First year of marriage

Tomorrow I will have been married to Satu for one year. Here is what I have learned about marriage in the first year.

1. It is not the same as being a long time companion, dating or being a significant other. It is much better to have a wife. When you have a wife, you don't have to explain to anyone that it is serious. People respect marriage in a way that they wouldn't respect any other commitment.

2. I love being married! I love having a wedding ring and the idea that what I have with Satu is meant to last forever. I love being her person. She is my best friend and she is the only person who knows me as well as my own sister.

3. When you are married and you get in trouble for something, you can just blame the other person for marrying you in the first place. For example " I'm sorry I threw out the fresh coffee, but you knew that I wasn't observant when you married me, so you don't get to be mad now."

4. Some days it doesn't feel any different than before we were married, but then I remember her holding my hot, shaking hands when we said our vows, and I know that I will never be the same.

5. When you are married, you get to imagine growing old together and not have parallel thoughts about what would happen if you were alone. You can plan to take care of each in a way that is impossible to do without marriage.

6. Anniversaries are better when they are for the day that you married instead of a first date or a first kiss. Who knows the exact date that you fall in love with someone? It is a process that you get caught up in and then suddenly realize that you are in love. I will always know the day that my beautiful wife told me that she would love me in sickness and in health, for better or worse.

All I have to do is be me and continue to pour all of my love and imagination and happiness into this life that we are building. I think that loving Satu is my real goal in life. I go to work with a happy heart and do well because I am in love. I notice things in the world because I want to see them with her. The first thing I think of when I hear something funny is if she would laugh too.

Satu is my person. She will be my person as long as we are both us and I cant think of a more important thing in the world.

Tornado in a box.

Satu has started sailing on Tuesday nights on the lake with a group of women. It seems like a really fun time for her and she is naturally athletic and naturally social though she would tell you otherwise. Last Tuesday, I worked a bit late because I was in no real hurry to get home, but when I drove up, Satu's car was still in the garage.

I figured that sailing had been cancelled, but then I saw that her bag and some clothes were behind the car and kind of piled up. When I went inside, Satu was furiously going through some clothes in the bedroom. She had lost her keys in the house. I did my normal thing when I don't know what to do. I just started doing random stuff, walking around and moving things and looking at stuff as if her keys might be in the potted plant or under the dog food bowl.

I started asking questions, but this just made the fire hotter, and the woman that is normally calm and level headed in any situation boiled over. Witnessing the energy that she generated in her hands and chest was amazing, but scary. It was like watching a tornado in a box with no place to go. She just kept churning and throwing out her hands. Wanted to hold her and reassure her, but that is never what a tornado wants.

Finally my brain cleared up and I thought about giving her my keys so she could get to the meet and I could look for the keys. My brain wasn't clear enough to remember that I was almost out of gas, but Satu reminded me when she called. I had to do some googling to find the address for the right marina, since she'd only gone from work before and never from home. Luckily, she made it at the last second and I fished her keys out of the junk drawer in the kitchen where she must have dropped them when she was getting a bag for her snacks. In that drawer there is a basket of miscellaneous stuff, so to a busy brain, it just says, drop keys here.

Though I never want to see Satu get mad at me like that, it was really great to see how much raw, emotional power she normally contains under her cool exterior. I know that if anyone ever messed with me, I could count on that little tornado to shut them down. She really is an incredible force of nature. I am pretty sure that I saw fire exploding from her fingertips when she tensed her hands and swung them out at the world. I am thrilled at the contrast of how lovingly she can use those same hands to comfort me and to make me feel safe.

Loyalty

I think that Satu would describe herself as loyal, but I don't think that most people understand exactly how true and how deep and how much a part of her that one trait is. Satu is not grudgingly loyal, doing what she says that she will because she wants your respect, or in any way gives a fuck about being recognized for her loyalty. Satu is loyal because she is a good person, because she thinks of others as much or more than she thinks of herself and lets that compass guide her.
Satu is the type of loyal that doesn't take a day off, even though she has pneumonia, because someone where she works is having a crisis worse than that, and he can't be there. If she is in, she is 100% in. She does not cancel plans, she does not back out of things, even when it occurs to her that she needs to. She will worry about what others would have to go through and then go through twice the hell to save them the trouble.
Satu is loyal because she is good. She probably has the same shitty little voices that all of us do, but what she listens to is the one that tells her how to stand fast in the face of insulting people and put on a brave face for her coworkers, how to go to bat for the underdog and how to put herself between the storm and anyone else who may be in its way.
She has stood by me and protected me in really rocky moment's when I am less than what I should be. She has held my hand and soothed my fears in the middle of the night when she desperately needed sleep and comfort herself.
I know that sometimes Satu worries that I put her on a pedestal, but I don't really think that I do. I see all of the ways that she is human, but I see her resilient and strong in all of the ways that really matter to me. I know that I can always count on her to be real, to try hard and to be there when it counts.
I hope that she also knows those things about me. There is nothing in this world that I would choose over her, and no place I wouldn't go to stand beside her. Though I may not have her strength, I do have her loyalty, and in me, it comes from really knowing and feeling love.

I GOT BIRFDAY FLURRRS!!

I don't think that Satu knows what a girl I am about flowers. Of all of the romantic cliche's, giving flowers to your love is the only one that I think I ever cared about. I have always known that if you get someone a bouquet and have it delivered, it means that you really, really love someone. You are into them and you want them to know that they are special. Of all of the wonderful things that Satu has done for me, getting me flowers means something big. It means that she's not bored and that she wants me to feel special.

Satu sent me home to see my granny on her 90th birthday. She got me a plane ticket and let me go because she knows that it would matter to granny. It really did. She was so surprised to see me and happy that I came.

I am really glad to be with someone who understands how important family is. They didn't just make you who you are, they stay connected in some way all of your life. I know that her family isn't that easy for her, but she really understands the connection that people feel for their blood. Those stories belong to you in a way that the stories of strangers can't.

I think Satu worries that I want things for my birthday and that I analyze the gifts for signs that she is willing to sacrifice for me. That couldn't be further for the truth. What I really want to know in my heart is that Satu loves me, accepts me and understands me. Yesterday was a great birthday for me. Satu showed me that she really gets me more than anyone else in the world.

Just don't look

My lady has a weird need to look at grotesque and disturbing things. Just healing from a chest cold, Satu had to look at pictures of lungs online. I'm not sure what phrase she had to type in to figure out where the snot is before you cough it out. I definitely don't want to know. She also has to investigate all plane crashes and follow the investigations as they unfold.
Satu is the kind of person who feels like you have to look disaster straight in the eye until it backs down. She is also a multi-tasker, so while she is looking at lungs and plane crashes, she is also researching life jackets and self diagnosing her knee pain. "I think it's my patella," she just said to me. We are listening to an audiobook that she is following, but I am missing because I can't think these blog thoughts and hear about palladium.
Maybe Satu's mind has different rooms, while mine is just a gigantic ballroom for random thoughts.

Satu has graciously shared her cold with me. She made soup tonight and has been giving me plenty of soothing attention. Since I am not nauseous, I feel okay about hosting these new germs until my body moves them on. I don't feel good, but I am not dying or scarred. I'll probably be fine as long as I don't have to see anymore slimy lungs.

I am glad that Satu is such a head into the wind kind of person, it means that she can shelter my tender heart by knowing stuff so that I don't have to. I think I always believe the best about the world. And though Satu is hopeful and optimistic, she knows better than to believe foolishly like I do. She locks doors behind me, hands me my purse in public spaces and always has an appropriate weapon and an escape plan just in case. This frees me up to see all of the puppies and kittens an butterflies that are beyond all of the unpleasant things that I have to overlook to see them. Satu's got that, I'll be over there feeding pound cake to a raccoon.

The difference between when I am sick and when Satu is sick

Right now, Satu has a terrible summer cold. She is dizzy and wheezy and feels like crap. She will still go to work tomorrow. She still puts on clothes (something I don't even do sometimes when I am well) and she will still do lots of the things she normally does, just with a stiff upper lip and coughing the whole time. When Satu is sick, it makes her seem kind of depressed and occasionally angry at her body. When I am sick, I get scarred and insufferable.
Satu has vacuumed the house, studied her book about sailing and learned to tie a bunch of knots using her feet. This weekend I was not sick, and mostly I just dug around in the yard listening to audio books on because I didn't want to sit down and read. It takes away from my candy crush addiction which I think I may need to see someone about.
A moment ago, my sick wife put down the textbook that she was studying and pulled a splinter out of my hand and got a band aid on me. Even when I am supposed to be taking care of her, she takes better care of me than I do her. Don't get me wrong, I give it my best shot, I make soup and tea and hover around with my eyebrows all knotted up, but ultimately, the soup is not homemade and the tea cups usually have honey dripping down the outside somewhere. When Satu is sick, it makes me worry, which kind of makes me act like an asshole. I get frustrated and short tempered and worried so I dither and implode.
When I am sick, I assume that I am close to death. I am afraid that feeling mildly unwell means that worse things are on the way and that I am surely showing the first signs of a disease that will melt me from the inside out. If I feel the slightest bit nauseous, I imagine that it will only be a short time before I am reduced to a struggling desperate soul clinging to life from my puddle of bile and moaning like a creature in a haunted house. When I look over at Satu calmly reading her book, I wonder why she can be so calm. Does she have no fear at all. Then I realize that it is because she is always calm. Even when she worries, she stays in complete control. I have never seen her pace. I have never seen Satu do anything timidly. Even when she was afraid to get on an airplane during a storm, she just suffered quietly (while I offered the opposite of reassurance) and had what I imagine was a tidy, brief nervous poo. Then she gathered her bag, stuck out her chin and got on the plane.  I think that was for her the same situation that I face when I am ill, yet she sucked it up and got on with things.
Is it any wonder that I find Satu so calming, grounding and comforting? I don't know how I can do this same thing for her. I may be a very caring and attentive person, but on the inside, I am always just one firing neuron away from downright hysteria. Satu is always one firing neuron away from having an idea.
I know that she will feel better soon because she is hungry and her coughing is getting better, but I do have to keep reminding myself that if she isn't worried, I shouldn't be.

The one who gets it

Satu is the only person in the world I can count on to know me with out the need for explanation. Today when I had to have one of my more and more frequent stressful moments of conscience implosion, Satu didn't make me feel dumb, she made me feel safe.
Usually I feel a little uncertain about my reality. I worry that my fears skew things and I don't know if I am a good person or a bad person. Satu always takes me seriously, even when I don't deserve it. She holds me when all she wants to do is be her own island. She makes time for me when she would prefer to be feeding her funny little brain the raw materials of her creativity.
I think it is amazing that we can be so different, but she can bring me back to myself so easily, just with the sound of her voice. I find her breathing and her presence and all of the ways that she just goes about being her so calming.
Right now, Satu is typing on her computer and explaining to me that the noise I hear is two neighborhood cats fighting and not a child being murdered. She is so calm and sure. I feel lucky to be here with her in our quiet home, listening to the terrifying neighborhood sounds while she looks up Japanese mushroom hats online or whatever random thing she is looking at. This is the best home in the world.