A tree, with sun, rain, and the solitude of its location grows beautifully in the meadows. A person, grows, laughs, and is fulfilled through living.
Darkness abound. Surrounded by the pressures of something not quite understood, trapped and desolate.
Darkness abound. Surrounded by a liquid in an enclosed and comfortable place, free, yet not alone.
Sprouting, breaking through the soil to encounter a light that brings life to its core. An environment filled not with pressure but with a liberty only now discovered. To stare into the distance and know that in this small place I am.
Birth, entering a place where confusion riddles me with unknown sounds and figures. An environment much brighter than I know, yet enclosed to the blurry state in which all is trapped. To stare into the distance brings no more questions than answers while I try to envision what my place in all this really is.
Every passing day brings me closer to the white above me. Moving forms that travel the air above like the hundreds of soldiers by my roots. A huge leading member directing the charge while all others simply follow. There is the matter of the grass around me that stops me from seeing much further, a small field of waving fibers to and fro to no apparent avail.
As the days end and new ones begin, I am beginning to understand a type of routine that ensues. Every moment allows me to understand them, to figure out what they say, whisper, and the rationale behind those hideous faces they make. There appears to be a leader among them, one that provides delicious and atrocious tasting things alike with no way to discern which will come next. All around me are edifices which I cannot climb or topple and bring about a certain disdain to those around me whence close to them I come.
It feels like just the day passed when to the ground I layed on with weak branches and tender leaves surrounded me and all that was encroached upon me with every glance. It is now that clarity truly unveils as the horizon is far and the vanity of the world truly is revealed. For there is nothing I can call dear, nor a vision of similarity I can cling to and call my sister; for reach far and wide as well as vision of the same brings about twin mountains and grass which askew rest upon the similarity of their own and have much to look upon. Am I the lone survivor of my kindred?
Much of the immediate surroundings are beginning to get compiled, for clarity if nothing else, into what will result in punishment, and what will be in the unknown category. I can attest to the misfortune that is lack of intellect as no two actions yield the same results, or any genuine remark of gust during feedings, or even the likability of anything in general as it appears I am the only one attempting to understand while everyone else wants something from me I cannot summon into existence. As much of the comfort hails from one person, I shall attempt to mimic, however difficult, what they do in an attempt to get what I feel I want when I need it; after all hunger does in fact hurt and they just want to push that white stuff down my neck even though I beckon the off-yellow colored glass-looking jar where that great tasting stuff comes from! Why is everyone around me so different, taller, and what exactly is it that they mutter about incessantly?
There are now flowers upon my branches, the cold of the night slowly dissipates as days come and go in their endless -I have come to believe- hide and seek game. I have been whispered to by squarrels and others that soon their likeness to me will grow when the fruit of my flowers is exposed. However little I know about these matter, I believe I impatiently wait to be liked and perhaps cared for more in any amount of time it will take that future to arrive. Whence the waiting stops, no more will I beckon this painful state that is bearing to be ripped apart from my kin for the mere purpose of their gains. I am never to be fulfilled if desperately others, by my roots, establish a zone where all things that land will be theirs while on my branches others camp for ripeness to overwhelm the fruits at my limbs.
Now I can dress myself, understand them, and see that their actions are nothing more than the means to what they call respect. The equivalent for some is to be left alone, while others in the exact opposite reward togetherness. There is much to figure out and no reward for any of it whilst being told that I must wait for the future to know and do all there is to every insignificant thing. There is no sense of me to any of them, for I do not do what I am told I cannot be happy, when I seek the contentment of my desires I am called names and told of my ignorance, and should there be questions, no real answer is ever good enough. I want to do and be, but cannot fulfill either when I am not told what the rules are and when they do tell me it is in the form of “do as you are told because I said so” and not because there is an actual reason behind it other than to enact the will of someone other at every turn; never my own.
As I perish, I contemplate the scope my life embarked upon while only a seed. The unknown turning to confusion, that slowly morphing into the equinox which interposed the parts of the year where I sought asylum from everything surrounding me, and the time where serenity truly was an amicable companion.
Dying now I must say life truly makes no sense yet. The things I was said to understand with time never did come to fruition; it all ended up being about choice, how we deal with those choices, and whether we will commit to them or simply deny it all.
Marriage, like the tree or person above, is a conundrum. It can be seen and described from many an angle and the bottom line will be nothing more than supposition. With that said, let us then suppose that marriage takes the stance of the tree.
We are taken into marriage with the pressures of life. Discovering that being with the one we deem worthy of our love and lives is empowering, freeing, and yet not quite yet what we intended. That is sometimes because we are supposing that time will change that. As time passes we grow closer to the person and perhaps goals we may have set. Moving along one person is tasked with making certain choices, or doing certain tasks, and that is the end of freedom, the beginning of the end, and the calamity which is marriage. Decision making takes precedence over other matters, some which may be important to one and not the other thus embarking on a lifetime journey of questioning the ambition that drove you to the decision. The walls begin to slowly encroach with every passing month and year of decisions that again may be questioned; sure there are moments of happiness in between that are all but crushed when that time comes nigh again. A time of lull then approaches when revisiting the past and looking for validation of your decision to be with this decisive person came to be, a time when we must make sense of the situation that seems clearly overwhelming. This thinking, personal in nature, boasts the desire for being heard and felt; a feeling that you too are important and hence must be attended too. There doesn’t seem to be a relative or friend that is going through what you are, but in fact they all are, silently, and in different stages of this affair. Inevitable you feel as if you are the only one trying in the relationship questioning if love is still there and in what form, and why just why you are misunderstood?
A time of reassurance commences. Friends and family are sought and observed. At this point we really are assessing whether we are alone in this scenario. But all that goes away. The time for the next test and task fall upon you when deciding for children. Do I, does she, does he want one? Why? Are we really looking to bring a person into our lives with all this between us? The last question never really happens unless you have been stricken with death. Miscarriage, the loss of a sibling in your upbringing, or other catastrophe that gives you insight the partner completely lacks and can never truly bring themselves to understand because simply it doesn’t matter (the past is in the past), and frankly it bears no significance in this first step in rectifying the marriage, taking it to the next and possibly ultimate step. We are made to watch as with pains life is brought into the world. A true moment when for a time everything is erased and a phase can begin anew. Life continues and the one sidedness of things mature into disregard, respect is lost, love is nothing but a memory, and life slowly dwindles into nothing more than routine.
That view of marriage from the analogy of the tree leaves us with much to contemplate. Let us attempt to view the other perspective.
Marriage begins with the decision to open your eyes to the possibilities it all entails. Every decision made is a jump into the unknown, the jump of excitement about where it all may end! The future is the intrepid sight of all things we have wished upon as you slowly embark towards a destiny walled only by expectations. With every good thing comes the inevitable barrage of comments, views, and unfiltered opinions of people around us. They don’t necessarily make us question things but can certainly throw a wrench in the gears of future endeavors as you attempt to just ignore things at times that make too much sense . Then there’s the envious side to things as you begin to visit other couples, or friends, and others who have amassed much and can have things you have only dreamed of; merely because life is just beginning in your marriage and you have yet to see the possibilities of things you can bring together when you work in unison. Inevitably there will be disagreement. This type and time will be like nothing in the past as in this shared communion you only grow as a couple and growing has facets you may or may not have envisioned. In an attempt to keep things on the high or in an agreeable nature/status -for whatever reason- you may begin to reciprocate with actions and mannerisms that belong to your partner. This generally brings about the opposite result as intended as then the action practiced becomes imbued to the relationship, although your intent was just to do that this one time, now it becomes expected. A confusion begins to grow as you attempt to run through the situation in your head and figure out just what exactly you did, how it went wrong, how to fix it if it can be fixed, and how to bring things back to normal. This confusion, at that time, becomes the norm. Every action henceforth becomes the Fort Knox of marriage deceit in the form of doppelganger reciprocation. In other words, as expected all actions are mirrored, reviewed, and finally the sense of self slowly dissipates into a pool experiences that although they belong to you are not truly yours. The desire to do better morphs into a repetitious form of abatement for all things wrong in the relationship which slowly erase the old person and leave this robot. The understanding of things, now analogous to the new behaviour is further impacted by the relative nature of things. You no longer wish to do things but instead participate in them. There is an intrinsic desire to be but there is no will to push it forward for fear or the inability to control the outcome, thus rescinding all manner of hope and falling into the precipice of servitude. Overtime an overwhelming feeling that you are being used may surface and be thought to be something serious and detrimental not only to your health but the relationship as well. The experience of doing so much and never getting anything in return may finally usurp the natural bliss of doing what you think others want and morph into a type of retribution better known as rebelling.
That will not last long but may be the fine line that is crossed into better or worse, perhaps even the end of a relationship depending vastly in the nature of the change. The realization that doing all those things for your partner bore no happiness or bond for all work done will bring about the realization that failures were due to some unknown factor that pushed you in the direction of not being yourself. Perhaps being yourself from the start may have produced a beautiful something, and with that you go back to being the same person you were decades ago… at least try. Wearing the clothes you wish have worn decades ago may not go well with friends and family. Behaviour of the same type will be at best treated as a type of age-related episode. Ultimately you will be left with yourself, the one which has become and can not regain time spent. There is an episode of life we miss when encountered with this, that episode is our own.
Simple can be defined, when applied to life, as a ripple. A ripple, when spoken as an application to simplicity, is the result of choice. Choice by far outweighs the moral code we believe follow. Our moral code stems from the necessity to lead a life we believe will be most joyful. Necessity in our lives is the paradigm begotten through experience. In conclusion, may your marriage be exactly what it should.
