Heartbeats and Little Feet: Life Lessons

I've been taught a lot throughout my life. I've learned things from school. I've learned things from family and friends. I've learned from my own failures and experiences. Above all else, the most important thing I've learned was a lesson that was taught to me by my parents. I learned this lesson through their behaviors and actions, and not the path they chose.
I had a happy childhood, but not necessarily an easy one. My parents divorced when I was five years old. Throughout the years, I watched them fight. Even when they were separated and divorced, I listened to them fight. I listened to what they said about one another. I listened to the messages that they asked me to relay.

Then something funny happened. As I grew older, I began to realize truths. I learned when Mom was wrong and when Dad was wrong. I learned to decipher the messages I was hearing with the truth that I was seeing. I also developed my own voice. A voice that often spoke up and said, “You can relay that. I’m not being the middle man or the messenger”. I developed a voice that learned to answer, “I don’t know” - even if I did. I just knew the answer would upset the other parent.

Besides developing my voice and learning the true meanings behind actions, I learned a much more important lesson. It’s a profound message. Here it is:

Marriage takes work.

When you start dating and get engaged, you feel still believe that life is a fairy tale and once you are married that there won’t be hard times. Let me tell you…there are going to be changes, hard times, failures, and hiccups. You grow together and you grow as individuals. Life happens. Love evolves. You face challenges and obstacles. Priorities shift. Your love changes. You change. Your marriage suffers. Something that you should be putting time and effort in to daily can sometimes go by the wayside. It happens.

The good news – with a little work and refocusing, you can get it back on track. You are reminded that you get from a marriage what you put in to it. You reap the rewards of this. Your marriage becomes stronger. You remember how important this relationship is to you and you vow to stop taking one another for granted.

Chances are, life will get in the way again. It will happen. Guaranteed. You remember what’s important. You shift priorities and you refocus again

It’s a constant push and pull. A dance. A search for balance.

The true lesson in this is that no matter how hard the push or how hard the pull, I refuse to give up on my marriage. I refuse to walk away. I refuse to become the statistic that says that 50% of all children from a divorced family will end up divorced themselves.

Maybe it’s because of the lesson I learned, but I fight harder. What I've got is too good. It’s just that simple.