J.P.

I’m sitting here in my home office doing the Friday afternoon thing. I’m listening to ambient, fairly instrumental electronic music. I downloaded this mix from YouTube a couple of years ago and I have no idea what songs are actually playing in this mix. It’s 75 minutes of synthesizers, minimal vocals, and simple percussion effortlessly mixed together at 129 beats per minute. It’s the music I listen to when I’m concentrating for work. It helps me maintain focus, this break to write a blog entry non-withstanding.

My job is hectic. As the leader of a magnificent team of seven people, and a full-time software developer as well, there’s a lot of moving parts that I need to keep moving in the right direction. It can be a challenge at time, the biggest part of the challenge being that it feels like I never have enough time to get everything done. Keeping notes, lists, and other reminders in an organized fashion is key. I’m at the point where I can do my job on any type of computer. I would prefer to do my work on a Mac (choice 1) or a Linux based computer (choice 2), but the company I work for is firmly entrenched in Microsoft technology and so I work on this Dell laptop that has it’s own quirky personality. I can deal with it and I’ve learned to skip the stress related to idiosyncrasies such as rearranging all my windows when the screensaver comes on. I’ve spent hours trying to figure that quirk out and to this day a solution escapes me.

It’s been a week since our vacation and I’m still feeling remarkably centered and happy. Remembering to breathe and trying to keep the emotional responses to a minimum have been key. It’s something I’ve been working on since vacation and the results thus far have been content.

I’m three and a half years into working for this company and I’m the most content I’ve been in a long while. I’ve found my cadence, I feel like things are moving in the right direction, and I like what I do.

I’m going to do everything I can to keep moving in this direction, because it’s a fantastic feeling.

A friend recently posted this letter in a discussion about honesty. It was written by Amelia Earhart to, at the time, future husband George Putnam.

The honesty of Ms. Earhart’s words strike a chord within me. The world needs more of this honesty. I strive to be this honest.

From “Madam Secretary”, Season 5 Episode 1.

“…Your courage and determination have made humankind safer from the second-greatest threat it faces. What is an even greater threat than nuclear weapons? That which makes the use of them possible: hate. Specifically, the blind hatred one group or nation can have for another. That is why I am convinced that nationalism is the existential threat of our time.

“Now I want to be clear. Nationalism is not the same as patriotism. It’s a perversion of patriotism. Nationalism… promotes the idea that inclusion and diversity represent weakness, that the only way to succeed is to give blind allegiance to the supremacy of one race over all others. Nothing could be less American. Patriotism, on the other hand, is about building each other up and embracing our diversity as the source of our nation’s strength. “We the people” means all the people. America’s heroes didn’t die for race or region. They died for the ideals enshrined in our Constitution. Above all, freedom from tyranny, which requires our unwavering support of a free press; freedom of religion, all religions; the right to vote, and making sure nothing infringes on any of those rights, which belong to us all. Look where isolationism has gotten us in the past. Two world wars. Seventy million dead. Never again can we go back to those dark times when fear and hatred, like a contagion, infected the world. That, as much as ending the threat of nuclear war, is what today is about.

“And it is why we must never lose sight of our common humanity, our common values and our common decency. I was reminded recently of our nation’s founding motto, E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. Thirteen disparate colonies became one country. One people. And today, we call on all Americans and people everywhere to reject the scourge of nationalism. Because governments can’t legislate tolerance or eradicate hate. That’s why each one of us has to find the beauty in our differences instead of the fear. Listen instead of reacting. Reach out instead of recoiling. It’s up to us. All of us. Thank you.”

Earl and I are celebrating the 7th anniversary of our legal marriage. Of course, we’ve been together over 22 years, but the government didn’t recognize our marriage until 2011. In fact, 22 years ago today I got down on one knee on top of a mountain in the Adirondacks and proposed to Earl. He said yes. Our first wedding was in December 1996. The government didn’t come on board until seven years ago today. We were legally married at a casino. We figured getting married is a gamble.

I’ve heard of heterosexual couples going to church to learn how to be married. It’s my understanding that when a couple wants to get married in a particular church, they might have to go to that church to learn how to live in wedded bliss. I don’t know what goes on in these classes, as I’ve never really felt the need to watch instructional videos on how these things work, but the concept of needing to learn how to be married strikes me as kind of odd.

One of the beautiful things that I’ve experienced for the past 22 years is that Earl and I just naturally knew how to be a couple. Our union is unique. We do marriage our way. I don’t know that we would know this much happiness if we were instructed on how to be a couple or striving to follow some sort of cookbook that someone else wrote. Who really decides what a happy marriage looks like? It’s no one’s business other than our own as to how our marriage works, just like it’s none of my business as to how my parents’ or my grandparents’ marriages worked.

Earl and I have a couple of ground rules. We are always honest with one another, our commitment is fully invested until death do us part, and outside of death, exiting the relationship is not an option. And even at death, I’m sure the dead one will haunt the live one. It’s just the way we roll.

I’ve seen so many marriages end because of jealousy. Jealousy of looking at other people, or one more successful in their career, or another jealous of hobbies and passions that may not be shared. No one can make you jealous. Jealousy is an emotion that comes from within and 99% of the time it is fueled by insecurity. Know who you are, know why you’re in love, and be honest; that’s our secret. I’d never presume to tell you how to conduct your marriage, because as I mentioned before, it’s none of my business, but if people set aside their jealousy, I’m sure there’d be more successful marriages in the world.