of parenting is the one area of our present life where I feel like we get to do parenthood again, stronger and wiser. With our youngest two already at a greater start than what we both incredibly sacrificed to help our oldest three to achieve, we joyfully look forward to the better days to take into form. Still, in our talk in this video, my husband, Gerald, definitely reflects on several things he wishes he knew in his twenties. Having journeyed through it all with him, I cannot help but share agreement and great understanding of his reflective thoughts.
The sequence of buying things were wrong.
Who doesn’t like to go spree shopping at any level? When you finally have your own money, you own the rights to decide how you’d like to spend it. While I still believe we made the right decision to not have a huge wedding, but rather, buy a house instead, this should not negate that we weren’t many times frivolous with our spending when we got the chance. We were young. Although we had established a good start, some of our spending should have definitely gone to making more investments. Are we doing okay? Yes. Could we be doing better? Of course.
There is a pattern of luxury that comes through.
The more you make, the more you spend. This saying can be quite a trap if you stand by its suggestion. The excitement of making more leads to the joy of buying more. Interestingly, the feeling of satisfaction is short-lived or leading to some insatiable level. Perhaps it is knowing that you knew you could have bought greater if you had more. I have tried buying the same brands I bought in my twenties. Psychologically, I do not like the thought of stagnancy. Buying at the level I could afford in my twenties is merely suggesting to myself that I have made no growth or improvement in having better. Call it pride, but I would like to suggest more, the word growth.
Always focusing on continuing to improve yourself.
The realization that you have grown from who you used to be is a great feeling of accomplishment. Staying unchanged suggests two things: one is perfect and thus, needs no improvement or, one denies anyone or any thought suggesting improvement is necessary. While I may have been comfortable under my own skin in my twenties, there is no suggestion in my bone to imply this means I was perfect. The great beauty of always striving to improve, is there is always this celebration when you arrive at a better self. Whether it be heart, mind, body, or spirit, working toward improvement is an inner desire for no one else, but the one who must look in the mirror and see the reflection each time.
Not to have people around you that are always going to keep you too comfortable.
I recently completed a survey where I made the statement, “There is a difference between caring and enabling.” There is no growth or progress on the becoming of you when all those around don’t question your next plan. Ultimately, there is no becoming. There will be just the you that has become acceptable to all parts that actually still have room for growth. “Love me for me” should unconditionally suggest “love me as I continue to work on me”. If you are around people who aren’t helping you grow, you are like a plant whose roots have choked up, holding you back from growing any further.
Select the right people to be around with the right percentage of your time.
How you spend your time is just as equally meaningful as who you spend it with as you grow older. You can hang out with the fun uncle or the hard-working one. No one stays in an amusement park forever. It’s there to let loose and get away from life’s grueling moments. However, anyone who is productive will want to return back to productivity. Hanging out with the fun uncle will be ongoing until the realization sets that progress has been non-existent or worse, pulled you back instead of forward. That fun uncle will soon grow old and to follow, so will you.
Family is a team no matter how you cut it.
Family works together, plan together, push together in the same direction and path of the family vision. Anyone on a team who tries to go any other direction than the planned direction causes a delay or simply, a difference in paths. Division creates a brokenness of any result trying to get to the same destination. While you don’t want to leave anyone behind, sadly a choice has to be made on which direction is best to continue to forego. Whether one believes in the vision or not is the determinant to where the team is going or if they will all arrive to the same destination.
The opinions and perspectives of my husband, Gerald’s, is one coming from his own struggles and challenges he withheld far before he met me. This, his drive, comes from a different push from my very own deprivation and hurts prior to me becoming his wife and mother to our children. The amazing thing that starts to formulate when two have been together working toward the same goals in life is that in looking back, while vantage points may be somewhat different, the vision for the future together holds the bond. When the shared imagery of the future is clear, the purpose simply is stronger, solidified to the finish.
We can’t wallow in what could have been, but such reflections could serve as a catalytic converter to what tomorrow should be- cleaner and less polluted.
