Love Rolls On! Unlikely tales of marriage, love and disability

Risking it All- The Courage to Tell Our Story

In a recent email, our editor wrote:

“I have to say that the story you are both sharing is courageous, by which I am drawing on the etymological meaning of the word. As you probably know, the word courage comes from the French word couer, meaning heart, so to have courage means to have heart or take heart. In that sense, your love story is overflowing with heart and has a tremendous amount of courage as well.”

We received edits for our manuscript a few weeks ago, and the process of revision is painstakingly slow. Barton and I sit down together with the printed version and comments, going back and forth to debate phrases and words, adding dialogue and details we missed in our first full draft.

We are thankful to have an editor so thorough, honest and light-hearted (on the same wavelength as Barton’s humor for sure). We know that her comments will make our story better, and we are frustrated only with the slow pace editing as taken.

We cringed at the thought of a full rewrite for several chapters, not because of the work now ahead of us, but because we realized we were holding back, for a very specific reason- we wanted to protect others and we wanted to protect ourselves. We knew it, our editor knew it, and if you read it in its current state, so would you. What does it take, to go to the core, the real core?

Ink in the Wheels: Stories to Make Love Roll is our story, and the amazing thing is there are pieces that even our families don’t know about. It’s not on purpose- it’s just that our lives have been so full, it’s hard to get all the different details in.

For example, when asked about our engagement, we look at each other and smile. We will tell you about my going to retrieve the book of poetry, completely missing the ring box tucked behind. But we probably won’t tell you it was 3am Thanksgiving morning. And you could probably imagine what we were actually doing at 3am Thanksgiving morning, or maybe not, in which case the book will reveal these unknown pieces. But there are also times of depression or times where we were struggling just even to connect.

Like any other couple or any other individual, we have our moments of failures and our moments of joy, times of doubt, or times of fullness and celebration. How often do we want to hide those times of failures? And how do we talk about delicate themes or dynamics in relationships (not just between Barton & I but also within our families & friends), still fragile or complex? But these are the places where we learn and grow, and so these pieces become a vital piece in the fabric of who we are.

We’re risking a lot.

We risk it all, everyday. We don’t always know what the future will bring. I can’t always tell you this particular way will work or if it will be successful. We don’t know (any of us) when sickness or tragedy will fall upon us or when we will luck has found us. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I can tell you that no matter what happens, we are together, loving and living. And this is what any person, family, community strives for.

The door is opening, and with our words, we lay down who we are at our core- quirky, loving, defiant and stubborn, funny, or sometimes fearful and angry. We bring others on our journey- and to consider their own lives, to break out of the box of self-limitation, and to see ourselves beyond what each of us believe is possible.