Linking up today with Heading Home today for Five Minute Fridays!

Today’s theme:

 

DEAR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s our second week of marriage. Brian and I are still in that blissfully unaware state of unfettered love and devotion that is honeymooning all over the place.

I am still in bed – the summer is still lulling about and I don’t have to go to work because I’m a teacher. I yawn. I stretch. I might unpack today. Or go to the bookstore. Or go for a run.

Life is good.

Brian, however, is getting ready to leave for his job. He’s in khaki pants and is wearing aftershave and an air of professionalism. He is pouring coffee. I am slipping back into sleep.

Then, he asks, “You want some coffee?” I don’t hear him because I’m cocooned in my blankets and lethargy. Brian, persistent, asks again, “Would you like some coffee?”

*snore*

“DEAR WOULD YOU LIKE SOME COFFEE?”

I have been rattled out of my blissful dreams and blink. Someone is yelling at me and it’s seven a.m. This is new.

Oh! Marriage. I blink again.

Brian, really really interested in making sure I get some caffeine, now bellows, “COFFEE? YOU WANT?”

And, I, annoyed, bellow back:

“YES. OK! ALL RIGHT! JEEZ. PUT SOME SUGAR IN IT BECAUSE I LIKE IT SWEEEEET!” This last part was a bit of a screech, like a grumpy macaw was in the bedroom, placing her order.

It is important to note here that when he brought it to me, I didn’t look very sweet. I looked all crumpled, and sleepy, and ticked.

Oh, marriage.

I take a sip and wrinkle my delicate nose. “This doesn’t have creamer. I like creamer in my coffee.”

Brian blinks.

At this point he has a crucial decision. He can tell me to put the coffee where the sun don’t shine, which would be all sorts of painful but probably rather deserved,

Or he can go for option B. Niceness.

Because, marriage.

He picks B and answers with a phrase I hear quite a lot in our years together:

“Yes, dear.”

As I sat back and waited for my coffee (which, when handed to me the second time was paired with a huge grin and so much creamer it was, um, just white), I wondered at it. I was being petulant and demanding, and I got a totally unexpected response. Quiet kindness.

This was rather new.

We tell each other, “Yes, dear” all the time. We say it when it’s hard, or when we are smiling, or when we are aflame with anger. We even say it when it’s drippy with sarcasm. But we still say it. And it always does the trick.

“Yes, dear” works. Why? Because we’re simple folk. We like to be reminded, even when annoyed or distracted or just plain mad, that we are precious to each other. That we chose each other.

That we hold each other, dear.

He is my darling, after all. And I am his. Even though he knows to maybe not talk to me too much in the morning before coffee.

Because, marriage.

Ephesians 4:31-32, ya’ll. It’s a good one.