Living in glass houses

I've always appreciated the analogy of "people who live in glass houses shouldnt throw stones." Life and interaction with individuals always seemed to feel like stones. Subtle lashes of undertones. Physical expressions. Eye contact. These feel like stones. The marks of dishonest and disingenuous communication...mostly because I dont understand it and it usually blows up on me. So what better thing for someone like me to do than get married. Now I consider myself balanced, or at least I try, and yet I have found the level of fragility between a man and a woman quite frightening. You really do move into a glass house on your wedding day and you come to realize you've been throwing stones alot over the years. It isnt my marriage, its just marriage. People are fragile and cruel. Throwing stones in glass houses and getting caught in the ensuing shrapnel.

With no amount of pride, I consider myself to be intelligent-that is to say I consider myself having the faculties to over come the challenges I decide to face. I am also tenacious. That is where the list of my gifting really end. Now this is not meant to be self-depreciating. I have had a great deal of success in my life and have over come a great deal with intelligence and a tenacious spirit. I dont have skill with my hands. I am not particularly athletic nor am I a gifted socialite. I have a good memory, a critical mind and I understand patterns. I have failed at alot of things. Too many things to list, but my proudest failure was the time I tried to become a spy.

If you will indulge me I will tell you one of my favorite stories. I have never been shy about trying things and one day I decided to apply for the Canadian Securities and Intelligence Services (CSIS)-the Canadian secret service. I applied for this and time past and I was standing in the office of one of my dear friends named Krista. Now at the time I had just gotten my first cell phone and it rang. I looked down at the call display and it said, "number withheld." I was deeply confused as I had never seen that before. I answered the phone and the lady on the other end introduced herself as being from CSIS and wanted to arrange a phone interview. She asked me if I could arrange a "secure line." I enlisted the help of my aunt who was the only person I knew who had a lan line. I went to her home and got the call. The person on the phone asked me what I felt my qualifications for the job were, I asked for some information about the job and was informed they couldn't tell me. As you can imagine, the interview did not go well. A few weeks later I received a non-descript letter with my name and address typed from what I could see to be a type writer. I opened the letter and received a very formal and official government letter telling me I didn't get the job.

Now all this to say, I take a certain amount of pride at being the guy who keeps at it. I married a woman, a flawed woman (of course she married a flawed man), but a woman equally tenacious. We dont have a perfect marriage, but we have a marriage better than the one we started. I am grateful for being married to someone willing to equally participate. WE dont understand each other. We miss each other...often, but we keep trying. As I look on nine years of marriage, ten years together, I am continually more grateful for her. When I see marriages fail, I often see people who started marriages only partly committed. We idealize and dream and when stone throwing husbands and wives come into our house we are tempted to run away. Thanks for not running from me Doris and I am glad I haven't run from you either.