happily ever after and all that.

Just a week ago I wrote my list of things that make me happy. #4 on the list was my marriage. As I have said before, when I look back on Chowder's and my marriage Creation story, I see God's paw prints all over it. It's 0ne of those frustrating romances to watch with the timing all wrong for too many years. It's that movie that leaves you shouting at the screen, "Enough already!! Just kiss her!" And finally, she just kisses him and the movie ends. happily ever after and all that.

But it doesn't take much to open a chink just wide enough for the demons of doubt to slip through. Something as simple as say...opening your email and getting a friend request to Facebook from someone named "Sophia." ("Sophia" being the name of Chowder's college sweetheart.) So, I called Chowder and asked him what "Sophia's" last name was.
"My 'Sophia'?"
knife stabs in
The name, of course, doesn't match.
"But do you know her married name?"
"I think she kept her name. When I saw something about her in the alumni news, she had the same last name."
twist knife
Chowder and I have this game we play. Whenever we get one of his various alumni magazines, I turn to his year and tell him about all of the accomplishments of his classmates. You know, a self-esteem booster...I have never run across her name.
feigning nonchalance, "Oh. When was that? I don't remember that."
"I don't know, I got it in the mail and read it one day. When I was done I threw it in the recycling bin."

The demons begin to ask questions. They are very suspicious. And I am without my medication and extremely vulnerable to them. Why did he hide that from me? (Being a 4th if not 5th generation narcissist, I have to make it about me instead of how he felt when he read it.)

They had been perfect. really. Her: pretty sorority girl with long blonde hair. Him: preppy fraternity guy with boyish charms. Their love seemed inevitable. As did the plans they made. Not silly teenage lovey plans, but real plans. grown-up plans. Her father was a minister. She sang in the choir. When Chowder was searching for denominations that fit him, of course it ended up the same as her father's.

But it ended the way these loves do. Tragically. Heartbreakingly. I'm sure for both of them. I know for him. I watched the depression set in on him and hold him fast for two years. I talked with him about his regret, his grief.

The demons question whether he wouldn't have been happier in that life. If "Sophia" hadn't been the real golden ring and I was just the boobie prize. Whether he only married me because she had said no. Whether he wished some days, that she had said yes. That he lay next to her at night.

The doubt had me firmly in it's grasp now. The demons attacked one after the other for 2 long days and 2 excruciating nights. The doubts. the terrible, terrible doubts. At the point where I was doubting his love for me and the foundation of our marriage, I cried out to God. I wanted him to obliterate these demons. To destroy them completely. to go all Old Testament on that crap.

And you know what?
He did.
But he didn't destroy the doubt in the violence of the earthquake, nor in the crash of lightening and thunder. No, God annihilated my doubt in the still small kicks of the still small baby that miraculously continues to grow inside me. like a mustard seed.

A little voice that whispers, "I am here...I am here."