The Bitter & The Sweet

Pancake day is one of those events that creeps up on me every year. I usually wonder if there is a 'Holidays are coming' lorry driving by (Coca-Cola style), to remind everyone to make pancakes, that I have somehow managed to miss all these years.

Fortunately: It's pancakes. Minimal ingredients and minimal effort: Flour, eggs, milk and water, (not forgetting the lemon and sugar) and you're away. For whatever reason, people get excited about them.

I'm not too clear, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, on what the purpose is of Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day. In first year at University I told one of my friends (an International student) that it was Pancake Day and she looked at me blankly and then said:

"You have a DAY for eating Pancakes??!" 

Anyway.... I wikipedia'd Pancake Day and the reason for eating Pancakes is actually "to use up rich foods such as eggs, milk and sugar before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent." I think I was vaguely aware of this but as eggs, milk and sugar don't particularly seem like the most fatty things you can have anymore perhaps the tradition should keep up with the times: Curry Tuesday.

Just a thought.

It also amused me to find out that in Newfoundland they actually cook items into the pancakes and the fortunes of the individual are told by the items they find. The examples given were: a coin and a nail. Neither of which I would like to find in my pancake, thanks!

I'm a lemon and sugar girl. I guess I've always like the contrast between the bitter and the sweet. More than that, it's the sweet that makes the bitter lemon no longer taste bitter and allows it to combine with the taste of the whole thing.

Marriage is a lot like that. You definitely wouldn't choose to gorge on the bitter moments and it is no wonder that when we look at the bitter alone we can decide that marriage isn't worth it. Ben and I are 4 days shy of our first half-year now and even in 6 months there have been times where all I was concentrating on was the lemon and I was ignoring the massive spoonfuls of sugar.

It's not easy. I'm not saying that it is. It's hard to go from 18+ years of only really having to concentrate on you to becoming institutionalised. The feeling of being out in the wild to the: "I'm a house cat now." There are great things about that. Safe things; secure things; sacred things. You're both going to mess up at some points  and one or both of you are likely to feel that you've been stepped on. Then it's about intention, forgiveness and forgetting that flavour in favour of the sugar.

I know couples who have been through challenges that I would shrink from and who have come through it hand-in-hand and have even maintained a smile.

I also know couples who have given this marriage thing only a small amount of time, expected perfection from their spouse at the get-go, have been unwilling to change or compromise when things didn't work and have subsequently lost the person who, a few years or months prior, was the person they wanted to spend forever with.

I'm not saying that there is always blame for both parties. I think in a small amount of cases one partner is faithfully clinging to the promises they made and praying for a spouse who is driving themself further and further from the path they wanted to walk together. Sometimes that spouse turns it around and sometimes they don't. I do think that in most cases, the solution comes 6 from one and half a dozen from the other because that is the true distribution of the problem.

As I've mentioned before, Ben and I are very different. We think differently and we communicate differently. We can both be inconsiderate without ever meaning to cause offense. I can drink the ready supplies of lemon juice that are undoubtedly present and waiting as a consequence of living together or I can add it to the pancake of our lives together, mix it with all the sugar and get enjoyment out of the whole package.

It's a choice.