The Golden Roll...I mean Rule

In our home, Saturday mornings tend to be more sacred than Sundays.  Regardless of where we are going on Sunday morning, the time is rushed. There is a calm during worship, but then the rest of the day is a marathon to finish all the weekend things and the preparation for the next week things.

Saturdays are different.  Every Friday night, Matt will look at me and say, “I think we should just sleep until we wake up tomorrow.”  And that is music to my ears.  We are constantly running from one thing to another.  Sleeping in is a luxury.

When we do get up, there is a sacred breakfast ritual.  Matt will fix us our weekend Nespresso “fancy” coffee with freshly frothed cream, while I start breakfast preparations.  He hands me my coffee in my favorite mug, a gift from my best friend.  And he takes his favorite New Orleans mug, a gift from his sister, and heads to the computer room to start addressing the 57 things in his head. 

Except he typically gets sidetracked before really getting started because he needs to pick just the right music to listen to while he works.  And that takes him on a meandering path of coffee sipping and rabbit chasing relaxation.

Meanwhile, I cook breakfast.  It is my favorite meal to cook in the whole week.  There isn’t the usual pressure of homework and time.  And it is a meal when we don’t count points or calories.  Also, I love breakfast.  I make pancakes and syrup from scratch.  French toast heavy on the cinnamon-y batter.  Cheesy eggs.  And thick, crispy bacon.  No turkey bacon allowed on Saturday morning.

Today, followed the usual routine.  Matt fixed our coffee and headed off to continue summer vacation research.  I started breakfast.  Bacon.  Eggs scrambled in the bacon yum yums.  And cinnamon rolls.

I bought several cans of cinnamon rolls for crockpot monkey bread on our camping trip over spring break, but I forgot to pack the other ingredients.  So we had a rare can of iced cinnamon roll deliciousness.

Saturday breakfast also happens at the breakfast room table and often lasts an hour or more while we talk.  Many times we plan for the weekend or upcoming activities.  But we also talk about other random things.  Vacations.  News.  Upcoming concerts in the works.  And how Matt has my permission to spend as much money as he wants to secure tickets to Phil Collins, number one on my concert bucket list.  Phil Collins is to me what Rush is to Matt.

Today, as we were finishing up our breakfast and winding down our conversation, I asked Matt if he wanted to split the last cinnamon roll.  I’d been eyeing it the last ten minutes.  One section of this roll was just a touch more toasted.  And without icing, you could see it would be a little crunchier than the surrounding iced, soft yumminess.

Matt agreed that we should split it, so I reached over and turned the pan in order to slice through the crunchy spot so we’d both have part of the extra good section.  I’d been planning this, as I’d been eyeing it, to make sure neither of us got all the crunchy spot.  Unfortunately, my fork cutting wasn’t awesome, and one piece was still crunchier.

Just as I was reaching in to get the best piece to serve to Matt, he swooped in and grabbed the crunchy piece for himself.  I said, “Hey, I was getting that piece.”

He said, “I know.  But I beat you to it.  You can have the good one.”

As we finished our breakfast, I sat there thinking about how good it is to be in a relationship where both people try to think of the other person first.  At the same time I was planning to serve him the extra gooey goodness, he was thinking about how to turn the tables.  And he did.

It’s just kindness.  The golden rule.  Putting someone else’s needs first.  Not that either of us “needed” any more cinnamon roll goodness.

Having been a part of a failed marriage, I’ve had ample opportunity to examine what works and what doesn’t in a relationship.  And while there are a variety of really big things that lead to the end in my first marriage, the underlying ingredient that sets my current relationship apart is kindness.

But not just kindness.  More like a kindness partnership.  It isn’t just my goal to be kind; it’s Matt’s goal too.  It flows both ways. 

I think the golden rule is like a super power.  When partners are both treating the other the way they want to be treated, it creates this circuit of kindness that just keeps growing as it flows back and forth.

And that’s critical because “hangry”…is a real thing.  And so is pumpkin time; it starts at about 9:00 pm for me.

But having this arc of kindness that is constantly flowing and growing between two people makes hangry and pumpkin and cranky--manageable. Survivable.  Thrivable.

I realize that some people would say that Matt and I are still in the honeymoon phase.  But to be perfectly frank, that’s some BS.  In a blended family, there are some complications and nightmares that make the learning, growing, stretching, and struggling much more intense.  And if you don’t believe me, you should spend some time really getting to know a family like mine.

There is rarely a week that goes by that doesn’t include some trauma from our baggage or the blended family predicament.  It is kindness, every single time, that gets us through.

I am not kind all the time.  Definitely not.  I am frequently cranky, hangry or pumpkin.  But kindness is my goal.

And I’m convinced that in the relationships of those around me that I admire, the people who seem to still really like each other after 15, 20 or more years, there must be an undercurrent of kindness and rushing in to take the crunchy piece.

In the very best of circumstances, relationships are hard work.  Daily work.  Moment by moment work.  My advice?  Share the last roll.  And sometimes, trick your partner into taking the best part.