The Things We Get to Keep

I have two souvenirs from my honeymoon: a plunger and a towrope.

We spent the week at a friend’s ranch house. Not a glamorous dude ranch hotel, but a quaint little house, in the middle of a lot of land, some cattle, and absolutely no other people for miles.The perfect place for really getting to know this person that I’ve just decided to spend the rest of my life with. There’s always a difference when it’s 24/7 just the two of you, isn’t there?

I have two souvenirs from my honeymoon: a plunger and a towrope.

We spent the week at a friend’s ranch house. Not a glamorous dude ranch hotel, but a quaint little house, in the middle of a lot of land, some cattle, and absolutely no other people for miles.The perfect place for really getting to know this person that I’ve just decided to spend the rest of my life with. There’s always a difference when it’s 24/7 just the two of you, isn’t there?

The plunger was for the obvious reason when the quaint little toilet decided it had had enough and became cantankerous, as older plumbing is wont to do. We drove about 20 miles to the nearest Wal-Mart to get that.

The towrope was because there had been some rain a few days before we got there, and as we were exploring the land in the SUV that was left at our disposal, we disposed it into a nice muddy patch. I think my husband’s exact words (once we’d buckled our seat belts and were facing the muddy bit on the trail) were "Ready to rumble?".

Looking back, he thinks if we’d been going faster, we wouldn’t have gotten stuck, but gotten stuck, we did. We hiked back to the house, and one little sunburn later (lesson learned: always carry sunscreen, even on a trip in an automobile), we got in the car and went to Wal-Mart again for the towrope.

We waited a few days but had little luck removing the SUV until we laid down some boards (thank you, Hollywood, for all those informative sitcoms) under the stuck tires. With the boards and souvenir number two and an old, but thankfully not cantankerous, pickup truck that was also left at our disposal, we had success. 

And I learned this handy lesson: I worry too much. Because yes, I was quite worried that we wouldn’t be able to remove it before we left and had no hopes of describing it’s location

(turn left at the second cactus) and no desire to confess our problem with the SUV still ankle deep in muck. But I also learned this handy lesson: my husband may worry too little.

But that’s the beauty of this thing called marriage (or any real close relationship), isn’t it? The ability to balance one another and help each other grow. My husband is learning to look before he leaps, and I am learning to go ahead and leap anyway. In-between, we are learing to love the one who’s buckling the seat belts and the one who’s ready to rumble.

So, I amend that first statement now. I have three souvenirs from my honeymoon: a plunger, a towrope, and the gift of balance.