Life is an amazing thing. Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down. Sometimes it feels like a crap shoot, or a game against the one-armed bandit. Pirate, Pirate, ohh, Cherry. No wait, cherry’s wild! But it didn’t turn out that way. Cherry’s not wild. They should just say yep or nope. It was nope. I guess we know it works.

Part of me is relieved, part of me is hopefully disappointed. I’m playing both sides of the street, and it’s interesting to see a glimpse of life you didn’t plan. Sometimes it comes out better that way. I guess we’ll just wait and see.

Happy Christmas. Has it already come and gone? This year I experienced a new kind of Christmas. I don’t know if it was any better or worse, just different. I miss parts of the old, the Christmas cookies, the Jell-O, the Christmas Eve church service and Christmas movie marathon. But I don’t necessarily miss the lack of family, the quiet, the auto-speak. I treasured parts of the new, the family, the activity, the social interaction. But I didn’t warm up to everything, like the lack of relaxation, the stress, the family conflict, the fold up bed in the cold basement with pokey springs. Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down.

I was intrigued by my in-laws. Family conflict and irritation aside, there were a couple better moments: Discussing jobs and future moves and such with my father-in-law, getting another tour of his in-process house, a place I’d love to own but never could afford. An evening of Scrabble with my brother and sister-in-law. I felt a bit high and mighty when we kicked their butts, but they were good sports and didn’t complain about my slightly prideful display of living-room-level-Scrabble skills. And an afternoon of cracking the whip and forcing my brother-in-law to clean his room. I basically sat on his couch or played on his computer and kept telling him to clean. It was my escape from all the other pre-party duties where I feel inept and in the way. Amazingly he didn’t mind, and he actually got his room clean. I’m not sure how much credit I can really claim, but I appreciated the escape.

On another note, I’m still not comfortable with the term “in-laws.” It makes conversation easier, but it’s no term of endearment.

On another note, today would have been my parents’ 29th (I think) wedding anniversary. Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down.

Missed opportunities. At the moment it felt like you had forever, but those precious minutes slipped by and it was a lost cause. Things you could have said, things you could have done. Things you should have said, things you should have done. Things you can’t say anymore and things you can’t do anymore. Regret is an avoidable feeling, although we only realize it in hindsight. Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve — but didn’t. That’s what they all say.

Moving on, but where is the peace? Buried deep in a raging river, a torrent of memories and pain and missed opportunities, broken promises, harsh words, and inconsiderate actions. Both banks have been ravaged by this river, the sand pounded and swept away, eroded shore and crumpling land. Nothing escapes such a sweeping flow. Some places are paved over for protection, buried deep under layers of concrete and sand. The result is ugly. An impenetrable fortress that keeps the current out, but only rushes it past, pushes it farther down stream, faster, harder, to do more damage elsewhere. Entombed in the concrete lies buried hopes and dreams, wishes for a better life that never had a chance. All things that longed to be protected, and no one was brave enough to let them stand against the torrent. They may have even survived, and grow tall, like the mighty oak thriving on the water’s edge. One day the water may have receded, the banks restored, the flood ended. Calm would have returned. But now it seems a distant possibility. The hand of man has left its mark, and it isn’t easily erased from the bitter shards of empty life.

Buried emotions will eventually surface, hidden strife will only cause decay, grace can make beauty out of ugly things–if only you give it a chance.

Age old secrets and repeated mistakes. The rise and fall of a small town. If you can call it a fall. More like a slow fading into the prairie. It started out of convenience. The end of the line. And it continued out of convenience, an oil boom in the 1930s. And it died out of convenience, bigger towns, closer to freeways with more to offer. A single country highway twisting in an out of town, speed limit falling and rising with the dust. A building here and a building there, used to be more, used to be less.

Couples made out down by the river, and the whole town knew. Fields for miles, and the children grow bored. Fire crackers and boredom make a dangerous combination. Hunting rifles meet sign posts, and kids grow tough. In later years the Nintendo would be vital.

The train rolls through town once a day. It used to be the end of the line, then it was just a stop on the way, and then it was just scenery. Now the rails grow cold and the weeds grow high. Life moves on, and old towns die.

Sometimes I wonder if the family is becoming extinct. One day it will show up as part of a display in the natural history museum, with mannequins playing the part of mommy and daddy, and the little children. Invariably a dog and cat will be in the background of the display.

The other day I realized that among the marriages of my parents and their siblings, only 20% of them are still together. That’s an 80% divorce rate. A little higher than the national average, and I can’t help but wonder if the national average is climbing.

I can never help but wonder what causes such familial unrest. It seems the American concept of individualism has quickly degraded to selfishness. We no longer understand sacrificial love or the common good of the community. We only understand me; my wants, my needs, my desires, my passions, my dreams, my hopes.

Such thinking is fueled by our very society, where advertising becomes culture in a vicious downward spiral. Yesterday I saw novelty T-shirts at the department store featuring the ad slogans on TV. Kitsch is cool and you’re now a walking billboard. Such thinking is fueled by malls where stores don’t simply sell products, they sell philosophies as well. Such thinking leads to the discarding of relatives who don’t support the cause, no matter how close the relation: brother, sister, mother, father, husband, wife.

But simple selfishness can’t be undermining half of all marriages in this country. There has to be something more. Perhaps it’s laziness. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my seven and a half months of marriage it’s that marriage is hard work. And I don’t mean roll-up-your-sleeves hard work, although it involves plenty of that. Marriage involves the kind of pride-swallowing sacrifice that is just plain hard to do. You have resist every bodily urge to lash out, to scream, to bicker, to argue, to nit-pick. You have to resist the urge to throw up your hands and retreat another room of the house. You have to grapple with the negativity that quickly encroaches and can squelch a marriage in a heartbeat.

Perhaps our modern laziness encourages us to take a dive rather than work it out. After all, taking a dive means a new start, which means another trip to the mall for a new philosophical outlook. My Gap approach to life didn’t work, perhaps I’ll try an Old Navy.

But whatever the reason for our inability to hold a marriage together, we’re leaving a wreckage of children in our wake. Children who will grow up with the kind of emotional baggage that would weigh an elephant down. Children who will have seen the example of laziness or selfishness or whatever-ness and will follow like trained monkeys, yet rebelling in their own individual way. A generation of children will grow up with live-in boyfriends for dads, live-in girlfriends for moms, and we’ll wonder why they end up on Jerry Springer. We’ll wonder why sex is so cheap and commonplace, we’ll wonder why babies are abandoned in dumpsters, we’ll wonder why children don’t obey their parents.

One day a neat and tidy explanation will adorn the museum display. Social scientists will have pinpointed the problem and an intern will write the placard copy. Nondescript visitors will read the sign, chuckling to themselves at that once quaint notion of a family. Their significant-other-for-the-week will squeeze their hand, and they’ll move on, calling for the rent-a-child they took out for the day.

Whenever I want to get angry I go to my favorite rant-enducing website, Boundless.org (the Focus on the Family website for college students). And I can say that, because they blacklisted me. Apparently our worldviews are fundamentally opposed. That’s what they told me when I disagreed with them on population control. I thought it was a minor issue where civilized people agree to disagree. Apparently you just blacklist each other.

Anyway, today I felt like getting riled up, so I wandered over to Boundless to see what was brewing. As usual, they had something annoying. This week it was a reader’s response to an article. These are my favorite, because it’s proof that I’m not the only person who thinks they’re nuts.

Earlier this year Boundless did an article on motherhood and how it’s important for college women to think about staying home with their children rather then putting them in daycare. It’s a worthy topic. Someone wrote in complaining about several things in the article and the author wrote back with a snooty little defense of the original article. Here’s a sample that hints at what riled me up:

“First, you say that I never mention ‘the option of the husband staying at home with the children. There are many Christian males that have decided to stay at home with their children while their wives earn the family’s income.’ Actually, very few husbands do this. This may not seem fair, but it is reality. Better, I think, to plan for what is statistically probable, than for the possibility that you will be one of the few who find a husband willing to stay home with the kids.”

What bothers me about this whole discussion of parenting is that it’s a discussion of motherhood, not parenting. Fathers are basically left completely out of the discussion. Apparently we’re not very likely to stay home with the children, so that’s not worth discussing. Apparently fathers don’t count. Apparently fathers have no responsibility in this discussion. Apparently the father’s only role is to bring home the bacon. Coaching T-ball is optional.

Since when was parenting strictly a mother’s domain? Do fathers simply bring home the bacon, pay the bills, and mow the lawn? Is that my role in life? Am I only supposed to play with my kids on the weekend? Shouldn’t I be considering my career options with child care in mind? Why is it that only the mother is expected to choose between a career and her children? Apparently Daddy knows best just keeps his nose in the office and smiles and nods approvingly, maybe giving stern looks if necessary, and if things are really bad whips off the belt for a little corporal punishment. Welcome to the Focus on the Family world. No thanks.

One of these days (and it will be sooner than I like) my wife and I will want to have kids. We’re going to have to make that decision about what to do with our children. And quite honestly, I want to be involved in this decision. And not just in the “Yes dear,” approach that willingly submits to one of two options–daycare or stay-at-home mom. There’s more options than that. There’s more than two ways to raise a child. I could–gasp–stay at home. Abby and I could alternate days or even years. We could both work part time jobs. We could even make my mother’s day and move in next door to her (don’t hold your breath, mom).

All I’m saying is that raising children is not simply a mother’s domain. It takes two to have a child, and it takes two to raise a child. It really bothers me that Focus on the Family, of all organizations, decides to leave the father completely out of the picture.

Some days I’m really glad they told me they wouldn’t publish my writing.

Memorial Day (in case you haven’t noticed, I’m about three days behind in my topics. Oh well, it’s close-to-current events.): You know, I never really thought much about this holiday. My family never really did anything, and it was usually just another holiday like Labor Day. Just a Monday off. Shut up and don’t complain.

But I was talking with my dad this past weekend and I learned some things about my grandpa I never knew before. I knew he was in the Marines during World War II and had fought at Iwo Jima. Somewhere I think I have a Marines pin he gave me when I was little after he noticed the faded Marines symbol on my army surplus hat. My dad stowed it away somewhere for safe keeping. I also knew he was in California when they dropped the atomic bomb, waiting to be shipped out as part of an invasion force.

What I didn’t know was that he joined the Marines shortly after Pearl Harbor, much like every other young American. I also didn’t know that he met my grandmother (who died before I was born) through a friend in the service. The friend introduced my grandma and grandpa and they began writing back and forth. Apparently one thing lead to another and they got married.

My dad made the comment that if it wasn’t for Pearl Harbor we wouldn’t be here. A tragedy and desperate measures brought two people together that would one day be my grandparents. Interesting that we later credit another tragedy, the dropping of the atomic bomb, for saving my grandpa and allowing for my existence. Tragedy both saves and destroys life, in more ways than you can know.

It all makes Memorial Day a little more interesting.

That’s what they tell me anyway and I agree silently. What am I supposed to say, what kind of answers am I supposed to give? How do you guide when you don’t know where you are? I’m so full of questions of how it’s supposed to be and we got so far off track. And now I’m a thousand miles away with a life of my own and I’m still supposed to care. Long distance charges on a relationship that already costs too much. Other families are dying and your problems seem so mundane. What do you want to hear from me? I can’t take sides, I won’t take sides, but it seems there’s no side left to be on. I’m stuck in the middle, stuck in no man’s land. That’s what happens when the one becomes two. It’s reverse, it’s backward, and you’ll never have two wholes again. You’ll just have a bunch of broken pieces. I guess we should have thought of that before.

Oh well, it’s the American way.

This past weekend my fiance and I took one of our many trips to her hometown of Green Bay. Friday night it rained and I woke up in a flooded basement. Nothing like waking up and find that you’re a refugee.

A year has come and gone, and I can hardly believe it. Last year I saw most of my family that I hadn’t seen in years. I probably won’t see them for another span of uncounted years. I hardly stay in touch with them, only hearing second hand stories from my mother. The last time I saw my cousin we were reminiscing about our days playing war, when we built forts in our grandpa’s pile of scrapped farm implements. He was just going into high school. The time before that we were actually playing war. I saw him last summer and he was a senior in high school. He looked so much older and capable. The wild kid I always saw in him was subdued. That wild kid always filled me with a sort of fear and dread. We had fun playing as kids, but you never knew if he was going to turn on you. I sensed that same quality now, but it was hidden, buried under a high school facade. But what do I know? These are just off hand thoughts from the passing conversations we had.

Now he’s joined the marines and is playing war for real.