Anniversary | The Organic Sister

Thirty, Twelve and Eleven

August 24, 2011 By TheOrganicSister 9 Comments

August is a busy, busy month in our little family with two birthdays and an anniversary.

Justin was up first turning 30 a few weeks ago!

We’re big on celebrating milestones and on celebrating life, so 30 seemed like a pretty significant number to do something big with.

What did he choose? Skydiving!

Zeb and I watched from the ground, jumping up and down as we saw the plane, saw him jump out of the plane and at one point even heard his Woohoo reach us on the ground. And the look on his face and his serene demeanor after was priceless.

Zeb’s birthday was up next, and like a classic 12 year old, he requested no photos. [Insert sad mama face here.]

I do however have a photo of the two of them juggling together! ♥

I guess you’ll just have to take my word that we watched hours of his favorite movies, went bowling with my sister and her family, then out for pizza.

Then came our anniversary – today actually.

My sweet hubby and I have been together for 11 years, married for nine.

We spent the day together, shopping the farmer’s market, then out to lunch, a movie, a walk on the Michigan beach with ice cream and lots and lots of reminiscing about how we met (he saw me at a warehouse and was almost too shy to introduce himself – someone else did it for him), what made us fall in love (oh so many little things) and what made it last (that’s a whole post right there).

I’m so incredibly in love with these two guys of mine and am so happy they were born into my life. ♥

Filed Under: Celebrations Tagged With: anniversary, birthday, Justin, michigan, Zeb

Making Love Last

August 27, 2010 By TheOrganicSister

A reminder to focus on my love.

You know sometimes I’m amazed Justin and I not only made it this far, and are still so in love with each other. We had both come from divorced parents and I especially didn’t have very many healthy relationship models. Neither one of us really knew what love was or what marriage took to succeed. But we did know we didn’t want to put our child(ren) through the pain we experienced as children.

A few of our single friends have asked us in the past how we did it: how we found “the right one”, how we made things work and how in the world we stayed so passionate for each other. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few weeks, trying to understand our own romantic journey and discovery, or self-discovery really, trying to find our own “keys to marital success”.

The journey is different for everyone, I’m sure, but here are the things that made the difference for us:

Letting go of our type: I was The Bagel Girl and Justin was a construction runner at the time; we both had daily stops at a tool warehouse in town. He spotted me and worked on intuition. My first impression of Justin was “not my type” (based on my type until that point, I can now see that was a good sign), and although he didn’t say so, I wasn’t exactly his either. Justin was accustomed to thoughtless, high school girls; I was accustomed to assholes. So when I started talking philosophy and theology on our first date, he knew I wasn’t the standard cookie-cutter girl. Likewise when I watched him turn his truck’s system down (yeah, he was one of those guys with extremely large and loud speaker systems in his truck) upon entering a residential area, I was literally shocked. Neither of us would have been able to get to that point of noticing these new and interesting qualities had we not stepped outside what we thought we knew about “the perfect date”.
Letting go of the fairy tale: A very well-meaning woman had once told me, as I was sobbing over a broken heart, that “if it was meant to be it wouldn’t be so hard”. I loved her to death but something about those words didn’t sit right with me. For all of our lives, we’re read fairy tales and “happily ever after” stories. But love doesn’t always come in and sweep us off our feet, carrying us away to Perfect Marriage Land – especially when you’re entering into the relationship with so much baggage. Justin and I went into our relationship knowing that we were in love and that we would have a lot of work to do to figure out how exactly we should put that into action. The first two years of our relationship and several periods throughout were fucking hard. There were moments no one thought we would (or should) make it through. But because we accepted in advance that it wouldn’t always come easily, we didn’t let the worst of times tear us apart. We kept pushing through it, focusing on what we wanted with each other and building our partnership skills along the way. I can’t imagine where we’d be if we had given up.
Remembering it’s not 50/50. This one came from my Grandma (who has been happily married since 1954) and is probably the greatest key to our success. I had asked her several months before our wedding what her best advice would be and she was quite adamant that a good relationship is never 50/50. It’s closer to 80/20…you just have to be willing to give more than you take. This one challenged me at the time, but she insisted that marriage needs to move from a place of generosity. She explained what I now know to be true in regards to marriage or parenting: unconditional love and endless generosity do not create selfish people who walk over you; it creates an environment of kindness and compassion. It fills people up until they have no choice but to pour it back into those around them.
Never letting myself go. This one also came from my grandma as well and seriously rubbed up against my feminist mind. After all, shouldn’t Justin love me regardless of whether I wear makeup or gain weight? The answer is yes. But letting yourself go has more to do with Who You Are than what you look like. Justin fell in love with me because I was determined, strong-willed and cared deeply about myself; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If I “let myself go” – stopped learning and fighting for what I believe in, sat on the couch eating junk food in my pajamas watching trash TV, stopped being the best person I could be…if I let go of my role in our partnership and did a 180 on my personality, he was obviously going to feel differently. He fell in love with me for Who I Am, for my best qualities and for my desire to impress him with those qualities as I did when we first dated. And he’ll miss that person if she leaves just because “we’re married now.”
Filling each other’s voids. I used to feel resentful anytime I felt I was “mothering” Justin. Likewise I felt uncomfortable admitting that I needed him to care for me the same way. But recently we’ve come to see the amazing healing power and stronger connection that can be had when we symbolically “parent” each other. I believe we marry the person who can love us the way we’ve never been loved and our gift of understanding, kindness and generosity has the power to fill voids we’ve been aching to fill. Together we can right the wrongs of one another’s pasts, giving each other what we may not have had enough of and sheltering one another just as a loving parent unconditionally and automatically shelters their child.

There are a myriad of other things I feel contributed to our success: being open and honest but knowing when honesty would be more hurtful than helpful, understanding our first role is as Zeb’s parents but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to neglect our needs as lovers, being silly together and that sometimes we need reminders of it all.

I’m glad to have written these things out; I love when messages like these come through me, as well as to me. The past few weeks have given us new challenges as we navigate this life and our unjobbing experiences and it’s good to be reminded of these principles of mindfully choosing unconditional love, generosity and compassion.

What about you? What have you learned about love?

Filed Under: Organic Wisdom, People I Love Tagged With: anniversary, choosing happiness, generosity, Justin, love, marriage, principles, spirituality, Tara

Let’s Grow Old Together

August 24, 2010 By TheOrganicSister 29 Comments

Let’s Grow Old Together from Tara Wagner on Vimeo.

Ten years together, 8 years married. Still madly in love with butterflies and goosebumps.

Happy anniversary, my love. Here’s to this moment and many more.

Current location: Noah’s Ark, Wisconsin Dells

Filed Under: Celebrations, People I Love Tagged With: anniversary, Justin, love, marriage, Tara, video

Unschooling’s 2nd Anniversary

December 1, 2008 By TheOrganicSister

Today marks our 2nd anniversary of unschooling. I was reading through last year’s postand was reminded again of how much we’ve grown. We’re not so much about “doing unschooling right” anymore as we are about just living and allowing life to unfold. Last year still contained so much focus on the “un”, as in what we weren’t doing (workbooks, tests, etc). There was still a lot of justifying that had to be done to skeptical family members. There was a lot more to learn and to change within myself and as a parent. It was a wild and exciting first year.

Our second year was much more comfortable. We still had some skepticism thrown our way; some of it pretty hurtful. But it’s become just something that happens and doesn’t deter us. Another person’s doubts doesn’t send me scurrying for advice or wondering if I should purchase a math workbook. The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is mighty rich in flavor these days. Things interest him; things that baffle onlookers. He’s well-spoken with a large vocabulary (words like conundrum are common place). He’s confident and kind. Any small amount of time spent with him will tell you unschooling works for us. Works very well, indeed.

But what has baffled me is what I was told might happen and what I truly wasn’t expecting. At least not yet. Sure we saw his mental growth. It would feel almost sneaky sometimes watching him learn to type while playing a computer game or learn math while playing cards. But what I wasn’t prepared for was a more formal interest in learning. This is not the happenstance, inevitable kind of learning; not like the little things he’d pick up here or there to connect the dots in his head. This is an active searching for knowledge, an interest in the formal. Want some examples from a proud mama? Of course you do!

1. First, there is all the spelling going on. A dozen times a day a new word will be triumphantly spelled for us. If a mistake is made, he’s eager for the correction (an amazing feat for a perfectionist to take such mistakes in stride). When a new word is spelled for him or a misspelled word is corrected, he takes a quiet moment and you can almost see the letters formulating themselves behind his eyes as he commits the information to memory. We discuss the sometimes confusing phonetics of the American language. We test each other. This is great fun for a Word Junkie Woman like me.

2. Then there is all the questions that fly around. Questions about history, society, how things work. A recent conversation about the holidays started off when he asked why some stores are open for the holidays and why some people will work on those days, which didn’t seem fair to him. We talked about people who have no family to celebrate Thanksgiving with, people who may need the overtime offered with holiday pay, people who come from a different culture and don’t share our traditions. We talked about other religions that may not celebrate the same holidays, which led to a description and history of Hannukah, which led to the history of Christmas and its Pagan origins. He soaked it up and spent the rest of the car ride mulling it over.

3. And how can I forget his interest in political and social issues? He’ll listen to NPR while we drive (seems like much of his learning happens on the road!), asking questions and sharing his view. He listens to both sides of any subject and answers my questions on what he believes. Once he became so frustrated with a news story that he cried, “They’re gonna ruin the world!” He even pops off political jokes, sometimes having to explain the humor that went over my head.

Of course, all the hidden “Where did that come from?” learning is still happening, like his being able to name the assassinated presidents or describe a medical procedure. And the blossoming of critical thought and in-depth problem-solving is also fun to watch. But through all the sharing of knowledge, it’s been so natural and easy. It happens, all day and every day. No hours put on his learning, no test to prove his skill. We know his skill; we see it all the time. More importantly, he’s begin to know and see it himself.

Things aren’t always perfect. Some days are downright shitty. There are still some things that were picked up during his school years (by him and us) that rear their ugly head a little too often. And as much as I’d like to say “We’re there”, I don’t truly believe anyone is ever really “there” – in that perfect space with no conflict and no mistakes. We’re always learning and growing. But now we just do it so differently. And that’s the difference in our lives.