flawless…doesn’t exist (except maybe…in diamonds)

My last post, daily prompt: perspective (and happiness) https://hugmamma.com/2013/11/20/daily-prompt-perspective-and-happiness/ garnered a number of touching comments. In particular, two on Facebook that were from nieces recently married. Erica…a couple of years, if memory serves me correctly, and Carol…earlier this year. Absolutely lovely women, both.

carol on the left…just months prior to wedded bliss

Because my husband and I have lived on the mainland, away from family in Hawaii, since 1976, the younger relatives know little about aunty and uncle except for what their parents have told them. And from the warm, loving reception we receive whenever we return home to visit, it’s safe to say my sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law still think highly of their oldest brother and his pupule (Hawaiian for “crazy”) wife.

I’m a fun-loving, compassionate person most of the time. Partly because I’m a happy-go-lucky native island girl like my mom was, except when her demons got the best of her. And partly because of my Catholic upbringing. The part to do with…turning the other cheek, and being humble. The latter an Asian asset, or burden, depending upon what I’m up against.

For the benefit of my nieces, and other young kin, who might think their aunty is flawless (although I’m sure that’s not the case), I wanted to share some of my so-called “skeletons.”

I want to assure them that there are no perfect marriages.

None. Nada. No how. No way. Never will be…unless two robots get married.

Furthermore, with faults of my own, I try hard not to judge others.

Sometimes I fail. I admit…I’m human.

So here goes…

in our first year of marriage, in a fit of jealous rage…I hurled a fan at my husband…it broke; he didn’t (thank God! I’d have served time)

during that same period I served him “spam a la baked ham”…for months (he said he loved it)

again as a newlywed, when I smashed in the back fender of our beetle as I was rounding the underground parking lot pillar…I blamed my husband for my rushing to pick him up from work…you see, he was late getting off and kept me waiting (I got all dolled up…false eyelashes, pixie wig and all…which made me “drive like a bat out of hell” in the first place)

while we dated, my husband enjoyed volleyball dates with friends but eventually gave them up…perhaps because I sucked at it (when I served the ball it didn’t even clear the net)

for one week during the first year of dating I kept breaking up with my husband…I wasn’t sure we would last (I wasn’t even thinking marriage at the time…just “going steady”)

I don’t know if young married couples these days experience the same kinds of broohaha that us baby boomers did. We didn’t have Facebook and Twitter and iPhones to compound an already precarious time in the life of two, unrelated individuals trying to…tie the knot and become one.

Marriage is like a pretzel.