Day 5: Another Incident

It all started when Micky had an infamous incident. And by incident I mean a panic-attack; full-blown, all-hairs-raised howling session. He was sitting by the living room window and he saw a man across the street. That was it. He saw a man and he barked bloody murder for the whole street to hear.

Here's the thing, when Micky gets mad, I get mad. My husband likes Micky to be free- he feels bad when Micky is gated into the kitchen when we're in other parts of the house. And so Micky wasn't gated this morning, which was why he was sitting by the window, which naturally led to the incident. So Micky is barking, I am yelling at Rich for not doing anything about it and he is yelling at both of us. In the end, Micky ended up back in the kitchen and Rich and I were on separate couches. This scenario happens several times a week.

I know it isn't fair, but I blame my husband for how awful our dog behaves. After all, it was his idea to get a free dog off of Craigslist. He refused to get a shelter dog, because they microchip all the shelter dogs and Rich believes this to be some sort of government conspiracy to control our lives. Personally, I think there are easier ways to wire-tap a nation, than micro chipping all stray dogs and using this to infiltrate personal information. Some arguments I know I can't win. So we got a free puppy off of Craigslist, knowing almost nothing about his history and even less about his temperament. Add to this months of shoddy training (we stopped taking him to training classes when he had barking fits every time another dog got a treat), a personal trainer whose solution was electric shock training, and one kennel owner who swore he was worst dog she'd ever seen. And she specializes in behaviorally challenged dogs.

The biggest issue for me, is that I live with two boys and they know it. They ride in the truck together, trudge through the woods and hang out in the backyard together doing boy things. I can't compete with that, and so I've become the mean girl who tells Micky to lay down, who locks Micky in the kitchen, who yells at Rich for letting Micky swim in the Ocean and then lay on the bed.

I don't hate the dog. I hate what his behavior brings out in me- what I feel stirring up in me when the barking starts. Or worse, when we come home from work and Micky dances around Rich, barely noticing that I'm there. This canine is directly influencing my marriage and I know that if I want these 100 days to count for something, I'm going to have to deal with how I react to these incidents. But like Micky, when he sees a squirrel thirty yards away, I seem to lose all control of my tongue once the chaos starts, and I have no idea how to train myself to stay seated and quiet.

Day 4: Target

Friday night is date night. For most couples, I imagine, this means restaurants and wine, high heels and perfume. For Rich and I, a night on the town usually means Target. That's right, Target. We wander through the entire store- every single aisle, and all the clearance end-caps, rummaging through packages of pretzels and five dollar dvds. Most nights we don't make a purchase, we just play. Sometimes we snag two mitts and a baseball and toss pop flies in the aisles. Other nights Rich will convince me to play tunes on the model keyboard they keep in electronics. Inevitably, Rich will pick up the most expensive Canon digital camera they have- with a zoom lens and pretend to take pictures of my funny faces. We used to get on the bikes, but then they started locking them in place. Tonight I tried on 6 different hats and ended up with sparkles stuck to my face so that everything I saw was shiny. We looked at tents, skimmed the bestsellers and nearly lost it in the ice cream section. In the end we bought a stick of deodorant and headed home, satisfied and tired.

I've been thinking about Target all day and trying to figure out why it's become our place. We don't go to Target to buy stuff, we don't even go to see new things. Rich and I spend half our Friday nights in florescent lighting because the simple truth is, we want to be together. We're wanderers and we prefer to wander together and let's face it, Target is a great place to do that. Not to mention the deodorant.

Day 3: 25 Giant Steps

This morning we walked along the beach. I woke up to Micky sitting by the window and whimpering while he watched the waves. He's smart and he knows how to play us. After half an hour of whining and dog grumbles, we leashed him up and began the 25 giant steps from our front door. It's high tide and the waves just barrel into our 150 yard inlet. I'm bundled in my warmest winter coat (Rich calls it my weather-girl coat because it's similar to the kind the weathermen wear on television... during blizzards )and my morning hair is sticking in all kinds of directions. There's an electricity to the air- a thunder from water smashing on rock and I'm brilliantly aware of how much I love this place. It's been two weeks since I've managed these few steps. This morning, staring into the glare of morning light, I remembered living in Oregon and how we used to dream about the Maine Coast. Rich and I could spend an hour talking about walking along Perkin's Cove or taking weekend explorations through Acadia. We counted down the days until our return to the East Coast and it's been 14 days since I've managed these 25 steps. Why is it that the closer we are to the things we love- to the people we love- the less we bother to get up and show our love?

Am I just lazy, or is it the idea of the ocean that is more appealing than the ocean itself, because let's be honest- the beach is a mess. It's sandy and salty and all kinds of sticky. It cakes to the floor of your kitchen and sticks to your towels. Coastal Living is way nicer from 2000 miles away, when you don't have to put on a weathergirl coat to experience it. But to feel the morning sun as it hits waves that thunder so loud your dog can't hear you calling him. There's nothing like it in the world.

Maybe marriage is the same way. The idea of it is incredibly romantic and appealing and we can talk about it for hours. But the work of it- the morning-hair-stealing-all-the-covers-forgot-to-pay-a-bill-this-month reality of marriage is incredibly messy. But it's worth it, and I don't want to wait another 14 days to walk those 25 steps. I want to be in it now, and get messy now. Because to experience the faithfulness and commitment of another, there's nothing like it in the world.

Day 2: Mild Frostbite means I love you

It really does. Let me explain. Right now we're living in a cute, but drafty summer cottage on the Southern Coast of Maine. We're paying our own heating bill, which we've always done, in every apartment we've had. But this year Rich is determined to keep the cost as low as possible. My sure-honey-turn-it-up-to-seventy husband has turned into a ruthless heat-patrol officer. He's set the heat to turn off at 11pm and then turn back on at 7pm the following day. At my house, we are allowed the slim ration of four hours of heated air. I said, "That's fine, because in January, when it's frigid, we can really crank it up." He said, "In January, we'll get a second down comforter and we won't have to turn it on at all."

Last week, Micky (the large ferocious dog) could see his breath... inside. And yesterday, when I stepped into the shower, there was sharp pain. The hot water stung my feet- the way a warm bath hurts after you've been in the cold for too long. Mild Frostbite. In my own house. I danced around the shower until it was manageable, and probably I'm exaggerating because within seconds I was fine.

But here's the thing; at any time I could go and turn up the thermostat, and sometimes I do go and stare at it longingly. I know that I could turn it up to 73 degrees and say "Sorry, Rich, but I'm tired of being cold," and it would stay at 73 degrees. I know this, I fantasize about this, and yet in the end I choose to be freezing. It's not about saving money. I do this because I know that it's important to my Husband and while I can be quite selfish (as you saw yesterday) I understand that cold feet can say I love you in a way no words can.

Maybe it's true that when you love someone, you show it not by what you give them, but by what you give up for them. For me, it's warm toes.

Day 1: What kind of wife am I, anyway?

When you're doing an experiment like this, you start to realize what kind of person you really are- specifically what kind of partner. Example: This morning the alarm was set for 4:30AM. Rich works and goes to school full time and he was waking up early to study for a test. I like to sleep. Well, the alarm "didn't go off." I woke up at 5:30, fully conscious of this fact. Instead of nudging my husband, I went back to sleep. I like to sleep. At 6:45AM (15 minutes before he needs to leave to go to school) I woke up again. This time I did nudge Rich, but only to suggest that he e-mail his professor, tell him he was sick, and stay in bed with me. He didn't, of course. But the point is that when it comes down to it, I am much more interested in keeping myself warm and cozy than in helping my husband be successful at the things that are important to him. Today is Day 1, and I'm nervous about what I might discover about myself. When your spouse tells you that you're a good wife, eventually you believe it, even if you suspect it may not be true. Today is Day 1- we high-fived and said "Sweet, Day 1!" like a couple of kids heading for Florida on Spring Break... a 100 day Spring Break.

The Preface

100 Days of Love is about a journey. It's about figuring out how to stay in love and how to keep romance alive. It's about dealing with dissapointment. 100 days of Love is not just about intimacy, it's about being committed to practice loving each other fully and completely and recording how that affects our lives.

3 Years ago, Rich and I eloped, on a rainy Saturday in September. No two people could love each other more. We used to ask each other if this was normal. We would wonder aloud if we had a love that was greater than all other loves, convinced, in fact, that we did. My heart felt so big, I could literaly feel the pressure, I thought I was having a heart-attack. Over the past 36 months, our crazy heart-attack love turned into a mellower kind of love. We used to cuddle for hours after work, now we move in separate directions- to the TV, to the internet. We used to race to the bedroom, jumping on the bed like children, last one in had to turn off the light. These evenings, I pick up a book and don't look up at him for nearly an hour. He comes to bed long after I'm asleep. There's still love. Our hands still slide together when we're driving or walking down the street. He buys my favorite coffee creamer and I (mostly) make sure his chef uniform is clean for work, (he despises laundry).

Six months ago we learned that we were infertile. No children. Walking across a dirt parking lot on a muddy Spring morning; I was meeting him for lunch. I thought he was going to say that everything was fine at his doctor's appointment and that we should just try a few new things. What he said was, "My sperm count is zero." So final. We cried, people walked by, and I buried my face in his shoulder saying, "it's ok," over and over and over. I was talking to my heart, I was talking to my husband, I was talking to this balloon of hurt that inflated between us and around us.

For the past six months, we've avoided the issue. We've stopped making love regularly because it feels a little bit useless. Rich had an appointment with a specialist that he never showed up for. Sometimes I cry, but mostly we just pretend that not having kids was our idea and we don't talk much about it. The other night I realized that it had been two weeks since we made love. Rich was trying to snuggle up to me and I was doing the usual "I'm so exhausted" routine. Laying there, I realized that we hadn't been intimate in two weeks and I had no desire to be. What happened to us? How did the love to end all loves end up routine and disappointing? I turned to Rich and said "I think we should have sex for 100 days in a row. Not tonight, of course, but starting soon... I'll set up a blog." My poor husband didn't know how to react. But the more I thought about what was happening between us, the more I realized how common it was. Many couples are crazy in love when they start together, then over time they lose that spark and end up complacently annoyed- with each other and with their own love life. 100 Days of Love is about making a conscious choice, everyday, to love each other. It's about making love, even when there won't be a child. We (that means me) will write each day about what we're learning and how this great experiment is going. (Starting tomorrow....)