Who Knew

When I met my husband, it was plain to see that he was a fun-loving, marginally mischievous and pleasantly adventurous personality. It was not until we had been married for a year or two that I began to learn more about his history as a blatant non-conformist. And as recently as this weekend, I received yet another glimpse of his past persona that bucked institutional standards and administrative 'say-so'. It makes sense, knowing him as I do now, that he is a hard-wired free thinker. Don't tell him 'this is how it is' unless you are prepared for a challenge. His processes of independent thought take on more adult and mature expression now (thank goodness), and obviously he is subjected to fewer impositions of authoritative overlords than he was growing up in private school, so the opportunities to rebel are fewer and farther between.

What is becoming more and more hysterical to me is that he and I ended up together. If opposites do indeed attract, then I suppose it makes perfect sense. I was in every respect of my childhood and young adulthood, a rule keeper. For every situation in which I found myself, my first internal question was, "What are the guidelines? By what standard am I to abide?" Just give me the parameters, and I would stay neatly inside them. It was the rules that made me feel safe; it was keeping the rules that made me feel okay about myself. I was the quintessential delight of every teacher, chaperone, employer and youth worker I ever knew. And of course, I brought my parents nothing if not uncompromised joy and scintillating satisfaction.

The problem one encounters when one constantly seeks the 'appropriate and acceptable' steps of action before making any decisions is that one inadvertently abdicates the power of choice to the proximally nearest and most influential predecessor. It seemed I could find a way to agree with almost anyone's point of view in any discussion. I often felt hypocritical, because with whomsoever I found myself, I was doomed inevitably to be the agreeable, acquiessing comrade. I was paralytically impaired whenever in the position of having to make a judgment call. I rocked at lego-structure building kits, with all their detailed instructions, and perfectly executed the step-by-step directions.

Behold the dawning of a new day... the turning of the proverbial tide... the unanticipated and altogether unsolicited toss-ed-ness together with my alter ego:  an out-of-the-box, the-world-is-my-playground, intensely confident, unscrupulously self-assured anarchist of social convention. He would indeed be a thorough menace to society if it were not for the fact that he is a truly good person who never uses his powers for evil.

I had no idea the impact his life would have on mine. And I'm certain if we had known each other earlier in life, we would never have fallen for each other, being polarized by our extreme differences in fundamental practice. At the beginning of our relationship I was a bit dominated, not because he victimized me but because I naturally assumed the role of the subservient follower. Over time I began to question his omniscience and started expressing differences of opinion. I began a campaign of self-advocation. I may have been a peacemaker by nature, but I wasn't an idiot, and I was actually capable of independent thought when I chose to exercise it.

The next few years were frought with conflict, as butted the heads of 'I-don't-really-think-so' and 'because-I-said-so' in our respective mentalities.  But, thanks be to goodness, this man truly did love me, and strong though his determination was to be validated in everything, he cared enough that something was important to me to open his mind to another way of thinking. He could easily have preyed upon my misgivings and lack of confidence; but instead he prioritized me above his own pride... and he chose to respect me.

And the most amazing thing happened. I began to respect myself. I began to think maybe there were inclinations inside of me that didn't need to be filtered and reengineered before being delivered to the world. Instead of thinking about my life in terms of what I 'should' do, I began to look inside and see what it was I 'wanted' to do. This new adventure in self determination has presented it's own challenges. Things aren't as neat and tidy when the path is not already prescribed. But that is another blog.

I am so deeply thankful that I married an open-hearted, unencumbered dreamer who keeps teaching me to open my arms wide to all of life's possibilities. I still have a respect for rules and have not swung so far as to lose the perspective of their importance. But they are not my master, and convention is no longer my limitation. It's a good start. We'll see where we go from here.