Ignoring my Huggie-Wuggie?!

Yet another gorgeous sunset!

Well today I’ve got to admit that I was in two minds about whether to write a post here or not. On one hand, I so badly wanted to lose myself in pouring out these thoughts  – not only here on Huggie-Wuggie, but also on “Tosin’s Bible Blog”.  On the other hand, I have a few other insistent commitments which were weighing heavily on my mind.  But then finally I thought of how inconsistent my blogging has been of late, and I eventually decided to give this time to my blog posts after all.  I do still feel a little guilty about this because these other commitments concern other people whom I truly love and care about.  In that light, giving myself to this just now feels a little like a selfish indulgence. And yet, in some ways, that is a great analogy for marriage itself!

What I mean is this: I sometimes think that in life there will always be so many genuine and  pressing needs to look to. I am not trying to be flippant about these particular issues which concerned me today because they are genuinely deeply, deeply important. And yet in life, these genuinely and deeply important issues will never end. In the midst of that, you still have to make time for your own self, and your marriage.  In fact, it is something that people say that it is when you make time to invest into yourself that you are truly empowered and energised to help other people. By God’s grace, I deeply hope and expect that my eventual longed-for marriage will truly be a place of mutual empowerment and energising, both for me and my husband. This hope is so profound within me that even now before marriage I find it energising and encouraging and inspiring to simply talk about this hope!  So this is one of the big reasons why I write these posts for myself, not only for readers.  Seriously?!  Writing this blog is definitely for myself, first and foremost. I guess I could write everything and keep it private, but I share these thoughts in the hope that they would indeed be helpful to other people, and also of course in the great hope that they might resonate with (a certain?!) someone attractive and marriageable “out there”!

These following thoughts are kinda related to what I’ve just expressed:  I’ve not been able to blog here as often as I would have liked over the past few weeks and months. Thinking about why that is, I could not honestly say.  At the time it just felt as if I was so busy that I sincerely could not afford even the mental energy to think about these posts, let alone the time.  And yet, even through all the busy-ness, a thought was constantly gnawing away at my mind:  could this be an analogy for the way I think about my marriage?  Obviously this blog does not in and of itself equate to my marriage.  But the point was this:  could my inattention to this blog indicate that there might be times in my marriage when, despite all the best intentions in the universe, I find myself simply too busy to invest into thinking about my marriage, and looking to the needs of my husband; when, if at all, I would just perform my various duties mindlessly without really paying attention or giving the benefit of my full presence – because in truth my mind and heart are elsewhere?  This is not a good thought at all.  I hope it is fair to say of myself that no matter what, no matter how busy I get, I will always always make it a priority to focus on my man, and let him know that he is always absolutely central in my mind and my heart, after my God.

Also, related to this, it also occurred to me that even before I am married, safeguarding the time to write for this blog would be great discipline and practice to help me to safeguard the time necessary to invest into my marriage.  I am a big believer in the need for time in relationships, and looking ahead into marriage I dream of being able to lavish hours and hours on our marriage; on our togetherness, on holding hands, talking, canoodling, and together watching those endless sunsets that I am so obsessed with. (When imagining all this, I am trying not quite hard enough not to see a certain someone’s face and physique hugging me!)  Actually, I have recently been forced to accept that these hopes of spending so much time together just “being” –  are kinda unrealistic.  With the demands of work and modern life and various commitments time for relationships is so squeezed.  However, a girl can always hope (and pray!)  All the same, writing this blog and thinking through these issues is like investing time into my marriage and making sure I make that time to write and to think is a great idea.  If nothing else, it shows everyone my ongoing commitment to this marriage and that I remain so positive and optimistic about the idea of marriage and the hope of marriage!  So in case someone may have been watching this blog and wandering whether I had cooled down in my great marital hopes, the short answer to that is “no!”  By the awesome grace of God I want this as much as ever.  I know that it will be a lot of hard work.  I also know that (with my endless dreaming of sunsets) I often underestimate how much work it will be, and how hard it will be. But all the same I so want this!  I want this marriage, and I want you, and I want to spend so much time with you!  Hopefully not just doing mundane things… Having said all that, the couple of hours I spend writing each post and the few extra hours I spend thinking through the issues each week are not nearly equivalent to the amount of time a marriage will need.  So if I cannot safeguard even these few hours now…!!!

There were some further thoughts I was thinking recently which are currently beyond the grasp of my mind (that is, I can’t remember them just now!) However, what occurs to me right now is this:  for me, what truly makes marriage exciting, like what makes all friendships exciting for me, is being surrounded by someone’s genuine love all the time, and smiles and humour and talking and sharing those many countless and ultimately forgettable insights which all the same give some fun and joy in the moment. Oh, and eating together too, of course, possibly including some jokey lighthearted food fights! Conversely, what would make marriage a horror would be to be surrounded by someone’s bad character and negativity all the time and being used and manipulated. It really is not about spending money to “buy” experiences.  That is why I am so fussy about the character of people who surround me.  I am not fussy about many other things but my goodness I am fussy about character! (And then some people are apparently perplexed about why you would choose not to spend your time with them, after they have reliably demonstrated their poor character!) Anyway the further point is that the mere fact of spending time together with a man like this is enough to make simple things exciting.  Would it be naive to say that even humdrum experiences of life would suddenly become fun just because your husband is a lovely and laughy person?  Perhaps it would be stretching it a bit.  However you can still go looking for amusement in simple places, in just being together, doing small things together and the great joy would be to constantly be held in his loving arms, and to constantly be embraced by his smiling eyes. (No no, tears did not just fill my eyes at writing that last sentence!)

Oh yeah – an observation that I have made countless times before, but which I will nevertheless make here again. Quite obviously I will need a husband who also subscribes to these same hopes and to this same way of thinking about marriage. So not only does he need to have simply amazing character, but he also needs to be the kind of person who dreams of spending hours smiling at his wife, and talking and just being and holding hands, and apparently doing nothing and achieving nothing productive.  I know that the likelihood is that Mr Huggie-Wuggie, like most men, will be extremely busy, as I am. However in that, I hope he will be able to carve out serious time for his emotionally thirsty wife.  Seriously, I am hugely “high maintenance” emotionally speaking, and also in terms of hugs and caresses.  I am a huge time sink. That is a promise. You’re going to wonder where all your time went, and you’re eventually just going to learn to allocate 50% of your waking day to “Tosin”.  See, this is why it is clearly wisest for me to marry someone with the same needs as mine otherwise we are just going to set one another up for extreme frustration and one long unending argument! 😉

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