Another Look

After almost ten years of marriage, I feel like I might finally be understanding something about my husband. He is multi-dimensional! I know, go figure.

When I first met him, I thought he was an obnoxious show-off (and he will be the first to admit that he was, indeed). Then he took the time to reach out to me during a period of intense homesickness and anxiety, and I saw a soft, loving, generous side of him. And then that was all I saw. He was up on a very secure pedestal, as most first boyfriends are.

Once the realities of family life settled in, my rose-colored glasses were ripped off and exchanged for an entirely new shade, something sort of brownish. I could only see his faults. Again, I think this trajectory is fairly normal (correct me if I'm wrong).

Another way I think of this is by comparing it to one of Chicago's biggest tourist attractions: The Bean. Technically, Cloud Gate--but it's earned a less lofty nickname due to its shape. You can be standing in the middle of this amazing city but only see a warped, distorted, bent image of one part of it--and if you stand in that spot long enough, you can slip into a different reality. You become mesmerized by the distortion and find it hard to look away. There's even a spot underneath The Bean in the center where you can look up and see yourself multiplied, with no sign of the city around you.

I feel like I have been looking at my husband in the reflection of a misshapen mirror for a long time. I have become fixated on this distortion, mostly because of that pedestal I mentioned earlier. My husband used to be one-dimensional, and now I am trying to reconcile that one dimension with the one I am allowing myself to see now. The key word here is one. I am still seeing only one dimension, one angle.

I need to tear my eyes away from the enticing yet distorted image I allow myself to get fixated on and turn around to see the entire, all-inclusive view. The view of the city after turning away from The Bean can seem flat at first, until you notice that you have a more grounded sense of space, distance, color and movement. Not to extend this analogy way past the point of ridiculousness, but I do think my husband is more like a city than a reflection of a building. He moves, he pulses, he lights up and then hides in darkness, he is assaulted and loved, he is tender and hard, he serves and he works and he entertains. He is simultaneously the past, present and future.

We all are. This is because we were created in the image of a multi-faceted God who is, was, and will be. The only difference is that God in perfection doesn't change (although God is always creating and renewing), whereas we are constantly growing, adapting and refashioning ourselves. I think I might slowly be learning to give my husband space to be all of himself and change as he needs to.

This applies, by the way, to anyone we have spent any amount of time with. Siblings, parents, children, roommates, friends, coworkers--they all deserve for us to step away from the bent image that kept us standing in one place and take in the entire picture, messy and frustratingly fluctuating as it may be.

Oh yeah...this applies to myself, too.