Marriage 5: When lost, the way back you will find within.

Thursday August 13^th 2009: In marriage we can win and lose a lot and sometimes I wonder what? If I ask myself and others to make a list of each, both lists would be very long. But I wonder if the lose list wouldn’t be the longest after all. Could it be that we are more afraid of losing than winning, but again winning and losing what?

If marriage were about money, both lists would be understandable and would make calculations easy. But do we marry for money? This about marriage, isn’t it about winning another person’s heart? But what about losing then… what is that all about?

…

I opened the restroom door, got in and closed it behind me. The dress for me to wear this evening was there on a hanger waiting for me. To describe the dress to you would be like stripping it naked and revealing its secret and that I don’t want to do. Instead I would like to tell you about me wearing it.

From first sight I knew this was me, it was me like in a mirror. It was a happy me I saw and I felt growing. I can tell you though that this was a dark red shiny dress, a dress I never really had searched for, looked at or perhaps ever wanted. I don’t know why, but I think it’s like denying oneself something without even having looked at the price tag, it won’t fit, wrong color …it’s just too much …what would people say?

I know I have been looking at short skirts and such even though I know I’m much too much out of age, like I wish it would fit me anyway. But this dress was different; it reflected mutual trust, like it had been out there patiently waiting for me. It felt so right somehow, it was like the dress had been out there searching for me instead of me searching for it and there was no way now I could deny its existence hanging there right before me any longer. Perhaps everything about this journey was about denial, things we deny ourselves?

I guess I stood there a while watching, like imagining myself wearing it, shoes and all the other matching accessories laid out there for me. The restroom cabin was much larger looking inside than from the outside and it was growing. Strange, that dress made me wish and things began to happen like in a fairytale. I wanted to make myself ready for this dress, I didn’t want to violate it and just put it on like a sweater or something and the restroom cabin grew even further. Another door that wasn’t there before opened and I was invited in. I had a shower, my feet, hands and nails done like in a luxury spa and there was a lady doing both my hair and makeup. I never had been taken care of like this before and I guess all those good feelings were triggered and pulled out by the sight of that dress.

Time was not the issue to me anymore and the clock literary stood still. I was helped on with the dress, shoes and everything and like from first sight seeing the dress hanging there waiting for me, I now could see the dress on me in a mirror. The dress fitted perfectly and everything felt so right. This was me I was looking at, not a person I may have liked to be. This was me and no one else. I felt the train slowing down again and I had no idea about time any more.

I stepped out to find Marianne waiting for me as if just ten minutes had passed. I remembered that Helen, Roy and Marianne hadn’t spent that much more time dressing up either. Had they experienced the same thing I had? When looking in Marianne’s eyes, very much so I would say.

Oscar and Roger were in their restroom dressing up and now I was really curious how they would come out when thinking of me and the others. I went with Marianne to the bar to have a chat and to show myself to Helen and Roy and I was very well received with joy and laughter. The train was slowing down even more and was now close to a stop. I made it my task to check what was going on and if there were yet another invited couple entering the train, so I left Marianne, Helen and Roy and made my way back to my place in our first car. The train stopped, but I couldn’t see anyone. No… well yes! There was a tiny person there; man or woman, I couldn’t say, it was kind of foggy outside. But there was just one, not a couple. Why one person and not two?

The train stopped and that single person outside obviously aimed to get on board. I waited and soon I could see him coming down the aisle. Yes it was a him, a young man actually. Maybe twenty-five, thirty years old or something; anyway he was noticeably much younger than any of us others on board the train, but like us: no luggage.

Anyway, he checked his ticket, found his seat and I went over greeting him welcome in my, for the evening, dark red dress and all. Well he did look at me more than once and a bit surprised too I guess, but he had kind eyes and we started talking. I of course was curious how he had found this train and if he had a partner, was married and so on. I guess I asked one or two questions too much, but he didn’t seem to mind.

His name was Hans and he was twenty-six years old. He came from a small town and he had found his love in school early, and after school at twenty-one they had moved in together and a year later their daughter was born.  They married and a year after that his wife got sick and six months later she died. I didn’t have to ask what happened, he told me anyway. She got cancer, the aggressive kind, and there was nothing the doctors could do, so she just died he said with a kind of sad expression in his face.

In a way I felt silly listening to his story while dressed up for a party as I was. But again, he didn’t seem to mind. The train conductor showed up and checked Hans’s ticket the same as he had done with all our other tickets. The train conductor smiled when looking at me saying once again that dinner would soon be served.

“Are there any more stops before dinner? There are still a lot of reserved seats left, are there more guests coming on board?” I asked.

“Those seats are reserved for when needed. When and where we stop depends on when you are ready to meet,” he said to me smiling.

Somehow I began to understand and thanked him for the information. I asked Hans about his ticket, the invitation and how he had got it.

“Oh, I don’t know really. One day after work first picking up Kate (his now four-year-old daughter) at the daycare center, this invitation was placed on my kitchen table,” Hans said.

From a small bag Hans had brought with him, he picked up and showed me the invitation and the ticket that followed. I felt strange seeing and reading the invitation words, it was a hand-written letter, and suddenly I wasn’t sure if these were my words or not.

“We would like to invite you on a journey with friends you haven’t met yet. This our journey is yours too and you are very welcome to join us.” Somehow these simple words made Hans decide to give it a try.

The letter wasn’t signed, but even so, I knew that I was involved in some way or the other. Hans’s ticket however was more specific on time and place, but with departure and arrival at the same time, same day, same place. What year however wasn’t specified, as if it didn’t matter. Or was this trip for a year or even longer? Time somehow seemed irrelevant on this train. But this was a one-way trip only, or wasn’t it? How did that add up? At just that instant I had no idea.

Hans and I talked a lot and he told me about his situation singlehandedly taking care of his daughter. However, like a coincidence his mother was able to make him one day free taking care of Kate, so he decided to accept the invitation without really knowing what he was invited to. Anyway, there was one thing Hans said that made me wonder. He said that he didn’t want to escape his situation by jumping on the first train, like to get away from it all; instead he wanted to join this trip home.

Those his words I understood fully; Marianne and I had felt the same many times before. Was this the reason for this journey? Was this trip heading for home regardless of where we stopped, I wondered?

…

Sometimes I wonder this about time? When things happen that will affect our lives like forever, isn’t that time now?