Simple Mechanics

I had an epiphany this weekend about marriage.  All this time, I've been looking at it all wrong, swept up with emotional ups and downs.  Confusion about expectations and goals.  Treating my relationship like it's suppose to take me to a point of nirvana, a mind-spirit-body enlightenment.  A tall order for my partner and probably likewise for myself.  All this news lately about gas shortages up north from the hurricane and relationship journals talking about the emotional fill tanks brought about my epiphany that marriage and committed relationships is based on simpler components and goals.  We have needs from each other.  These needs seem so complex sometimes, but what remains is that these needs have to be filled....like a gas tank of a car.  When we forget to fuel each other's tank, we run on empty and the fuemy grind breaks us down.  When we are down, even if we don't want to, we should attempt to refuel each other with the emotional needs the other craves.  If we are aware of each other's fuel levels and consistently fuel the tank, we can drive long and far into the sunset.

This brings me to the second part of my realization.  Perhaps marriage isn't about trying to reach some point of spiritual enlightenment through each other.  We aren't exactly two partners on a ship afloat midocean finding its way to safe shores.  Rather, perhaps we are each other's vehicle, carrying our other partner on his or her own personal journey to fate's destination.  Hopefully we are both on the same path and can take each other to where we want to be eventually.  The vehicle you choose early on may later not be right for the journey.  Or perhaps, through its own faults, may break down too soon and prevent you from reaching your own spiritual goals.  Or perhaps, there's nothing wrong about your vehicle except your failure to maintain it over time and keep it in good repair for your own sake.  Maybe, it's too fast and you don't know how to handle it's potential properly.  Or perhaps, it's just a very good car who has been and will always be by your side, through all the broken moments and those shiney repaintings.  Like my dad's old rusty corroded Toyota that he proudly dubbs his "corrosey".  A 20 plus year old broken down car with still a very good engine on the inside that takes him reliably from point A to point B, a personification of himself.  At a point where no one cares to look at this car, that the police is called to neighborhoods where this car happens to be parked, that theives are thwarted from its home when they see the dicrepid vehicle on my parent's driveway, the miles and acheivements that my father has shared with his corrosey have built an impenetrable marriage not even any new SUV could entice.  I think that this is what marriage really boils down to in the end.  Simple mechanics.