Carrie Link

I BEG YOUR PARDON, I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN

"Along with the sunshine,
There's got to be a little rain sometime..."

Remember that old song? Well that could be "our" song, my husband's and mine. Except reverse it. Make that "along with the rain, there's got to be a little sunshine, sometime..."

Yea, I'd like to say my prince came along, took me away, and we have lived happily ever after. Problem is, that's not how things went down. He's an introvert, I'm an extrovert. He's a black and white thinker, I'm the "holder of grey." He's very grounded, I'm in another realm most the time. He thinks in a straight line, I think in anything but. He makes decisions that make good sense - they pencil out. I make decisions that "feel right" and can't be proven to save their lives. And so on, and so on, and so on, for 21 years.

As rocky as our road has been, we've never given up on each other. We've never stopped loving each other. We've never believed that our union was a mistake.

We went to our friendly astrologer recently. We had her do our kids' charts, then juxtapose them with ours. She said she'd never seen such a family. All of our "stories" interracted with each others'. There was nothing in any of us that wasn't significant to all of us. And the partnership between my husband and me was obvious and beautiful.

My husband and I went away for 24 hours for my birthday. When I was luxuriating in the bath, he lit a dozen candles he had MADE (made, as in melted wax and poured them into molds with wicks), then lovingly filled the room with rose petals. ROSE PETALS!

I told him I'd rather have the tough years behind us and the rose petals and candles now, than the other way around. He agreed. Perhaps we are not such opposites after all.