100 Days of Simple Joys
I spent the past weekend confined to the couch.
Before you jump to conclusions, let me reassure you, it had nothing to do with COVID-19. No, it was something far more mundane than that. On Saturday morning, I bent over to tie my shoes. There a twinge in my back, then a sudden, searing pain. I could not move. Eventually, with Mom’s help, I hobbled, one shoe on, one half off, to the living room, and lay on the couch for the rest of the weekend and into this week. Whether due to over exercising, sitting in a chair with poor lumbar support (oh, how I miss you, office chair!), just general I’m-living-in-a-pandemic stress, or a combination thereof, I had thrown out my back completely. It couldn’t have been less timely - the house needed cleaning and reorganization, groceries needed to be purchased, and my cooped up self needed a good run! Instead, I was forced to be still, or suffer the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.
While I felt dreadfully guilty at my inability to be useful, these days on my back afforded me time to rest. Living the social distancing lifestyle requires a certain amount of simplicity, but being unable to leave the couch takes it to a whole new level. But there’s a lot of beauty in simplicity. As Austin sat by my side reading and holding my hand while I distracted myself from pain by playing The Sims 4, I found my mind wandering to all the simple moments we’ve shared.
Simple things are what our relationship is built on. We’ve had many romantic, memorable adventures. We shared days in Canada, road trips to Pennsylvania, and flights to England. We attended church conferences and fancy dinners and family vacations. Yet, I didn’t fall in love with Austin for grand events or gestures. I fell in love as we cooked together and talked about theology, when we walked along the river at sunset and read books. I fell in love with the little things, like the careful way he kneads bread, or the way his eyes light up when he talks about his family. From our first date at a coffee shop through the gentle care Austin showed me this weekend, it is the simple things that define us.
Today marks 100 days until our wedding, and as I reminisce on those simple times, I can’t help but remember Austin’s proposal. A few weeks before that night we talked about marriage. A summer spent long distance, though wonderful for growth, demonstrated how much we wanted to never be parted again. As such, I knew a proposal was coming, but I didn’t know when. On Friday, September 20th we shared a meal of our favorite leftover soup & biscuits and washed up the dishes together. As I turned away from the sink, wiping my hands dry with a towel, I saw Austin kneel, hands extended, presenting the ring. There was no fanfare, there was no build up. There was simply this amazing, brilliant man kneeling before me, saying:
“Amelia Brown, will you marry me?”
Those six words held enormous power. The weight they carried, asking that I spend the rest of my life with Austin, needed no further explanation. In them contained all the love and respect and trust we share. I’d never been happier!
I think often we equate simple things with being smaller or lesser. Sometimes society makes us believe that love demands grand gestures and gifts, declarations of love in the pouring rain. In my life that hasn’t been the case. Over last few months I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of love, and none explain it so well as the well-known passage from First Corinthians.
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.”
This passage in Corinthians is classic for a reason: it sets the model for love. This kind of love trusts completely, enduring through all circumstances. When Austin asked me to marry him, and when I immediately agreed, we committed to this kind of love. I don’t want to say that we don’t enjoy a fancy dinner out or that our trip to London last August wasn’t deeply romantic and exciting. Rather our love, a love that seeks to be patient and kind and persist through all things, isn’t proved by those moments. Proof of our love are in moments like this weekend, when I lay on the couch, grimacing at the smallest movements, and Austin simply squeezed my hand, and gazed at me tenderly. Our greatest joys are the simplest moments.
Even before the spread of COVID-19, so much of life was unexpected and uncontrollable. Now, more than ever, I am grateful for the constancy of the love that we share and the joy it brings. I can’t know what the future of the world hold. Each week now feels completely different than the last. There is no way to truly know what that day will look like when July 11th comes around. I can say that for the next 100 days, and for every day after that, our life together will be filled with simple, powerful joys, regardless of pandemics or strained backs.
