Four years ago today I walked into the Cheonan city government office and presented to them a paper they had never seen before and thus had no idea what the heck to do with it. It was a signed legal document from the Canadian government, a requirement for applying for a wedding certificate, but upon handing it over they then told me I needed to have it translated. Most of my friends know the story and how I sarcastically asked for an A4 paper to write out a translated version of it... and how they actually did give me a piece of paper. The blank piece didn't even so much as have lines on it nor did we have any white out to make corrections. With a scribbled down translation and not knowing if they'd even accept it, the government clerk stamped it, signed it and just like that we were married. This would NEVER fly by in Canada and I am convinced that perhaps only in Cheonan would this pass as sufficient. I don't know if I was the first foreigner they had ever married, surely I couldn't have been, but the whole situation seemed rather caveman-like in it's simplicity.
Four years later and I still laugh at the ghettoness of how I got married and how I woke up that day to Snickers' back completely covered in a rash. I was convinced it was pre-wedding jitters. Getting married as a foreigner here in Korea meant I had to get a lot of paper work filed out and filed. It also meant I had to financially expose myself, showing the officials that my bank account had sufficient funds. It was rather annoying and I thought maybe it had got the best of Snickers' nerves. Maybe the reality had suddenly hit him.
Four years later and where are these "sufficiant funds" I had to show I had?! Yes, "had" as in the past tense of the verb "to have". There used to be a time when I gave Snickers my bank card and a kind of allowance to help him out because he only had his boxing supporting him. He lived in a one room apartment with his father. And while he said he loved mountain training, running outside and using a massive transport tire for weight training, I used to think he only said he loved it because he couldn't afford else what. Four years later and now he makes me do mountain training for pre-fight training, I too have picked up outdoor running (and love it), and now our boxing club has two massive truck tires in it.
I wasn't expecting much for today's anniversary, beyond maybe us reminiscing of our dating life together that is. I know he doesn't really care about such holidays but I also knew that's him and, take it or leave it, that is him. I knew Snickers was the one for me about two months into dating and after seven months together we were then getting married and heading off to Bali for our honeymoon.
It hasn't been easy though. It's been both the best thing and the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. It blows my mind too how I could ever want to seriously head kick someone and then completely smother them with kisses all in the same breath. This is how it is. When I hear friends eagerly wishing to find that "special someone" and get married or talk about marriage as if it's some kind of perfect picture or solution, my head kicking wishes makes me point my toes at them. If you're not happy single then please don't make it someone else's responsibility because if you're not happy being single then you're not going to be happy taken. Moreover, marriage does not fix a problem, it amplifies it. You better be absolutely head over heels, 100% in love with the person because even that will get surely tested.
There were definitely a lot of factors going against Snickers and I when we decided to get married. There were just so many massive differences -- home country, culture, customs, language, religion, education, family dynamics,... the list goes on. I was the foreign girl from the multinational city of Toronto, Canada with the university degree on the wall in my over sized house where my church-going Christian parents of 40+ years raised my brothers and I. But Snickers, he was the countryside boy from "mono-culture" Korea, who had never stepped out of the country nor had lived in a house bigger than a few rooms. He came from a separated family with a sad history and had earned his street smarts in prison.
And when I think of all the reasons why Snickers and I wouldn't work as a couple, I can't help but somewhat envy my friends who are in a couple with someone from their own culture and country, and whom speak the same language. I know no marriage is easy but it confuses the heck out me when they say they can't understand each other. Compare to my world, they're very spoiled. Snickers didn't speak a lick of English when I first met him and he still struggles. My husband didn't even know to add proper capitalisation to his name when he wrote it in English on our marriage registry. He didn't know the word "capital" or "upper case". "Upper cut..what?!", was what he said when I told him to use upper case... hahaha.
No marriage is easy but marriage itself, when between two people that love and respect each other, is a pretty awesome thing. For me, it comes with a sense of security and peace, knowing that someone has my back and is here for me.
For today's anniversary, unlike what I had expected, Snickers had prepared something. He bought me a beautiful plant, had written me a love letter and brought home steak to cook for us. The letter was what stood out and I cried when I read it. He wrapped his arms around me and told me "we still have over forty years together... don't worry." Sometimes I do worry about us, this wasn't the "us" I thought I'd ever get involved with let alone label as the love of my life. But here we are, husband and wife and now four years into our marriage.
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