The Secret to our Success

Many of you may look at our life and wonder to yourselves, how do they do it?! How do they stay so happily married in the face of such hardship?! (Hehe.) Years of medical school. Years of snow. A wild child. (Just kidding. He's delightful. :)) Memories of (gulp)...no, i can't say! (But our whole "falling in love" and "honeymoon" phases could have failed right away given the anti-ambience of our stifling locale! Ugh.) Years to come of residency, and years to come of eating the same three meals over and over. Hehe (I'm not very creative with cooking). And to make matters worse, it's now the 7th year of marriage, which is the most common year of failure! How do they do it? Well, wonder no longer! I'm going to tell you the secret to our success! It's (are you ready?) . . . sharing one car! [oohs and ahs from the audience, then thunderous applause!] Yes, yes! It's true! Nothing can bond two people quite like sharing a car. Hehe.

We've spent the last seven years or so anticipating that we may soon need a second car. We keep deciding to wait and see how it goes, and then we keep "ending up" in the perfect situation to still have just one. It actually feels kind of Providential. No, not kind of. Very. (It's amazing how when you make something good your priority—in our case, maximizing our time together—you're blessed with ways to achieve it.)

When we got married, I managed to get a job on campus (I know all of BYU's admissions secrets! :)) while Matt finished school—we rode there together, rode home together. Excellent. When Matt graduated and we moved, we were both looking for jobs all over San Diego county and thought, ok, now we're for sure going to need another car! Bummer! But then, guess what? Matt got a job at UCSD and I got a job down the street. No joke! So we commuted together, ate lunch together, and life was great. Then Matt started medical school and we said to ourselves, selves, we are gonners this time. Time to get another car. And then I got a job two blocks away from the medical school.... You may be wondering if this is all a lie. Too impossible. No, not a lie! Well, was I looking for jobs just nearby, then? No! I was looking all over Denver! And I end up a couple blocks away.... I'd drop Matt off at school, then head over to my awesome, amazing special ed kids, and we'd both finish about the same time and go home together. Once or twice a week, Matt was even able to come help in our classroom! It was great to spend so much time together. But what would we do when Matt started his third year and would be working in hospitals and clinics all over the place? Get another car...? Wrong again! Because I just happened to have Seth just as Matt finished his second year of med school (and, believe me, we had no measure of control as to that timing)—he had a couple months when all three of us were home all day together (heaven!), then he started his 3rd-year work. I left my job to be home with Seth, so we just drove Matt to work and picked him up. (And on impossibly miserable days when there was no way we'd go out in the heat or cold, Matt just took the car.) By the time we were moving to San Diego again this year, we were hooked on sharing. :) And found a home only a few miles from his hospitals, so sharing is super-easy.

And here's why it's the glue that holds us together. (Hehe.) It's so nice to feel like we're sort of living the same life! All from just sharing a car...? Well, kind of! This week we have another car around and, while it's been nice to not get up at 5:30 in the morning to take Matt to work, I'm sitting here feeling like I haven't seen him since we went to bed last night. I kind of sort of woke up very, very briefly while he said good-bye this morning.... And then he left. Off to his life, while I stay here with mine. And then he'll come home who knows when. And we won't be getting in touch with each other about how the day is going and when he thinks he'll be done with his patients. As convenient as it is, we're looking forward to giving back the second car!

I know it's bound to happen sometime that I just can't get up with Matt anymore—kids will be going to school, or whatever, and we'll be glad for another car. But, for now, we love that we've always gotten up together, spent a little more time with each other, gotten in touch with each other during the day, seen each other a little earlier when work is done.... It sure beats a foggy, early-morning kiss good-bye! And helps me feel, too, like I'm a little more a part of his "work life"—like we're doing that together, too. Anyway, it's nice. Who knew having such an inconvenience could be so rewarding? :)