A Tenderness We've Not Yet Known

So I feel a little bit at a loss for what to write about next. It took me nearly as long to record our honeymoon adventures as it took to live them. It was winter in Australia, and now we that we're back in our regular routine, it almost feels like we were there six months ago or something.

Last week was not one of the all-around top ten best weeks of my life. All week long, I felt mired in euphemisms that pretty much all boil down to: "Well. That sucks."

First, Brandy was "put to sleep." What the words "corporate restructuring" really mean us that even though I'm pretty much on my dream career path now, print journalism may, in fact, be an endangered species. "Getting thrown under a bus" is a metaphor I got a little too close to, though the ensuing frantic backpeddling when thrower was called out was rather amusing, if you're into schaudenfreude. "Covering Second Base" = Joel breaks a rib. Remembering "a new day of infamy" with a "united human family" = 7th Annual International Media Exploiting Sad People Day.

So I spent today cleaning, taking out trash, doing laundry, finishing thank-you notes, balancing my checkbook, making waffles, trying to braid together all the loose ends of daily life into the makings of a new and better week. ( I'm on a Tuesday through Saturday schedule this month, so this is technically the end of my weekend.)

As I try to organize, shake out, snap and fold all those euphemisms away, I keep thinking about something the priest who officiated at my sister and Tom's wedding said in his homily. He was talking about how it didn't take a trip to Massachusetts to see that they were each other's world, that they would become a new world together, and how they would someday soon find themselves using the words "husband" and "wife" with "a tenderness they've not yet known."

"'This is my husband Tom,'" the priest said, by way of example. "Do you know my wife Amanda?"

Joel and I still aren't quite used to the words "husband" and "wife" yet, but I do know, as we move ahead into a new week, a new season, and yes, a new search for blog topics, that Father Bob's words resonate with me... We ARE treating each other with a tenderness we've not yet known. So this is marriage: helping each other deflect the world's bullshit, one euphemism at a time.

Happy Tuesday, everyone.