Enlightenment on an Ideal

A major personal breakthrough occurred last week for me.

Revelation and enlightenment didn't feel good this time. I was pondering the subject of marriage, and why females "know" whether they would marry their partner, often far sooner than males do. I believed (still do) that women in our society tend to covet the idea of marriage. For various reasons: status, security, religion, acceptance being the main ones that I can see. Societal norm is a powerful concept, and its very difficult to want something different from it, and perhaps just as difficult to realize you want something different.

I talked through what love is to me, and what marriage is. Marriage seems to me to be a contract where two people promise to love and care for each other for the rest of their lives. It has financial, emotional and status benefits. When I whittled it down to the core, the reason that marriage seemed to hold more weight to me, was that I still have vestiges of the belief that marriage is more permanent, more solid than a relationship. I hold the ideal that when two people get married their outlooks change to that of a more serious, more long lasting one.

Not that I am ignorant of divorce rates, simply that I am an idealist, and marriage was somewhere near the core of the gravitational pull that was adulthood to me in my formative years. People grew up, went to university, met someone, got married, had children, bought a house and raised their children in it until they were grown, and the cycle began anew while one worked until a respectable age, before earning their retirement.

That last sentence hasn't appealed to me for years, but for some reason I keep clinging to the idea that marriage is still something I want. Yes, I enjoyed university very much. The pursuit of knowledge is being true to my character, I try to soak up as much as I can because the world fascinates me. I do still want to raise children, not at this juncture but in the future. I want to teach children of the world, and instill wonder in it, at the beauty of all the things we know and all the things we don't know. I want to watch my children grow. But marriage is not a necessity to raising children. A stable partnership between parents is a plus (in my mind), but even that isn't a necessity. And while a house is nice for space, it isn't essential to raising children.

So why, even in a loving long term relationship was I yearning for something more? It took a while to come to my conclusion. I have been groomed to want marriage. I have been taught that that is the next step in life, in a relationship. Living with someone is not cemented until marriage is part of the equation. Over time I was able to logically discount my reasons for wanting marriage. There is still residue left over from the way I was brought up, the effects of society on my thinking, planning brain.

I think the moment I realized I'd have to let this ideal go was the worst. I had come to the conclusion that I don't need marriage, nor have I essentially coveted it as a person for quite a while. I am happy where I am, and in the relationship I am in. But for some reason I have been unable to let go of the idea that that was the next thing "to do" on the list. It sounds petty, I know. I am not the type of person to do something simply because it was acceptable. And I knew that just as when someone turns 18 they're not necessarily an adult, when two people get married they don't instantly have a different special bond.
I'm actively letting go of this ideal, but it is much more difficult to let go of than I would have thought. I always believed that once a realization occurred, once "enlightenment" was present, the rest would fall into place.

But I have to remind myself every day that at my core, I don't need marriage. That I was and still am being conditioned to want it. Oh, I don't believe there's a conspiracy or anything. People are lonely and want someone to share life with. And they are jealous so they want a promise that their partner will not stray. And sometimes greedy, for that moment in the spotlight, the wedding day.

Which is a whole other story. Weddings are not something I have a large interest in. Oh, I like wearing pretty things and partying. But the stresses I have seen for peoples' weddings are absolutely nothing to do with what I had believed for love, or what the start of a marriage should be. I had always planned on eloping, should I ever get married. I always liked the idea of a ceremony, it makes marriage more sacred than going down to city hall and signing a paper. But I had always invisioned a private ceremony.

I know I sound like I haven't let it go. These thoughts are not well ordered yet.
Where I am now:
I don't need marriage to be in a happy long lasting relationship with another person.
Marriage, I realize is something I only wanted because I was raised to want it.

With these truths evident, I am able to move forward and live life without constantly worrying when marriage will happen for me. It is very tough to let go of, but now that I am conscious of the need to let go of it, I am able to work forward.

My only lingering concern is missing out on a grand adventure, if that makes any sense. It doesn't worry me too much though, because I know that James and I are the types of people to have adventures that most people in the world never have, and sometimes never even desire. We cherish going to bed together each night and waking up next to each other in the morning. We cherish our differences, and our sameness and plan plan plan for all the adventures we'll have together. That lifetime is the lifetime I want.

Patience and enjoying the moment are two things I need to work on.



All I have written above is unordered, just typed down as I recalled how I felt. Therefore it is very self involved. It's mainly here so I can look back later on and refine these ideas.

The Universe Waving Hello

Most of the time we stumble along, passing from moment to moment with no real sense of connection, of plot or even greater meaning. But once in a while circumstances line up, and work out just so, giving a moment's wonder "could there be something out there, keeping track of everything, planning each exact second in time"

I walked into work last week for a day shift. Day shifts are not my forte. Usually, I get to bed at a reasonable hour, then proceed to toss, turn and varyingly study the inside of my eyelids, or the course stippled ceiling in our bedroom. Very low steam is the gauge at which I entered the day.

It was busy.

It is always busy.

The baby having business will never crash, unless we experience some Children of Men phenomenon.

I started the day with two patients, early labour, each one a name in a famous bookstore. The chuckle I got out of that would be my only one that day.

One patient (we'll call her Mrs. Q) immediately proved to be more needy than the other one. Okay. I can handle that. Something was not quite right though. It started with her seeming extra modest regarding her body. Except for the minimum required touching, she did not want me near her. Then, when she got up to go to the bathroom she asked that I wait outside, and that her husband help her up. This was not a cultural request, but I agreed anyway, stating as I left that at some point we would have to become a little more "familiar". Next, her husband wanted to do all sorts of my work for me. He wanted to hook up the nitrous - I told him no. Whenever I left the room he would adjust the fetal heart monitor...incorrectly. He kept telling me "you go sit down, I can do it". I eventually had to ask him to stop that, due to the fact that he kept picking up maternal heart rate, and really, it is my job to monitor mom and baby, and his job to support her through this time.

So the day went.

She received the epidural she requested, after several hours of waiting for the anesthetist to get out of back to back emergency caesareans. She didn't seem to understand the necessity and urgency of the other deliveries. I can understand that when you're in pain, your sense of compassion dwindles somewhat.

Post epidural brady = case room delivery + shoulder dystocia + grumpy doc

Baby's arm had to be broken on the way out. This was probably the worst time I've ever had to restart an IV. In retrospect, I should be thankful she had veins. The sound from the arm breaking could only match the mom's facial expression in disgust.

It was a very trying delivery. Baby was fine in the end, other than the broken arm which will heal.

Mom immediately started to obsess over her weight.

It was not a family I bonded with very well.

When we got back to the low risk side, I did her recovery fairly quietly. I felt overstressed and frustrated to say the least. The whole situation escalated more than it should have, and more than I can state in words here.

I went for my break, and was called back early for an imminent delivery. Such is life, not on the schedule of a nurse who would just like to eat and decompress. Heading to the room, I pictured in my mind the glass of wine that I would consume when I made it home.

The delivery was very very low key. One minute mom tells us she needs to push, the next baby is out and crying. No big deal. Healthy, happy baby and mom.

As I'm getting mom, baby and the room cleaned up, visitors start to arrive. One looks extra familiar. It turns out she works at St.B in the labour and delivery ward....and in that instant I am taken back to my very first delivery.

I was 18 years old, in my second year of nursing, first semester. The first week of any rotation I ever had was at the St Boniface L&D ward. I arrived, keen to begin and nervous as hell in my white scrubs. I had never been in a hospital, except when my Grandpa had died a few years earlier. I was assigned to a patient who was just about to begin the final stage of labour: pushing. I got in the room and the nurse asked me to hang an IV bag: I looked at her blankly.
The mom had the baby fairly quickly, and with little fuss. It was her first baby, a boy: David.

It's amazing how much you can remember in the span of an instant.

Anyway, I was floored, not only for remembering all of this, but also for the fact that just when I was feeling less than competent as a nurse, very lousy and tired of ALL of this - the universe handed me something so significant. It reminded me how much I've learned in the span of just four years, and how I've gone from someone who has zero skills in this department, to one who has many - both scientific and psychological. It reminded me how miraculous birth is, and how sacred it can be to anyone involved, and that sometimes, people are just being people.

At that precise time, it was exactly the pick me up I needed.

I felt like the universe was waving hello, to let me know it hadn't forgotten me. And it felt wonderful.