Beautiful Blogging: Amanda Magee

image credit: Amanda Magee

If I could link to all of Amanda Magee's posts, I would. She is incredible. Her writing, her insight, her storytelling and realness... her words are some of the best this space has to offer. Today I'm linking to two posts, in particular.  The first one is about marriage, which struck me over the head, specifically this passage:

It astounds me that in nearly ten years of parenting and eleven years of marriage I’ve received more advice on child-rearing than I could ever hope to put into use and only one piece of marriage advice. We’ve done the raising of our girls on instinct and memory, tossing in the odd piece of wisdom we’ve heard. Marriage? That’s the big secret, you only hear about it when people are splitting up. Do we only care about people’s children? Or is it really that we have to have people think we know exactly how to do everything with kids? That single piece of advice I got on marriage? I was nursing Briar in a chair beneath a sun-drenched window on the eastern side of our house. She was 4 days old. My mom set a sandwich on the arm of the chair, stroked Briar’s head and whispered with her lips touching my ear, “You leave something for Sean. Promise me that you’ll leave something for him.”  I nodded absent-mindedly. She walked away nodding almost as if she had accomplished the whole purpose of the trip in those two sentences

***

Leave something for him. 

It is so hard for me to remember that. Hal and I met ten years ago this week. Months later we were pregnant. We stayed together for our son. We stayed together for our family. It was never about the two of us and that has been a huge challenge in our marriage. I don't know how to be a wife without being a mother, too, because I was never one without the other.

Leave something for him.

Yes.

Thank you, Amanda/Amanda's mom. 

***

And this. Oh my heart, yes:

Pushing off the chair, we headed for the trail and I felt the understanding sink in—our stories are changing, just as teeth are being lost and crushes are being lit, the rhythm of how we sway in the wake of our own momentum is new. Briar and I have talks at bedtime, the lights turned out, her sisters tucked away in their own room, we conspire—to learn, to laugh, and to begin the startling and exquisite journey to a place where the way she needs me is different, less predictable.

The times when all three girls are in agreement seem less, yet they have certain things that fuse them together. I am devouring all of it, while realizing that there are shadows cropping up, plumes of warning.

I cannot share every story and I cannot be present for every moment. We were supposed to get to this moment, despite the lump in my throat, at their ascent and my own racing heart; this is good. My clench is slowing to a pulse, allowing me moments of letting go- 

“Sure, you can take a run without us, but please stay together,” I call to them as they disappear into the blur of neon ski coats, the other words about being super careful and not crashing into a tree fade at the back of my throat. They are letting go too.

Thank you for your words, Amanda. Your posts are a gift. 

GGC