danbarden.com

Dear Pat,

I’m sorry that Liz and I didn’t make it to your wedding reception. The invitation got buried under a pile of papers and I didn’t remember until the next day. I talked to Mike on Sunday, though, and he told me it was a great day, that you and Sarah looked truly in love.

This is the way my friend Tom, the veterinarian, explained marriage to me:

“Just look at the animals, Dan. You’re a lion dozing on the savannah. All you want is sex and to be left alone to watch TV. But, hey, there’s a hyena off in the distance, and your old lady, says ‘buster, you better take care of that hyena.’ And you say, ‘jeez, he’s about a mile off, honey, give me a break. This is a really good NYPD Blue I’m watching.’ So, then, your sweetheart says, pulling her little cubs closer, ‘if you ever want sex again – let’s not even talk about peace of mind – you’ll go take care of that hyena right now.’ And so, you pull yourself mightily off your ass, and roar off in the direction of the hyena. You kill the hyena. In fact, you kill the hell out of it. Everyone else in the jungle is scared by how much you kill this hyena. You’re the king of the jungle, right? But it’s only because you’re more afraid of your wife than you are of the hyena.”

You know Liz – a beautiful woman, a kind woman, a brilliant woman. Nothing at all like this pain-in-the-ass mama lion. I’m sure Sarah isn’t, either. And yet, I’ll stick by that story as one of the truest of my life.

Let me give you another example: The first few months I knew her, Liz told me something that really freaked me out. We were watching the Academy Awards, something that we’ve done together every year since, and during the screenwriting category she turned to me and said, “If you stay with me, you’ll be a great man.”

I just looked at her. I kept my mouth shut for the next ten minutes. She didn’t say anything else, and she never mentioned it again.

Now, I believe that it’s possible to have anything you want from this life. I believe also that it’s possible to marry the best person you’ve ever met. I believe these things because it’s been my experience. But there’s a catch, some fine print on the contract that you must read. Yes, you can have what you want, but then you’ve got to be responsible for it. Yes, you can marry the best woman in the world, but then, that awfully small fine print reminds me, you’ll have to become the man that she saw in you when you first met.

Be afraid, Pat. Be very afraid.

What troubles me about marriage is that my wife sees me as a greater, more generous, and stronger man than I ever in my whole life wanted to be. She had a vision of me when we first met that went something like this: here is the man who will inspire me, raise my children, and make me proud of him until the day I die. I have trouble with her, Pat, to the precise degree that I don’t live up to that vision. When I am small or self-centered, it breaks her heart.

Let me put it this way: marriage is a loving partnership, a contract for companionship and love – yeah, yeah, yeah – but it’s also like standing on top of a gallows and saying to the hangman standing next to you, “Please, if I do anything mean or unkind, feel free to open the trap door.”

I love Liz so much that it feels like I swallowed a box of knives when I disappoint her.

I don’t mean to scare you, buddy, because that’s exactly what you want. For a good man like you, getting married is also like entering the most awesome training program with the most awesome coach in the world. Your wife will make certain that you become a great man. Or she’ll kill you.

Marriage is a mighty purpose. I sometimes get confused about that – I think it’s about partnership or mutual comfort or pooling resources. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Marriage is about partnership the way nuclear energy is about warmth. I used to imagine, too, that marriage was a plateau, a rest after the long climb of being single. Maybe I could relax for a while, eat some of that yummy trail mix, lay my head down on my pack. Wrong, again. Marriage is a vehicle, a spiritual SUV as it were. It takes you places you wouldn’t be able to get to without marriage, but those are often wild and dangerous places: childrearing, financial security, middle age.

It’s a great trip, but there’s a lot less napping and trail mix than I would have imagined.

Somewhere in my twenties I learned that my job on earth was to serve people. This was not good news at the time, but I knew it like I knew that water was wet and the rocks in my head were hard. I believed it like I believed in a freight train that was about to run me over. I had to pull my act together or I was going to end up in jail. And I wasn’t going to pull my act together unless I found some way out of my own head. It’s not a fun story, but that’s what happened.

For a long while, the sacraments of my personal religion were pretty simple. When I did something that worked out well, I shared it with other people. Also, when I did something that didn’t work out well, I told people about that, too. I also listened carefully when my friends told me their own stories of success and failure. Before I met Liz, that was pretty much it. I still practice those sacraments daily. Sometimes it’s harder than other times. Telling the truth is not my default setting. Neither is listening.

Marriage was the biggest leap I ever made in my life, and yet, in my heart, I was absolutely certain I was doing the right thing. I had prayed a couple of years earlier for conviction, and God gave me that, much to my surprise. I said something like: “Lord, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll move mountains. I’ll be faithful. I’ll get the job done. Just give me the certainty that I’m doing the right thing. If you give me that, I’ll handle the rest.” And then there came this moment when I was in a movie theater with Liz. We were watching a Tommy Lee Jones movie, of all things, and I reached down to help her up from her chair, and a voice in my head said: “This will work.” That was it. I knew from that moment that she was going to be my wife.

Still, even with all that coaching from God, Marriage has sometimes been difficult for me. Mostly because I’m still, in spite of everyone’s best efforts, a selfish guy. I think that’s okay – both that I have difficulty and that I’m selfish. It gives me a reason to grow up and it gives God something to do. God knows, God has a lot of free time.

These days, the biggest sacrament in my life is making Liz happy. When she asks me for anything, I do it right away. If I discover any way to make her more comfortable, I do that, too. These might seem like small things, but they’re actually huge. Love isn’t a feeling, it’s an action. Because we understand that, Liz and I can’t even walk down the street without creating miracles. I was, in fact, paying attention when the priest gave us our marching orders. He made me responsible for Liz’s well-being, but, even more than that, he made me responsible for her spiritual growth. No matter what happens, I heard him say, you’re going to lift up this woman’s life. That’s your job now.

Before I met Liz, I made a list of all the things I was looking for in a woman. The list surprised me because, in addition to all the usual suspects – “beautiful,” “athletic,” “must love Westerns” – there were some dark horses, requirements bubbling out of me that I had never articulated before. “Always respects people with less power than she.” “Always gives more socially than she takes.” “Loves children and knows how to talk with them.” “Willing to take big risks.”

Here’s what I’m thinking: A great man serves. A great man supports other people in their dreams. A great man teases the potential from the least obvious sources. A great man treats everyone with respect. A great man puts his family before himself.

At some point, much later, I got the joke: I had to become the person that a wonderful woman like that would recognize. I had to become her list for me, too. The joke was that it’s probably the same list.

Jeez, Pat, I didn’t intend to write this kind of letter. Sorry to go all paternal on you, but, God, I wish you well. Have an awesome life together. Adore your wife. Adore your children. Please please please enjoy yourself. Someday we’re all going to die, and we’ll be happy to know that we took snapshots, shared some good meals, and made the angels cry for how brave we all are.

Love,

Dan