Day 63: It's More Than Just the Super Moments

As a lifelong Pittsburgh Steelers fan I was, of course, thrilled to once again see my team in the Superbowl. My husband, on the other hand, claims Wisconsin as his home and therefore actually owns a foam cheesehead. (By the way, they are just as stupid looking in person as they appear on TV.) So tonight's game was epic in the Bramline household, or it would have been, if there still were a "Bramline" household.

I couldn't help feeling going into this game that there was more than the Lombardi trophy on the line. I joked to those that were unaware of our separation that if the marriage could survive this, we might have a chance, but honestly, maybe it wasn't a joke. I love my team, but a big part of me was secretly rooting for the Pack. I'm a realist, Jeff's married to me and I'm not winning any trophies for wife of the year, he could use some good news. It's not like I believed that watching his team win the SB would suddenly put him in the mood for reconciliation, but it couldn't hurt either. Right?

As a society, we may be putting too much energy into rooting for sports teams, friending people we're already friends with, and ripping on Justin Bieber. We should at least put the same level of effort into living our real lives. Here I am hoping that a fun night of football could erase some pretty awful choices, but life is not entertainment. Real life and relationships cannot be lived like a movie. There are no grand gestures to suddenly make someone forget the bad and embrace what moments before was possibly worth throwing years of love away. Life is not about "the big game." The big moments of life are there to be cherished and enjoyed, sure, but they do not erase a bad season. Those moments existed too.

So we spent the weekend together, we watched the Pack win, it's been a pretty good two days. Am I still separated? Um, yeah, but I handled my team's loss with grace and congratulated the husband on his win. He thanked me for being a good sport, offered me another beer and left the room to go play an online video game. Not a bad start, but it's not all rainbows and puppies. Maybe the fate of our marriage didn't hinge on the outcome of a football game, even one this important to both of us, but anyone that's ever suffered through the potential end of a relationship knows one good weekend is pretty much like a Superbowl win. It's big, so while we may still be Bramlett and Esterline for now, there could be a trophy at the end with Bramline engraved on it. We just have to keep perspective and remember it's not about one game, it's about all the time, energy, practice that went into it.