Scribbles

When I finally figured out how to color as a kiddo, I couldn't fathom how I ever thought it was cool to color outside the lines. I was captivated by this new technique of first outlining the black and white picture in a darker color, so that the marker outline could serve as a coloring guide for my undisciplined little hands. As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that not everyone colors inside the lines, because sometimes they're not so black and white. Haven't you noticed how some coloring books have pictures that seem incomplete? It's like the artist decided to leave it up to your imagination to fill in the gaps and decide for yourself how the picture should look...and that's precisely what he did.

This little analogy can be applied to life and politics, of course. We're all frustrated with how political parties operate; they don't cater to our every belief, so we have to end up compromising one thing for another, but that's what it means to live in an imperfect world. God is the artist who drew an incomplete picture for us to finish. He didn't leave it that way because he didn't know how to finish it - but because he made us complete humans instead of empty robots; we have souls and imaginations to finish what he started. If we lived in a perfect world, we wouldn't be free, we wouldn't have the ability to decipher between right from wrong for ourselves. As a result of living in an imperfect world, we have to find ways of making ugly things beautiful without hurting more people than we help. This is what I have to tell myself before casting a ballot. Because the picture is incomplete, there are gray areas...but at least I'm aware of them.

When voting, people often forget how imperfect the world is. Then when they get out of their short-term amnesia phase, they wonder why the country is corrupt and choose to blame the other party instead of themselves. Ok, so I'm being a little vague. Here's a hot topic that's sure to get a crowd talking above a whisper: Abortion. I personally hate it with a passion, but most who hate it as much as I do, just do that...they simply hate it and talk. When they vote someone into power who is against abortion and supportive of a lengthy/costly war, why are they so quick to criticize the unwed mother who can't seem to fill her child's emotional and physical needs? Do they not understand that if they are going to be against an issue, they need to be for the antidote. Instead of using their mouths to ramble on about how dysfunctional today's American family is, why don't they use their pointing fingers along with the rest of their hand to write the very check that would allow the mother to form a secure attachment with her child without having to sacrifice tomorrow's dinner? Also, what about the mother who suffers from a terminal illness, cannot afford birth control, and is married to the abusive man who fathered the 4 children who need her more than anything? What if she happens to get pregnant again while suffering from this illness that would send her to an early grave and leave her children emotionally and psychologically scarred for life? These are the ugly truths that are often ignored when neglectful folks make their way to the polls.

It would be easy to say that abortion is a black and white issue, and though it often is, there are instances in which it becomes a gray one. Regarding the last mother-child situation I described, I know it is emotionally unsettling to imagine a mother having an abortion so that she can stay alive and try to limit the harm done to her other 4 children. But despite the sadness of this woman's circumstance, it is common and there are many true variations of this story. Of course, we should pray for a miraculous intervention for those who suffer most in this world, but God didn't just give us a mouth to call on him whenever difficulty strikes, he also gave us a brain and a heart capable of the kind of compassion that leads to action. Unfortunately, the very party that is against abortion is also the one that uses our money to fund events that do more harm than good. Most of the time, the single mother who chooses to have her child is punished with a judgmental look. Meanwhile, the money that would otherwise be used to better her situation goes toward funding a war that's left other children motherless.

Obviously, this is not the only significant issue at hand. Education is another area that doesn't get enough attention until it's too late, then it's just criticized. Education might be free in this country, but it certainly isn't equal. If you spend all your time in an office, had parents that made six figures, and have never been enlightened by a reality check, then I'm probably speaking another language. Thankfully, I was blessed with a private school education until high school. But I'm far from lucky, and the only reason why I was able to go to a private school in the first place is because I had a mother who worked her butt off (without a college education) and somehow still managed to put me in a good school even while she was single. As a baby, I wore dresses as shirts and inquired about the food stamps before I understood the difference between Blue Cross and CHIP/Medicaid, or any other government funded insurance plan. I had an on-hold reality check at birth that I cashed in when I took out student and private loans in order to pay for insurance and college because, by that time, my parent's income was "right in the middle," if you know what I mean (not enough, but too much to get a respectable amount of financial aid). So I've been at both ends. I know what it's like to wonder if you're going to have enough money to pay the bills, but also know what it's like to be right smack dab in the middle. I guess it's easier to be compassionate when you've been at the same low-point as someone else. Still, there are too many people around us going through their own hell for us to say they don't need our help and they can do it on their own.

Every person has a shadow that's black against a gray sidewalk, so why do we live as if we expect life to be any different? We can color life's shadow with chalk as long as we recognize its outline isn't so clear and that sometimes we will have to color outside the lines in order to make it a little more peaceful looking.

...after the 'wedding'

Now that I've been carrying the Mrs. title for a few weeks, I figure it's time to post and update... write about my wifey life.

I should talk about the "wedding" before I blog about what it's like to be married :). Well, initially Jose and I weren't planning a wedding. We were planning on just signing the legal documents, but then we discovered a few things. 1. Jose's dad wanted to be at our wedding ceremony, even though we weren't actually planning one and 2. I was told that you can't just "sign the papers" you actually have to get married before a judge. Hmm...well the idea of getting married in a courthouse before a judge wasn't very appealing to me or Jose, and we also wanted to make sure both our families were happy with our decision in how we were going to get married. Thankfully, we already had their approval to wed, but how we did it was another story. To make a long story short, there was a lot of running around the 2 weeks before we actually married before a minister in the cutest spot here in Austin, The French Legation. Things on my to-do list: I had to find a dress that fit, I had to find a minister, Jose and I had to figure out where the ceremony was going to take place, and where our families would gather to eat/meet after the wedding...it was stressful. Somehow everything fell into place! The minister was available the day we wanted him, and he ended up being a really wonderful one at that. Jose read about the French Legation online, and Jose was even the one to find a little place online where I could order my affordable but very wedding-like dress! Here are a couple of added bonuses/blessings that came with the wedding: Jose's dad's friend owns a flower shop and he donated about 15 lovely, Christmasy rose arrangements that were beyond beautiful, and right after our ceremony the minister told Jose and I that the actual ceremony was his gift to us...wasn't that nice of him?

The reason why Jose and I weren't initially planning a wedding was because we couldn't afford it. We wanted something simple and affordable...in the end, we were blessed and received a lot more than we ever expected. The wedding was memorable, and now that I look back, I'm thankful that things unfolded the way they did. The thing I'm most grateful for are the vows we got to exchange and even write! That wouldn't have happened had we married in the courthouse. Even though there was some stress in the planning that led up to the wedding, the wedding itself was peaceful and one-of-a-kind, what more could we want?

Things haven't changed much between Jose and I since we tied the knot. Maybe it's because we saw ourselves as married before the wedding even took place? As I've blogged about before, we've been through so much together already that our previous experiences have glued us together emotionally, making us stronger as a unit and even as individuals.

Sometimes I feel people lose site of themselves when they first get married or are in a serious relationship. I think I let that happen to me a little when Jose and I first started dating. I believe it's natural, to a certain degree, in the sense that you want to be with that person often. We only got to see each other on the weekends and between classes when our relationship first started, but I was always thinking about him and feeling way too sappy for my own good. Thankfully, he was the same way :D. Over time, though, as our relationship grew more secure, we realized that sometimes it's just knowing that you have someone to love that much is enough.

I think that occurred to me the most when Jose started studying for the LSAT, then taking up a job while taking a full load of classes last semester. I had more free time than he did since I was out of school already, so I took up new hobbies and discovered new things about myself. I think our relationship is better now as a result. In a sense, I've become more grounded in who I am, and even more well-rounded. Jose and I are quite different as far as are interests go, but our differences work because we always make sure to keep each other informed; we let each other into our different worlds, as cheesy as that sounds. He doesn't necessarily like to cook as much as I do, but he loves to eat what I make. I don't read the Economist or browse health articles nearly as much as he does, but I love learning about new things, so he's always there to enlighten me. He's only taking two classes this semester, but we're both working, so usually we just have the evenings and weekends to get caught up...but it's stable and strong. I know I keep using that last word, but that's exactly what comes to mind when I think of how our relationship has developed over the last couple of years.

The cool thing about being married is that we're both young, and even though we have a pretty good idea of who we are as individuals, we still have so much ahead of us. Our careers aren't established quite yet, we're still in that in-between phase but we're almost there, and it seems we're getting there faster because we have each other. Jose's heard back from a few noteworthy law schools already, and any day now we hope to hear back from the couple of "dream" schools he applied to...luckily, Jose's the type of person that usually gets what he works for. Why does this happen? There are a few reasons, here's one of them: When most people would consider something an impossibility and therefore never try for it, he doesn't even think of giving up after starting what others didn't even consider beginning. This is a quality that's made him not only a good student, but also a loving husband.

It's just a matter of time (very little time) before we figure out where we'll be living this time next year. It seems like we're always waiting for something good to happen, thankfully our patience usually pays off :).