Two Oars in The Water: A Life Lesson In The Power Of Partnership
I live in a house in Bellingham, Washington surrounded by trees, next to a beautiful lake, and a 2-hour drive to the nearest major airport. I used to live in big cities – Chicago, then Los Angeles and Seattle – and now I live in what I think of as a hamlet. A small town, with not too many good restaurants but a great bookstore.
The Power of Two Oars: A Lesson in Partnership
I remember going to my son’s graduation at the Naval Academy, where he was a rower. An alum was giving a speech at an end-of-year party at the boathouse, and he said to the graduating crew team: “If you get married, try to stay married, because life is easier with two oars in the water.”
Simplistic maybe, but at the time, as a woman who had been a single mother for many years, sitting alone at a graduation event filled with couples, it felt so true. I was rowing with only one oar in the water. Everything was always and only up to me. If I failed, if I got tired, if I stopped rowing or dropped an oar, then what? It was up to me to keep my family afloat.
Love "Against All Odds"
And now I have that person. I have a partner. Of all the things I want to say about finding love in my 50s, (what I came to think of as finding love “against all odds’ because that's how it started to feel after two decades of dating), what I want to say most is that my life has changed completely, in every way that matters.
Redefining Self Through Partnership
Of course, underneath all the details of my life, I’m still ME, but even that has changed because I am ME in love, and ME in a relationship and ME totally and thoroughly and unconditionally loved for who I am by a man who is my husband. So that definition I have of myself, my own understanding of who I am, how I think and behave, how I react and engage, how I live my life – all those things have been reshaped, reconfigured, by true love. It feels miraculous that I can still be ME and yet such a different version of what I know, at the same time.
That’s really the magic of it. Love doesn't just change your life’s circumstances – where and how and with whom you live – it changes you on the inside. And if you’re wondering whether love or a relationship or marriage is “hard work” I say no, it is not work at all. And it is not difficult. It is revealing, for sure. It is complex. It means being able to deal with many new emotions and different circumstances, but it doesn’t feel like hard work. But then again, I have never found talking things over or feeling my way through complexities or even fighting and crying to be “hard” – to me these are just parts of being human and they complement our other parts – laughing and relaxing and reminiscing and telling stories and making plans. So many sides of the human experience and in the end, I think all of it is good.
