There is a billboard ad I see often as I’m entering or departing out of Los Angeles Int’l Airport for a Las Vegas nightclub. The billboard features a woman’s nude backside from the neck to the hips with Chinese letters extending down her back and the following tagline along the top: ALWAYS A HAPPY ENDING.
That billboard came to mind tonight as I nestled in the bed next to Keith with my arms wrapped around him and his around me. Not because of what that billboard alludes to (as it’s most certainly meant to be provocative and a bit crude) but rather in how we’ve determined no matter what stress or strain we’ve experienced in that day, we will always have a happy ending.
On the way home from a birthday party for my sister, we’d disagreed about something Keith and I were both passionate about. He had one view and I had another. I expressed my feelings and he expressed his but by the end of the conversation, we still did not see eye to eye. But this is one of the things I love most about being married to my best friend.
Neither of us felt a need to be one hundred percent right. We’ve long understood marriage is a win-win or lose-lose proposition; either we will both win or we will both lose. Since we weren’t able to fully understand the other’s position, we simply asked each other to pause and pray about it. And then we moved on to an unrelated topic.
No animosity, no resentment, no frustration. We knew we’d need to return to the prior conversation at a later date, but for now, we’d continue to love on each other as if tonight could be our last. Because we recognize, it very well could.
So as I laid next to him with my head buried in his chest, I thought about all the reasons what he’d said made sense. And how I could have responded better. As he reached down multiple times to kiss my forehead, he acknowledged the same.
At some point over the next couple days, we’ll return to this conversation and I have no doubt we’ll both have a greater understanding of what the other was trying to express earlier this evening. But for tonight, nothing matters more than our daily happy ending and making sure we do not close our eyes without the other knowing our love is greater than any divide and our respect for one another exceeds any desire to be right.
He did that. I did that. And now we can go to sleep in peace looking forward to seeing each other’s smiling faces once we arise in the morning.
QUESTION: Do you find the longer you’re married the easier it is to disagree while continuing to convey your love and respect for one another?
Until tomorrow…make it a great day!
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