debbieengle.com

You Listen to That???

Just to recap.  Dan and I didn’t really “date” in the usual way but spent time getting to know each other at work, on walks, spending time with Patrick, Dan’s son, and having dinner together.  I believed that I knew all that I needed to know about him and Patrick to say yes when he proposed. 

I grew up in a Baptist Christian home where we were encouraged to listen to Christian music and not rock and roll, heavy metal, hip hop, or rap music.  To be honest, I had no interest in listening to that music anyway.  I believed that if I was going to fill my mind with music, I wanted it to be music I could sing with and music that would fill my mind and soul with God honoring words and thoughts.  And I just assumed that was the kind of music Dan listened to as well.  Well, you know the definition of “assume,” right??

We hadn’t been married long – maybe a few months at this point.  It was a Saturday morning, and I had just gotten up.  I walked into the kitchen and heard this loud, driving beat with heavy guitar chords and intricate fingering.  And there was my husband, standing there in the middle of our kitchen, playing air bass guitar and smiling, really smiling.

“What are you listening to??,” I asked over the din of “music.”  I know he named the group, but I don’t remember what he said.  All I know is that I didn’t like what I was hearing!!

“You listen to this kind of music?,” I said with disbelief.  “Yes, I do!” he said.

Was the marriage trial period over yet?  Could I still get my money back??  I wasn’t sure I could live with this kind of “music” interrupting my calm, quiet homelife. 

We talked about it later, after I had decompressed.  He told me that when he became a Christian years before, all he listened to was Christian music.  He went to Christian concerts as well.  But, he really liked the rock and roll, especially the base line, you know, the line he played on his air guitar. 

So, we came to an agreement.  We would listen to Christian music at home and in the car when we were together.  He could listen to his kind of music in the car and when I wasn’t home and through his ear buds.  Once in a while he will play a song he really likes and I’ll listen respectively.  But, I’m sticking to my gentler, worship music. 

One year for his birthday, I bought tickets for KISS and I went with him!!  They were in town and I knew he would love to see them.  I know, what a wonderful wife I am!  I am learning that to show true love to another, we sometimes need to put aside our preferences and do what the other would want to do. 

And this year, for Father’s Day, I had a comic book made for him (by Book By Anyone), and he uses his air guitar and rock and roll music to defeat the monsters in the storyline!  What fun to watch him laugh and smile at the storyline and the pictures of him.  It’s wonderful to accept each other’s differences and be able to joke and laugh about them.  Life is too short to let those differences get in the way!

Some of you have asked me to tell the Rest of the Story – After He Caught Me.

So, you can read more at my website debbieengle.com on the blog.  Not sure if it will be a second book.  We’ll just have to wait and see.  In the meantime, you can get a glimpse of the next 21 years!  Yep!  We celebrate 21 years of marriage bliss this August!!  Woohoo!