Vive La Difference!

These days it feels like I am standing in the center of a merry go round as I watch the horses circle around me.  I can see the horses and the people and life beyond the whirling colors, but I must stand and wait for the music to stop so I can jump into and out of the spinning activity.

Don't get me wrong; Life is Good.
Its better than good in fact, its GREAT.  Just this morning as JZ and I lay in bed talking quietly as we slowly woke up, I said to him, "I am very rich." He understood exactly what I meant and agreed that we are both rich in what matters in life.

But this new life is still life and after what I've been through the last few months, I need to pause and take a breath.  Assess.
Find the 'me' that I can live with in addition to living my new life as a wife, partner and lover to a man again.

I love my husband, yet he is, after all, another human being with his own agenda, and that can run against the grain of my sometimes headstrong beliefs, hopes and irrational ideas-my absolutes.

We just returned from a great week away from the desert, visiting in Nebraska, South Dakota and Colorado.  We've logged many miles in cars and in airports and planes as we tried to hit all the high points and meet as many family and friends as humanly possible in 6 days.

I love my new in laws, that's for sure!  The Z family reunion we attended is a bi-annual event that takes in the hundreds of descendants from Germany to the south central Nebraska towns my husband and family grew up in.  These people are extremely well versed in their ancestors' names, vocations and the buildings and homesteads they lived in. I was and am very impressed.

My new father-in-law is quite proud of his heritage and, after meeting me, sat down next to me with the tome of dates, names and member pictures of the family name he carries after 150 years in this country.  My mother-in-law and father-in-law are nice to the max and I felt very welcomed. My new brothers-in-law(there are four of them) and their wives talked with me as if they had known me for a long time.  Acceptance is a warm fuzzy feeling and I am grateful to be feeling it.

My own siblings all met my new Mister and although I know it was sometimes tiring for Mr. Zed to repeat the same background checks and stories to each of his new in-laws, everyone got along in a positive and friendly manner.  I have heard nothing but praise for choosing such a nice man to share my life with.

Now begin the next steps.  We are back home and this is real life.  A new life where, as I adjust to him, he is also adjusting to me.  I know that we will forever be adjusting our sets right at the time of life when most people have settled into their little routine without giving much thought to the person they have shared it with for 40 to 50 years.

For me and JZ, its as if we are thrown back into our 20's as we learn how to maneuver around each other.  Can we accomplish this without causing the same irritations we experienced with our former spouses? That's the goal anyway- and its a lofty goal, too.

I am not perfect.  My dear husband is not perfect.  Our love and our life is not perfect.

But just think how perfectly boring it would be if they were!

JZ on Devils Bridge near Sedona, AZ