Preparing to Die
You + Me = Us.
That was the equation. It made sense. You and I would join to create this third beautiful creature called “Us.” But after our third premarital counseling session and less than a month from “forever I do,” I realize I got the equation wrong. It’s actually -you + -me = US. I mean two negatives do make a positive right? I’ve learned that preparing for marriage is the “killing of self,” Ok “killing” sounds bad. But if you were appalled by that statement or shocked by the title of this entry, imagine my confusion when our counselor gleefully opened up with “so who’s ready to commit suicide?” Wait what? Who’s killing who and why?
And just like that we tense up in relationships and defend self- preservation, even at the cost of true love. But that's another day’s entry. Back to today’s thought.
In “Killing self” he meant letting go of all my self serving ways: the Me that says, “I can do bad all by myself”; the Me that says, “I got this far without you.” The me that needs to take care of me first because “if I don’t, who will?” Now that I’ve gotten your attention let’s exchange those hostile verbs for something more peaceful and zen let's call this “letting go of self,” which we’ve all heard before and I’m sure has still got your arms crossed and eyes rolled. But if you’ve read this far please continue.
What he showed us was marriage is the killing of oneself for the benefit of the Union, the Us. How can you and I survive individually while prioritizing the Us? Wouldn't we be forever at odds between choosing what’s best for “me” over what’s best for “us,” hoping things would just work out so we’d never have to choose? In a recent episode of This is Us we see how the You + Me = Us equation failed Beth and Randall. Beth, after years of joining Randall’s “Me,” was finally fed up and so desperately needed to find her “Me.” We saw how Beth lost her “Me” long before Randall came along and her desire to find herself came after being pushed one to many times into someone else’s (Randall/ her mom) Me. Simply put Beth and Randall’s equation from Beth’s point of view looked like this: “You + You = Us - X. You know that X.. the X being a variable because Beth didn’t know who she truly was/wanted. Now, I’m no math whiz but variables make my head hurt so let’s leave it there. We’ll also stick a pin on the This is Us episode because that needs a whole 3 page analysis.
I believe, one of many problem in today’s marriages, is we don’t do the required premarital work. When Beyoncé and Drake’s “Mine” came out I felt it in my soul but only 2.5 years into our relationship and being the tender age of 23, I was definitely not ready to be someone’s wife. Although I had a firm grasp on who I was and where I wanted to go, that grasp was oh so new and because I fought so hard for her I wasn’t ready to give her up and guess what… the relationship was asking me to.
I defended her so hard it almost cost me my forever love. It wasn’t until the conception of our daughter that I really began to do the premarital work, not only because I wanted a chance at US but because I wanted a chance for her to know what “US” truly looked like, so she wouldn’t grow up with a distorted view on relationships/marriage. I so desperately wanted to break the cycle of pain and brokenness many women and men in my family experienced. So I started with Me and focused on the pain, those self inflicted and ones I picked up like a baton from the generations before me.
Pain can be an indication of a bigger problem beneath the surface or a result of putting pressure where it shouldn’t be. Mine was the latter. So I began to let go, let up. Dig up and “kill” what didn’t belong, that which suffocated my growth and potential. Kill the part of myself that didn’t belong and what was left, I’d offer to him, to us, to the Union.
