Wednesday, December 5, 2012

What's Love Without The Memories?



While unpacking my Christmas boxes this weekend, I found the beautiful red leather gold leafed Christmas Memories book that my sister gave to my husband and me when we were first married. It struck my heart because this personalized diary was designed to store twenty Christmases and all their details.

Right on the shiny red cover, in swirly golden letters, alongside our new family name, it reads "Our Christmas Memories. 1994-2014." Gulp. When we first read the opening pages of this book 18 years ago, 2014 seemed like a century away. I ran my hand over the pages and it struck me hard, how we only have two more Christmases to fill in here.

I looked through all the Christmases that I've faithfully recorded on these pages, and thought about how reaching the book's end once seemed so ridiculously far away. There's a lot that's happened since 1994, all that's happened with almost twenty years of marriage. There are some wonderful memories that live in my mind. Our life together has pretty much played out the way it began: two unusual, not run of the mill people, finding each other and figuring out life one lesson at a time. I think back to a very telling, very representative indicator of what our life together was going to be like.

Indulge me, would you, while I tell you of the introduction to life with my husband. We begin at the very start: our honeymoon.

My husband and I married later in life, and we planned, executed, and delivered a wedding production on time and on budget (his exact words punctuated with much tones of pride.)

We brought the day together like the adults we were; we pulled it off and deserved a honeymoon with sun, water, food, drink, and each other.  That's what we worked for, that's the carrot that dangled in front of the cart but the story doesn't begin with a couple rolling around on a white sandy beaches.

Our honeymoon story begins with how I almost killed my husband on Day 3 of our new life together. The crime scene: idyllic Cozumel, Mexico.

I decided to marry my husband for many reasons. The biggest ones being his stability and level headedness. He is predictable in his moods, and emotionally even keeled. Just what an alarmist like me needs. He is the voice of reason after my WebMD search results of moles that look like India have me writing out my will.

I count on him pulling me in off the ledge. There could be a cobra viper anaconda strangler 5 feet from my face, ready to strike at 851 mph, on the most vulnerable part of my body, and he’d soothingly promise me, “I'll take care of it. Just, no sudden movements."

With my husband around, I can scream “the sky is falling!,” when the sump pump goes out after a heavy spring rain, and he'll tell me that's why he bought the back up pump.

The man would’ve come in handy at Woodstock.

Well, he--of  the permanent delta brain waves--and I--of brain waves they've yet to categorize--are sharing a resplendent open-air honeymoon suite in Cozumel. The cross breeze is to die for. Our room faces the ocean and just like a Hallmark commercial, the sheer white curtains are billowing in the wind. The hotel features an all-day buffet fit for a king, and we claim ourselves the royal couple. Grazing, all day long, and far into the evening. We relax, we spoil ourselves, we do a lot of nothing.

We spend the first two days doing my two favorite activities: eating and being lazy, but then we decide we should really visit a Mayan temple or something. So we sign up for a group sight seeing bus tour. We are going to see temples and ruins. We're so blissfully heady from food and wine that we don't take notice that this tour is All Day. We will leave by 7 a.m. and be back in time to catch the dinner buffet.

We don’t think to pack food … we’ve forgotten what hunger is like--we've been tended to as if we were demi-gods for only two days, but we got used to it fast. We set out at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, taking nothing but our cameras. I think I may have remembered to grab some bottled waters.

It is a day long tour of walking, hot sun, walking, more hot sun. There is ancient ruin stair climbing involved, there is boarding and unboarding of the bus, there is a long day without food packed involved.

Do you know the signs and stages of  low blood sugar in another person?  I can tell you. I watched my husband fly through them at warp speed:

Stage 1: irritability. HIGH irritability 

Stage 2:  accompanying stupor 

Stage 3: full sentences disappear

Stage 4: every man for himself

I am no stranger to low blood sugar-–I have trained myself to overcome its effects and to push on through. I didn’t fit into my beaded lace princess seam wedding dress like a glove with just luck.

No, I know how to deal with the physical symptoms caused by long periods of no food. But, my new husband, my poor new husband: he had no idea what to do with the lightheadedness, the shakiness, the spots swimming before his eyes, the beads of sweat on his upper lip. He shifted into the most basic primal state: survival.

Never in my life had I imagined that I’d be able to write my own, real-life account of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  But I did on that day. My level headed Dr. Jekyll had become the raging, combative low blood sugar induced Mr. Hyde; his dark side running wild--grumbling at me to hurry up and decide on a seat on the bus already. Snarling at the poor, unsuspecting retired couple to quit holding up the bus by always getting lost.

Spencer Tracy himself couldn't be more Hydey.

The fear of what my future held with this man had me break down into tears. And Mr. Cool wasn’t there to bring me in off the ledge.

This was not the person I had said yes to spending eternal life with--is there a more panic stricken thought for a newlywed?  The bus ride home was made up of me thinking I had made a huge mistake–HUGE–and of him, pupils dilated, sweat soaked forehead, animalistically caring about only one thing: someone who would throw him a piece of meat like he was a lion at a zoo.

I was ready for him to take over the bus, commandeering it straight into the jungle, where he’d tear off his shirt, run wild, and then return like a crazed native with an ocelot hanging out of his blood-soaked mouth.

Yes, I was freaking out, and I needed his voice of reason. I knew he was this close to sacrificing me atop the ancient ruins we had just toured in exchange for someone’s saltine cracker. My only way to survive this? I’d have to kill him.

We endure the bus ride back to the hotel, with me stifling my wails and making a quick mental run through of annulment procedures. We pull up to our hotel and my husband forces the bus' doors open with his shoulder; he then heads--wild eyed and stumbling--straight for the buffet. He begins grabbing food off the buffet because who needs a plate, right? His Cro-Magnon brow receding and his grunting speech slowly returning to full sentences with every handful he shovels in. At meal's end, he is back to being Dr. Jekyll and we are left with a *funny* low blood sugar story.

But, I am not left the same. I've learned a life lesson.

Before we board a plane, train, or automobile, before we do anything else, I buy my husband two King Size Kit Kat bars. And I keep them accessible for the duration of the trip. He smiles and laughs now when he sees them poking out of my purse.

It’s a funny story. NOW, it’s a funny story--but it wasn't then.

My advice to any soon to be honeymooners: work in the Kit Kats, the Snickers, the Twix. You can spare yourself the scene of diamond rings flying past billowy balcony curtains, for just two bars, $5.00 plus tax.


Don't let the dimples fool you. The man's a RAGING MANIAC. But I won't know that till Wednesday. And then I'll cry.
***



*This post originally ran at the hilarious website, Gonna Kill Him. Do you know Erin? She writes some of the funniest stuff on the internet. You can find her brilliance here.

39 comments:

  1. And don't put them in your pocket in hot weather!

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  2. Never ever take a full day bus tour. Anywhere. Most marriages end after these bus tours.

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    1. Neil, you always make me laugh. Always. Thanks for stopping by.

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  3. Who knew food was more important than fun? :)

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  4. Makes me think; which sugar crashes are worse? My kids? Or there Dad's? Dad's. Definitely,

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    1. It's good to see you!!!! How did your daughter's email experiment go?? I hope you go back to blogging. We miss your funny.

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  5. Regan and I had a huge fight the day after we got married. It felt scripted like a sitcom or something...glad we didn't give up then! Buffets can save the day in so many ways...

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  6. whew...i am glad you both survived...ha...i think we did fairly well through the honeymoon...other than i became deathly ill the last day and ended up in two hospitals in 2 states in a mad dash to get back home...smiles.

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    1. Se, B? Tidbits like this make me wish you had two blogs: one of prose.
      You spin a tantalizing hook.

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  7. Well at least you can look back now and laugh about it. I am pretty sure he was a bit scared as well, especially if he is so level headed, to not be able to do that had to be disturbing. Glad he didn't sacrifice ya hun.. Wait Kit Kat?? Why not Reese cups?? Now that my dear is a sugar rush..

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    1. Spoken like a woman who knows. Alas: peanut allergies. So good to see you, Angel!!!

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  8. I have no room to talk because, as my husband will tell you, I get quite cranky when I'm hungry. Like your husband, he is quite calm and even tempered. I depend on that, but I have to admit, his calmness gets annoying sometimes. I'm not crazy. He's just so not-crazy that it makes me look a little crazy in comparison sometimes, right?

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  9. This is very good advice - a little chocolate can make things better on a long day (or any day, really.) :)

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  10. Oh my! This was truly hilarious! As one who had looked at my husband on, uh, several... occasions and thought, "What the heck was I thinking?" this post hit home. BTW, I was out to dinner w/ my college friends on Sat and one of them said, while we waited for our server, "I think I'm starting to get Hangry." Hangry? Perfect word choice.

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  11. Oh I know this drill--though it's usually me, not my fiance, getting the grumps. Todd & I went on a cruise a couple years ago (*sob* it's been too long!) and we did one of those excursions (though thankfully not all day). Wouldn't you know it, my blood sugar starts to crash just as I'm faced with crossing one of those rope bridges, and me terrified of heights as it is.

    At least there were cute monkeys to cuddle on the other side. That helped. As did the slow-as-molasses commissary while we waited for the bus back to the port.

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  12. A,

    This was our honeymoon story as well except in reverse. My wonderful husband got treated to angry & irritable low blood sugar Jen. Now I always pack snacks for our trips, so I don't become Mrs. Hyde. xo

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  13. When I toured with the USO, they put us on a bus with a crazed chain-smoking psycho chaperone who made us board the bus at 7 am. For an 8 pm show that night. In Germany. Or Macedonia. And other places that don't have a McDonald's drive thru.

    I also did 2 tours of Canada - five provinces - with other comedians. On a short bus. (so apt) Whenever one person had to pee, we had to stop the bus. We all learned to pee at the same time!

    So whenever someone mentions, "It's a bus tour" I decline. Your story gave me hives. But it was beautifully written, something you are excelling at!

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  14. Oh my gosh, you are gorgeous, and you two are a gorgeous couple!

    I remember this story from your original post! I tell you, there is nothing like hunger to turn any sane man to something you never knew could exist. My husband is the exact same way. Put him and my 8 eight year old in the same room a half hour past lunch time and I am not sure if I would live to see the next day.

    I bet you have many more of these stories that you can look back and laugh about. I'll look forward to reading them in 2014?? In the meantime, looks like you might need to get busy filling out that Christmas book?? ;-)

    xo

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  15. I love ruins, especially Native American ruins, but my guess is this was the one time when the experience wasn't worth it. Still, great honeymoon photo, but any pictures of those Mayan temples? ;-)

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  16. that was hilarious. thank u for the stress reliever.

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  17. So damn funny. "...return like a crazed native with an ocelot hanging out of his blood-soaked mouth." And now I know who I'm going to sidle up to at the next conference when I'm feeling peaked and need a chocolate hit.

    We have one of those Xmas books as well and last year was 20 years so I had to track the publisher down and order two more. I'm planning to torture this man for at least another 40. (Got some for the kids while I was at it, to be gifted at a wedding shower...)

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  18. Just think - to encounter something so stressful and traumatic like and to still have made it through. I will never go on a bus tour unless I have a week supply of trail mix packed with me.

    Better believe it.
    Kiran

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  19. Loved this! And...been there done that...we did one of the full-day tours, and I have never been so glad to get back to the hotel! You live and you learn ;)

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  20. So, so funny! *makes mental note to purchase Kit Kat bars*

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  21. This was so funny. I thought it was going to be about you and your eating problem, like bad food in Mexico or something.

    Funny. And crazy, like real life. You really can't make up stuff like real life.

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  22. My husband and I got married in '94 too. It is hard to believe it's going to be 20 years. We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon and had a scary ride in a Jeep we rented in the mountains. Wasn't sure if we were going to survive it only because of the twisty roads.

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  23. Haha - you make me laugh out loud). I really like your optimism. And memories are everything when it comes to love. My feelings resurrect every time I look through our honeymoon pics.

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  24. It's such a Great, Funny story! Good advice, never leave home,or stay home, or anything, without chocolate : )

    It's our 'last' year as full, kids still living at home family. Good thing I don't have a fancy book because I'd be spoiling it with water marks from the tears.

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  25. So so funny. I never go anywhere without snacks either, but they are for ME. :)

    Also, we have the exact same red/gold Christmas Memories book! Ours will be full in 2016. Need to start shopping for a new one before it sneaks up on me!

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  26. Ohhh, both my husband and I have that problem. I can't tell you how many times we've started in on an utterly ridiculous (but completely serious fight), only to stop in the middle to look at each other and say, "This is dumb. We're just hungry." At which point, we shove each other out of the way as we run to the refrigerator (I'm not nearly as good at denying my symptoms as you area0.

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  27. I love this honeymoon story (that's funny NOW).

    But I'm stuck on the fact that it's 2012 and I still think things that happened in the 90's are recent.

    Not 20 years ago.

    Crap. I need a Snickers.

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  28. I'm very familiar with this kind of thing. My mom is diabetic and I swear her head starts spinning if her sugar gets low.

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  29. Too funny! I love your picture. Glad you made it home alive & married.

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  30. My husband has tried a full array of candy to bring my civility back. You should see the look on his face when I say "no thank you"...panic! I loved your story as usual! Xoxox

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  31. I am nothing with my stash of goldfish crackers. Love you.xo

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  32. LOVE this. I think I remember when it first appeared and I thought to myself, "wow. I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND." I may have been known to act out in fits of rage when I am left without food for extended periods of time. This is hysterical. I love that you carry Kit Kats with you now always. And that picture? SO CUTE ON MY EYES!

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  33. I so related to this post with my own husband. We've even have a name for the Dr.Jekyll/Hyde lack of food transformation: "HANGRY." I carry little bars in my purse and car for his HANGRY attacks.

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  34. I hate low blood sugar. I think I'm every bit as bad as your hubs.

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  35. You guys are so cute! When you're not trying to kill each other.

    My husband is the same way. I'd rather stop for food and be late than risk Mr. Cranky.

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