Saturday, August 15, 2009

good morning from great falls...


Hello there, it's been a while. This is that post that bloggers write after months of inactivity, in which I pledge my desire to update more regularly. Simply put, 2009 has been the craziest, most wonderful year of my life. Where blogging has typically been the result of a lot of free time—they're usually long, I'll be honest–free time has been scarce, and what time I've had hasn't been spent this way, but that's been fine with me. So, here's a post, but no promises.

It's August 15th and I just took a walk in 47 degree air. I cannot begin to express how good it felt. I don't like to sweat unless I'm doing something that warrants it, and while I love Tennessee, the summers really wear me out. As a wedding gift, Sarah gave me a replacement for this old blue Patagonia fleece of mine, which has been my version of Linus's blanket. I've worn it constantly for years, all over the world. It's been repaired by the factory twice, and it's wearing thin. Most of you who have known me know this fleece, and Sarah, in a very touching gesture, gave me a new black one for me to wear out during the course of our life together. Where the Tennessee summer hasn't allowed me to really wear it, this northern Montana air is perfect, so here I sit on my motel bed, window open, black fleece on, taking in the first bit of prolonged solitude I've had in several months; taking in, but not necessarily relishing.

I am fiercely introverted, easily exhausted by the constant presence of a lot of people and consider the time I have to myself precious. I shut down sometimes talking to people after a busy or long day, get quiet, glaze over; if you've known me long enough to know the "blue fleece", you've probably noticed this too. The wedding season, as you might imagine, has been exhausting; wonderful, but exhausting. Where Sarah and I had little time to really allow for much solitude, we replaced it with each other–hanging out, working out wedding plans, running errands, whatever it was. Before the wedding, our lives really started to become our life. Our wedding was amazing and worth all the work, but with every passing day, we longed more and more, not for our individual solitude, but for the collective peace and privacy of a life together. Now we have it, and two months into the marriage, it's hard to remember what life was like before it.

So here I am, traveling for the weekend in Montana, with the cool, western air blowing through my window, and I feel restless. Pre-marriage Whit would have begged for this, but now I honestly don't know what to do with all this time. I miss my wife...

While everyone of us needs to be alone with our thoughts from time to time, and while I know my inner introvert could use this time emotionally and spiritually, I am having to learn how to do this all over again. Where this quest for solitude was once the point, not only of this blog, but of much of my spare time, it has very quickly become a supplement to a greater point. I couldn't begin to explain marriage and do it any sort of justice, but what I do know is that two months of marriage has rendered 26 years of being single obsolete; I love being married. So here's to rediscovering solitude, but even more, here's to discovering the more perfect picture that now is my life. Cheers.

1 comment:

Stephanie said...

Again - I love your writing - you have a way with words!! We missed you this weekend - it was strange to have Sarah here and not YOU!! Keep the posts coming.