Water Your Own Yard

I'm not one that should give relationship advice.

Married at 21...divorced by 25...married again at 27.

I said in my wedding vows--the second ones--that my relationship with Mike is "The perfect combination of chaos and comfort, of peace and passion." And that's really how I feel...I was not planning on getting married again so soon, but it was just right. Not boring, not easy, but I love him, and "we're better together than apart...it's you and me against the world, baby."

Ah. Wedding vows. So we go from that to reality.

Honestly, to think of 20, 30 years from now scares me.

Will we fall apart? Will we change? Are we still going to love each other? 

Not my whole world, but a part of it has been turned completely upside down, and I'm not sure if 2 people can really stay truly in love anymore. 

Maybe I should have just given into my hippie, liberal tendencies, "lived in sin," and shunned the institution of marriage.

But I am committed to NOT making the mistakes I see around me. Here's the plan...what we've committed to do so that things don't get so bad that we get to the point of hurting each other beyond what we can forgive:

• Talk before something is a problem. It may seem like we have a lot of "little talks," but those little talks get things out in the open, and let us fix problems before we end up having a big fight!
• Walk a mile I'm not always right, (don't tell Mike!) and he isn't either. It's easy to see things from only my perspective, but he's a different person...and I love that! Oh my gosh, I could not stand living with someone exactly like me! He's had different experiences, sees things differently, handles things differently than I do. So if we disagree, or he does something I don't understand, it's important that I try to see where he's coming from...and realize that his intentions were most likely coming from a good place.
• Act like he's still my boyfriend Let's get real. I'm not even going to pretend that I'm not wearing pajama pants, an old T-shirt, and my glasses with my hair all crazy right now. BUT, just because I'm married doesn't mean that I don't have to try to look nice for my husband. I want to keep myself healthy, fit, and try to take a little pride in my appearance most of the time.
• Take care of each other We tell each other when we need help, and we don't get bitter about giving help. I want Mike to know that I'm always there for him when he needs me.
• Commit to fight If we hit a rough patch (and I'm assuming we will) We're not going to give up. We'll sacrifice sleep, money...whatever it takes to fix our problems.

It comes down to what this song says: "Water your own yard...when the other man's grass looks greener, water your own yard."

I don't have all the answers, but I'm trying. I want to be the couple that makes it...even though we drive each other crazy...I want us to grow together, not apart.

I want us to learn from each other, to make each other better people.

I didn't try with my last marriage...I want to try with all my heart with this one. I don't want to give up. I want to do the work, every day.

And I hope he does too.

On a completely unrelated note...Cody Canada and the Departed...bad ass. IF you like the above.

LOVE,
Carrie

My New Name!

Carrie Anne Schroeder Winchel.

I suppose it's not a huge deal...I've changed my name before, after all.

But I still think it's exciting, and I'm glad that this time I've got the Schroeder in there. I had that name for 21 years, and it's my parent's name...a big part of who I am. Plus, my brother probably won't have kids and all my cousins are girls, so I feel like I want to keep it going a little longer.

And IF (BIG IF) I have a kid I'll probably make their middle name Schroeder.

Carrie Winchel. I'm going to have to get used to that. It's so funny to think that I have Mike's last name. We were both with other people when we met, and were friends for years before we dated, so for a long time, I never even thought about having his name!

I see changing my name as a way to tell the world that we're on the same team. We're the Winchels Dammit! It doesn't feel like I'm losing my identity or giving up anything.

I've even made sure our "kid" shares our surname, so he's not a little bastard puppy anymore. Cash Waylon Winchel. I only call him that when he's in trouble.

When someone refers to us as "The WInchels," though, I kind of feel like we should be starring in a 50's inspired sitcom.

That would be a really weird show.

Regret

I know regret is a pretty useless feeling. We can't change the past.

The only thing I can do is make myself better now. But what to do when that just makes me feel worse?

The point? There are people who used to be a big part of my life, who I haven't seen or talked to in years, that didn't get the best me.

Am I the best me now? I certainly hope not. I wish I was calmer, more caring, less selfish, I wish I could learn to let go and live in the moment instead of worrying all the time. I never want to be done growing and changing.

But when I look back, I was...frankly...kind of a bitch all through college.

I had a really good friend in school. I thought we'd be old ladies together, but I haven't seen her for 4 years. I didn't agree with a lot of the decisions she made with her life, and she was hard to deal with sometimes...but who's perfect? Not me. I blew her off a few times when she needed me and just wasn't a very good friend.

And, of course, there's the big oops of my life. The reason I over analyze everything I do. I made a huge decision because parents, church, society...my dumb 21-year-old brain made me think getting married was a good idea.

It wasn't, but not because the guy was a bad guy. Quite the opposite.

Who did what and who's family took over our lives and who did or didn't treat our marriage like it mattered...doesn't matter.

Because no matter what happened, I didn't handle it right.

I was mean. SO mean. I stopped trying very early. No reasonable circumstance should have made me react like that. It wasn't the ideal situation, but I rebelled like a stubborn teenager.

And now I feel like I don't deserve to be where I am now. I wanted to leave him because his family told us I could never get a job anywhere else. Now I have a great job in Springfield and don't really want to leave. I didn't like feeling trapped in a marriage and now I'm 3 months away from walking down the aisle again.

I can't make anything right. But I want to...there's no way to. The only thing I can wish is that these things never happened, and Apple doesn't make time machines yet.

Is this normal? Is this life?