the first married christmas

Mostly unrelated to the below: I just remembered that I ordered an "Our First Christmas Together" ornament but never got it...


I base a lot of my decisions on how they will affect others, completely disregarding my own feelings. This is not a humble brag about my selflessness. It's me admitting that my pride leads me to believe that I am much stronger than I am and life's difficulties will simply roll off of me like water on a duck. That's a bad metaphor, but you get my point.

Which is how I found myself sobbing into my husband's chest at 11:55 pm on Christmas Eve.

Let's back up a bit.

Soon after we got married, Matt and I were discussing how to split the holidays. Knowing his mother, I texted her and asked her to choose between having us for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. She chose Christmas, and I remember thinking to myself (and possibly saying to Matt), "She has feelings about this, I don't/won't, it's just Christmas." So we did Thanksgiving at my parents' house, and Christmas in Perry where I, much to my surprise, cried more in a day than I've cried in the past two years.

Wait. Let's back up a bit more.

The Swanson family has Christmas traditions that are both fiercely guarded and deeply held. Some of them we don't even like that much, we just do them because dang it, it's Christmas so Cory MUST over-spice the chili.

The gentlemen of the family spend Christmas Eve around the kitchen table while the ladies cook and I contribute sassy comments into whatever conversation I can (it's tradition). On Christmas Eve-ning, we eat soup (three options - the over-spiced chili, some kind of chowder, and a wild card of my choosing) and go to Mass, where we listen to the same story of our salvation and sing Gloria like it's going out of style. We take silly pictures in front of the tree, eat cookies from a gift basket, and watch three movies before hanging our stockings and going to bed - The Toy that Saved Christmas, The Grinch (complete with snippets of old commercials from when my grandmother recorded it on TNT in the late 80s!), and A Christmas Story - all on VHS. During the movies, Trey sits on the stairs, I sit by my dad, and everyone I hold dearest in this world is close enough to kick (except Trey) and I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I think Christmas Eve might be my favorite day of the year.

On Christmas morning, we all pile into my brothers' bedroom at around 7:40 and wait patiently until 8, when we descend the stairs in reverse age order pausing occasionally for pictures before tearing into our stockings. After stockings, we feast on a breakfast of scrambled eggs, cinnamon rolls and bacon to fuel us for The Opening of Presents - an event that takes approximately three hours because we open them one-by-one and there are a million people in my family. The rest of Christmas Day is a blur to me...there's a nap, some more board games for the men/cooking for the women, then a large meal mid-afternoon.

It is all a well-oiled, very comforting, machine.

Christmas 1993, aka the beginning of my deep love for old men.

Fast-forward to last week.

I didn't realize now how much I cherished these silly traditions until this year. Christmas in Perry was fun. We ate a good dinner and went bowling on Christmas Eve, but the mere thought of my dad's face would put me in tears. I missed my brothers and sister. I missed my uncle and Granddad and mom. I missed listening to the bickering over Monopoly and I'm certain they missed my sass and apple pie. I wanted chili and board games and all of our traditions, and I was crying about it because it didn't feel like Christmas (side note: I know this is ridiculous and childish because the birth of Christ  and celebration thereof trumps whether or not you eat very specific foods or watch certain movies).

But this is just the thing about growing up. Life changes and Christmas will change right along with it. As my siblings get married and move away, they too will alternate between my parents and their in-laws. We'll all have children and start to do our own things at our own houses and my parents will hop around. This makes me want to throw things. I want our old Christmas! I want marching down the stairs in matching pajamas! I want to squeeze one of my brother's hands as hard as I can in Mass because that's just what we do!

Time will continue regardless of me throwing things. There is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. But what I do is bask in the honestly incredible memories of twenty-two Christmases with my weirdly structured/loud/soup-eating family, and look forward with excitement and gratitude to creating new traditions with my husband and our future children.

So, after getting out a good cry, Matt rented A Christmas Story for me on Amazon, and we stayed up together into the wee hours of Christmas morning watching it - him for the first time, me for the umpteenth. The next morning, we read from the Bible, opened all our presents at the same time, then our stockings, and headed out to Waffle House.

And it felt like Christmas because long ago a baby was born in stable and he changed the world. And that's what matters.

six months in

Today, our marriage turns six months old. A small accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but something worth celebrating with German pancakes, bourbon caramelized bananas, orange juice in the crystal champagne flutes from our wedding, and a list of marriage-related thoughts and lessons learned from my quickly fleeting newlywed perspective.

1. Nothing changes. 

Sure, we live together and do can married things now, but our day-to-day lives are fairly similar to what they were on June 19, 2014. I still hate waking up in the morning. Matt's running shoes are still weird smelling. The trash can still fills up alarmingly quickly and I still avoid taking it out. Bills still come and the weekends are still far too short. Life is still life after your wedding day. The little daily heartbreaks and triumphs that you experienced before your wedding? Guess what. They're still there. 

Maybe it's just me, but if I really am honest with myself, I can remember thinking up to about junior year of college that if only I could get myself married, I would have it all figured out. Everything would be happily ever after forever and ever amen. I viewed marriage as the end of the journey, where the credits roll to a sweet song then everybody goes home. I conveniently ignored every REAL example of marriage I'd seen - where there are things like car maintenance and never enough hours in the day - and focused instead on the fairy tales. Instead of viewing marriage as what it is (a beautiful and wonderful season of life), I saw it as the end of the story. I blame this on Disney, romantic comedies, and my own dang self.

So I can't stress this point enough. Life, and everything joyful and tiring and amazing it entails, continues almost exactly as it was before you were married. BUUUUUUT............

2. It changes you.

Marriage has given me the clearest view of how my actions affect others. If I am selfish or sarcastic or in a bad mood for absolutely no reason, it affects my husband. But if I am thoughtful or patient or kind, it affects him too. And because we are living in such proximity and intimacy, the aftershocks of my behavior are impossible not to see. When I see how my action and inaction, my words and silence, either can edify or tear down Matt, there is either positive or negative reinforcement. GOOD - do more of that. BAD - you need to apologize and try to stop.

I knew the intention of marriage was to make us more like Christ, but I think I assumed it would come about solely through some kind of spiritual version of diffusion over time (I have never claimed to be wise). And while I don't want to discount prayer or the work of the Holy Spirit, I know God is also using the logic and psychology he so intricately wove into our minds to make us more like him. Day in and day out.

3. It is good.

There's no way around it, marriage is just goodness. Yes, there are bad days. There are fights and misunderstandings and Monday mornings. But it's also a deep sense of belonging. Of seeing his face and feeling home. There's stability and a permanentness that's pure comfort when life keeps changing and swirling around you. There's a hand to hold in the car, an ear to whisper secrets in in the middle of the night, and a heart that loves you more than anything on this earth.

It's having a second opinion on life's biggest questions - how much should I be putting in my 401k each month? Is it ok if my car makes that sound? and Does this outfit make it look like I'm trying too hard? (side note: if you have to ask, the answer is always yes)

It's learning something new about him everyday - be it ear wiggling or his thoughts on current events - and getting a deeper understanding of how that brain of his works.

It's getting little glimpses of who God created him to be and being humbled and awestruck about how blessed you are to have married someone so selfless/wise/kind/AMAZING.

Matt Phillips, I love you more than Diet Coke, kittens, and Parks & Rec combined. Here's to many more days with you.

home alone

My husband left Thursday morning for a four day trip to Cancun for work.

He sent me this picture to announce his arrival.

Between the tail end of a stomach bug and Matt's absence, I spent most of Thursday morning wallowing around Nessie (our home) in indulgent self-pity. After only one episode of House Hunters Renovation, I'd had my fill of stillness and a headache from the boredom.

I had been so excited to recuperate and be still for four days. To have a Netflix marathon. To watch all my Meg Ryan movies back to back to back. To not move for several hours. Instead, I found myself cleaning the windows while staring at the landscapers blow leaves around the parking lot. By the time their bags and leaf blowers were loaded in the truck, I had a realization:

Nothingness is not in my genetic make up.

I am Sue Swanson's daughter. Sue Swanson's proverbial plate is always full. Sue Swanson is a doer. She is in motion until it's time to drink a glass of wine and watch half an episode of the Biggest Loser. Even then she fast forwards through the interviews. Sue Swanson does not have time to "watch fat people cry." She has a bedtime and needs her 6.5 hours of fitful sleep so she can get up and do some more tomorrow.

Peggy Nawrocki, Sue's mother, has to be told to stop cleaning the kitchen and come eat her supper before it gets cold. Peggy Nawrocki will wrap your Christmas presents, wash the stack of plates in the sink, and make your bed, all while your back is turned.

And Elizabeth Rowley is Peggy's mother. I don't have any memories of my great-grandmother, but I do know she had four children and lived on a farm. Given those facts, I can assume she too was a doer. Up before the sun, raising children, making breakfast, dealing with chickens.

All of this is to say, the women in my family are productive. It's in our nature to notice that the orange juice is almost out or that the floor needs a good sweeping. We find peace at the bottom of a pile of clean clothes, in a well stocked fridge, and in the full bellies of those we love.

If this is the reason I can't wile away the hours alone on the couch, then that's fine. I'm proud to have my mother's busy hands and my grandmother's eye for order. And while I can't sit and watch TV for long, I CAN stand and watch TV while covering a pound of pretzels in chocolate.

Fine by me. 

smitten

Maybe it was Tech's win against UGA last weekend.

Or perhaps the music and subsequent gathering we had just left.

Maybe it was the quiet street and cool night air and that all felt right with the world.

Or maybe it was because it was 4 hours past bedtime and I was exhausted.

But at a little past two on Sunday morning in Athens, Georgia, I fell in love with a tree.

In a somewhat stressful meeting today, my mind wandered to this tree. Unlike his deciduous brothers, this tree on Clayton Street was frozen, fully green, in an everlasting summer. His branches reached up and out with purpose and the quiet grace I pray for. His lights twinkled softly in the breeze, calling quietly to the passerby to slow down, if only for a minute, and look up.

I'm glad I did.

bookmarked

Tonight, sitting alone in the office, I discovered my old bookmarks. Somehow, I logged myself into my Google Chrome account, an action that pulled up the pages and pictures and videos I had once deemed important enough to bookmark on a computer I haven't been on in honestly probably a year. Bookmarks from late 2013 all the way back to college.

I organized my life on the bookmarks bar. My hopes and dreams and favorite websites are captured on this bar. There are FOLDERS for goodness sake. I was organized. And had much more space in my life for exploring the internet to find said hopes and dreams and websites. Since I don't journal, this is about as close to re-experiencing a time in my life that I'm going to get. So bear with me.

I think back to senior year/newly employeed me, as she was the lady who'd be making this masterpiece of a bookmarks bar. She was faced with uncertainty (will I get a job? will I ever get married? will I have to move?) and clearly worried about it (evidenced by the bookmarks for the Georgia Tech job search site, the sections of the Good Women Project on Singleness and Waiting, an article called "The Soulmate You Deserve," and ohmygosh ChristianMingle). She was pursuing God (bookmarks for favorite sermons, devotionals, worship songs and faith-based blogs). She had dreams of travel (bookmarks for fancy luggage and several cooking classes in New Orleans) and pretty things (sparkly earrings and a necklace I'm glad I didn't get in hindsight). But mostly, she was still me. 

We have a tendency to look back at ourselves and laugh about how ridiculous we were given our current vantage point. But one of the of the things that disheartens me most is when others don't take me or my words/actions/beliefs/etc. seriously...when they toss them aside or laugh them off. So when I look back at who I was last year or the year before that and laugh or roll my eyes at the bookmarks for culinary schools and hair curling tutorials, I'm acting in a way that belittles who I used to be, casting her to be small and silly and ignorant. 

I am hereby shifting my perspective on self-retrospection to one of gratitude and respect for the person I was. She really had a lot going for her. She dreamed big and had a whole world of possibilities at her feet. She was thoughtful and intentional and generous. She carved out time for things that were beautiful and nurtured her soul, things like the recordings of piano and violin duets and a picture of the imperfectly-perfectly frosted cake. Scriptures for the morning and for the evening. A English-French translator.

So, in an effort to change my ways and make reparations for laughing at who I was, a letter to the past. 

Dearest, sweetest Mary Margaret Swanson of 2012-2013, 

I admire you. 

I admire your sense of independence and adventure. Your love of music, your pursuit of your God, and your passion for beauty. Who you are and what you do matter. Don't forget that. Your little acts of faithfulness and love and kindness matter, and they inspire me to slow down a bit and be more like you.

I hope future us has the grace to look back on me and you and this silly little blog with respect and admiration. And I hope it puts a smile on her face the same way finding these few dozen bookmarks has for me. 

You're turning out fine. So relax a little, but not all the way, because some things in life are worth getting all worked up over. 

Love,

Mary Margaret Phillips

December 2014

Mary Margaret Swanson - Summer 2012 - Innsbruck, Austria 

(where, she would be quick to tell you, she traveled alone)

photographer: some kind Austrian stranger

wiggly ears & thirteen other things

This weekend I learned that my husband can wiggle his ears. He learned that I cannot. It was entirely fascinating to me (probably not to him). Discovering that felt like discovering a jewel; he's not just my husband anymore! He's my husband, man of hidden talents, including, but not limited to, ear wiggling.

Matthew and I got engaged after less than four months of dating and were married less than six months later. The beginning, middle and end of our engagement were all rather rough. Don't be fooled - engagement is not a pleasant time (I was fooled). My parents were very strongly convicted that we should not be getting married yet, and our few months of dating did not prepare us well enough - we didn't even know each other! - and we should be engaged for at least a year and a half before getting married.

Well Mama, you were right. I didn't even know him. Below is just a short list of the things I have learned about this stranger to whom I find myself married:

1. I didn't know about the ear wiggling.
2. I didn't know that he wasn't just a wonderful man, but he was marked with more grace that I could even imagine, which overwhelms me daily and points me to Christ.
3. I didn't know he prefers red wine to white.
4. I didn't know that he would learn my favorite song of the week and surprise me by playing it on the guitar while I unpack groceries.
5. I didn't know that his snack of choice is chips and salsa and that he is more than capable of polishing off a full bag of chips in a sitting, but in all his generosity, will hand feed me chips if I'm letting my newly manicured nails dry.
6. I didn't know that he'd stay up with me far past bedtime so I could finish the scary book I was reading.
7. I didn't know the exact shade of his eyes, and how they change from green to brown to hazel depending on his shirt, the weather, and the position of Mercury relative to Venus.
8. I didn't know that even if he's asleep, he'll answer my questions but won't recall the conversation the next morning.
9. I didn't know that Cinnamon Toast Crunch was his favorite cereal.
10. I didn't know that I would find post-it love notes stuck to my computer screen.
11. I didn't know that I would be fully, 100% supported in whatever silly venture I decided to be interested in that month.
12. I didn't know that he was neater than me, that he would make the bed when he comes home from work because I fail to do so every morning, that he likes his drawers organized, that he will gently scold me for not turning my clothes right side out before throwing them into the hamper.
13. I didn't know he would plan and work and plan some more to give us the best possible future.
14. I didn't know that I would find lint in his belly button far too often.

Matthew David Phillips, man of mystery, I love you.

nessie the homestead

Here's the thing about the word condo.

I hate it.

It conjures up images of dated high rises by a north Florida beach with weird carpets, mismatched spoons, and rowdy spring breaking neighbors. It makes me think of Michael Scott running through the sliding glass door because he thought he heard an ice cream truck, the candle company, and Jan throwing a Dundie at Michael's flat screen (that wasn't even a great episode. Why do I have it memorized?). It makes me think of bachelors and loneliness and cheap appliances.

Not to mention it's one letter short of another word I'd rather not accidentally say when talking about our home to, say, my boss.

So what to do but to christen our 809 square feet of real estate with a new, more suiting name: Nessie. According to Google, Nessie is a nickname for Agnes, meaning lamb. Isn't that sweet? Who doesn't like lambs? But, of course, as Matt so quickly reminded me, Nessie is also a giant Scottish lake monster. Oh so she has a dark side?? I love the name even more.

A little bit about Nessie:

• She is small cozy. Our previous apartment, dubbed Ferdinanda as of now, had one fewer bedroom but 24 more square feet. As my father so astutely stated, we're a little young to be downsizing, but I am an old soul. (Sorry about what Dewey did to your carpets, Ferdinanda...I hope you'll forgive us)
• Her floors and ceilings sag. Her front door had to be specially cut to accommodate the sloping frame. There are cracks along the crown molding. Nothing meets at a 90 degree angle and our side tables wobble. It's okay, old girl. There is so much beauty and wisdom in your age.
• She SHINES. From about 7 am until 7 pm, her 10 windows pour in the most gorgeous sunlight you've ever seen. I love how the light in each room changes throughout the day...going from a soft buttery yellow to crystal bright to a warm gold. Until we got the shower curtain up, you couldn't go in bathroom because the way the light bounced off the white tiles on the wall was blinding. 
• The kitchen is my dreams incarnate, my hopes manifested, my favorite place in the world. Nessie's cabinets are deep, functional, and beautiful. Walking in there, you can feel the care and thought put into the placement and design of each one. Wild props to the previous owner. You done good.
• She bestows a sense of home and security on anyone who walks through her (crooked) door. It is not unlike being small and wrapped up in a hug by your granddad. I'm not kidding. Come over and you'll feel it.
• She is such a blessing. We can't believe we (/the bank) own a home!

This past week, while I've lied awake at night, I think about all the seasons of life that will happen within Nessie's walls.

Currently, as newly weds, where we will learn (sometimes the hard way) about grace and patience and forgiveness and love; where change seems to be a constant and I'm just itching to put down roots and be established already; where everyday is new.

Next, when we have our rhythms set and we've settled into who we are as man and wife and grow closer everyday; when we travel places and have pictures on the walls; where we have matching monogrammed slippers next to our bed (this may be a pipe dream).

And the season after that, where (hopefully, let it BE Lord) our family grows; where our world shifts and the office becomes a nursery; where I get to hear Matt sing quiet little songs to a sleepy baby.

Nessie, we promise to be kind to you. To take care of your cracks, polish your doorknobs, and try not to stomp too hard on your floors. Thank you for your built-ins and windows. For your charm and gas appliances. For being ours.

BEGIN

Pictures are for remembering. They're for grabbing a moment in time and immortalizing it on a shiny piece of paper, in a camera roll on an iphone or in a flickr account. Little pieces of stolen time, frozen forever, never changing. Pictures bring us back to a specific moment, when time and space has removed us from the original circumstances, and allow us, for just a second, to be back on that gray ikea couch with that wiggly kitten. 

But our memory of that moment is so limited to what we can see. When I look back on this picture in ten, five, or even one year, I won't remember how I went to the doctor that morning, then worked from home the rest of the day. I won't remember the lunch I ate with Ellie (La Fonda salad) or the TV show we watched (Virgin Territories, not our best moment). Distance will fade the memory to only what is visible. Me, on a cheap couch, trying to look trendier than I am, feeding my need to mother by holding a kitten like a baby.