But please hear this: I never prioritize marriage over the healthy souls of the two individuals inside it; abuse, neglect, betrayal, violence—there are good and right reasons to leave sometimes. Not for one second do I think God would sacrifice your health, safety, or dignity on the altar of marriage. He did not create this beautiful mystery to protect an abuse of power. Sometimes one or both partners is so broken, the only healthy option is to dissolve and find individual healing. Marriage is not designed to make you forfeit your soul.
But when two people with bad habits, irritating routines, and personal baggage decide to look each another in the eye, own their own junk, defer and prefer the other, and work like it is their paying job, they can still gross their kids out by French kissing after twenty-three years and manage not just to love but to like each other too. It is absolutely a miracle, worth every millisecond of work, and one of life’s most surprising and greatest gifts.
HOW TO (PART TWO)
HOW TO PREPARE THE PERFECT MEAL EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE WILL LOVE
1. Go through all the recipes you’ve pinned on Pinterest but have never made. There are approximately 3,847 of them. Take your time.
2. Make a list of meals that are “winners.” You never knew your Crock-Pot could be such a champion.
3. Prepare the grocery list of all the ingredients you don’t have at home. This comprises around 92 percent of the required ingredients. You have never, in fact, bought bean sprouts, pomegranates, shrimp paste, or pickled beets. You aren’t even sure what a kumquat is, but the picture on Pinterest looked pretty.
4. Go to the store.
5. Realize you forgot the list. WHY? Why is the list so hard to transport?
6. Buy another box of Lucky Charms, because that is what is for dinner. All week.
Programming Note: This gaffe might actually save you from the inevitable headache called Making New Food for My Family to Hate. Because you know what makes children happy? Lucky Charms for dinner.
HOW TO GET IN SHAPE
1. Buy an exorbitantly expensive outfit. Spend more on this than on the last six items of clothes combined, because a sports bra capable of containing your Golden Globes costs around $729 apparently.
2. Sign up for a ClassPass and head straight to that barre session your friends won’t stop talking about. They can’t all be wrong.
3. Lie there in confusion for forty-five minutes trying to find “the tuck” (which feels strangely similar to the way you hunch over your computer). What even is this? Someone made this class up. Who ever heard of barre? Is everyone too fancy for blue-collar sit-ups these days?
4. Feel like a baby giraffe when the instructor tells you to “tuck and plank” at the same time. (This instructor is a bad person. There is no way she is saved.)
5. Try not to look at yourself in the mirror because it is not your friend at this juncture. It is not kind. It is not giving you good news today.
6. Debate sneaking out no fewer than forty-seven times.
7. March your well-contained Hindenburgs next door for the new 450-calorie nonfat Starbucks concoction. Your friends are whack.
HOW TO ENSURE PEOPLE FEEL COMPELLED TO POP IN FOR A VISIT
1. Don’t do the dishes for a day and a half.
2. Toss your children’s toys in every walking path of the house.
3. Put a piece of toast with peanut butter under the couch throw pillow so as not to be noticed until a guest is comfortably sitting down.
4. Place someone’s underwear in an obscure but visible area.
5. Succumb to your child’s demands for hard-boiled eggs, so your house smells like a diaper pail.
6. Dump four loads of laundry on your couch; this is obviously intended to be a folding zone for the clothes, but they will likely just become couch companions for the day, like another member of the family.
7. Have one or more children running around either covered in Sharpie, in tattered panties, or stark naked.
8. And, by all means, do not shower that day.
9. Happy hosting!
Programming Note: The above steps should ensure imminent drop-by company, but if these measures fail to summon the new friend you are trying to impress or your mother-in-law, start screaming like a lunatic at everyone or enjoy a complete Mom Meltdown, and your surprise guests will certainly be standing on your doorstep listening in on your crazy.
HOW TO GET UNINVITED BACK TO A HOME DECOR STORE
1. Run in with your toddler for a “quick errand.” Be sure to estimate this task as taking five minutes or less, which will ensure you don’t bring in the diaper bag or any other tools of the trade.
2. Get distracted looking for a price tag on an item that caught your eye. (These stores trick you into betraying your five-minute timetable, and you would do well to commit that to memory. There is never a five-minute trip through Bed Bath & Beyond. Never. This is a unicorn. This doesn’t exist. This has happened never. I’m trying to help you.)
3. Hear gasp from a bystander, and look up to see your son’s bare behind and a hearty stream of urine trailing from the cart into a $48 decorative basket. You don’t understand why he had to drop his underpants to his ankles, but in addition to soiling the home goods, he has now displayed his bits and bobbles for all to witness.
4. Panic as you realize step 1.
5. Watch the tee-tee run down the shelving unit and soak the towels below before pooling in a delightful puddle at the end of Aisle 7.
6. Calculate your expenditures to around ninety-five dollars of urine-soaked home items that now belong to you.
7. Congratulations. You can show back up to this store in five years.
HOW TO FIND A FAMILY PET
1. In an attempt to ward off the campaign, have your children read Where the Red Fern Grows, Old Yeller, and Sounder. As a diversionary tactic, you want them to prematurely mourn the dog you do not want to purchase.
2. Understand that all promises to feed, walk, care for, and pooper scoop for said dog are false. These children are liars. They will fulfill their promises for approximately two months, at which point all bets are off. The dog is yours. It is your next child. Make your peace.
3. Visit the local shelter’s Open House. Overestimate your willpower.
4. Look into the dark, loving eyes of the calmest dog there and fall hard. Throw in the towel. You’re done. The campaigners have won.
5. Spend hours constructing an outdoor kennel for your new adoptee. After all, you are a woman with boundaries, and the dog will be living outside. This is obvious. You’ve made yourself clear here. A dog? Fine. But not an indoor dog. This is just how it is. Dogs are meant to live outside. This is a part of their breeding. They are outdoor animals like wolves and turtles. This is God’s will.
6. Bring your pup home on a below-freezing day. Without emotion, allow him to “spend just his first night inside,” because you have boundaries but you are humane, for the love. Just this once while he gets used to you.
7. On night two, realize this dog is never spending a night outside in his life. He owns everyone, you included. The dog is the victor. Go ahead and buy expensive pet food online full of probiotics for his digestive health. Change your Facebook profile pic. Rearrange your day so he won’t be alone. Get a loyalty card at PetSmart. Make him a pallet at the end of your bed. You’re a goner.
HOW TO HAVE THE SEX TALK WITH YOUR ELEMENTARY-AGE KID
1. When asked where babies come from, first say God.