Loving all the time

When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment.
It is an impossibility.  It is even a lie to pretend to.
And yet this is exactly what most of us demand.  We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.  We leap at the flow of the tide and resist terror in its ebb.
We are afraid it will never return.
We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity—in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
~~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Another example of how long we have been married is that we considered a trip to WallyMort to be a good reason to be together and get things done on a Saturday night.

So we are standing in front of the vegetable case and I decide that a bundle of celery would taste pretty good, and I know Chris likes it as well.  I drop it into the cart, no questions asked from spouse (who rarely eats celery), nor qualms about the price.  Crunchy vegetable, lotsa fiber, vitamins, taste great with cream cheese or peanut butter.  Quite a reasonable addition to the diet, agreed?

Not too far away are a young couple late 20s with a baby in the seat of the cart.  The lady picks up a bag of baby carrots and tries to put it in next to the disposable diapers and case of beer.  The guy grabs it back almost before it hits the bottom of the buggy.  “You don’t need those.” he says.  “They cost too much.  Get the big ones.” he nods towards the bag of carrots that will need to be peeled and sliced.
She turned the cart the other direction and headed for the checkout.  “Oh, I don’t need any” came out with a bit of a sigh.

What bothered me so much is that was US about 20 years ago.  Not that there was ever any beer in the cart, but the worrying about every dime, and the decisions about worthiness of each and every item that we would need to eat or which child might like it more than another and dividing treats to be FAIR.
Arguments over diddly little bits of nothing, which was difficult for everyone in the family and we really can’t say why all the carrying on became such a problem.

There is the Control issue.  Two strong-willed persons with completely different backgrounds and ideas of the way things are supposed to fit together.
Throw in some religious mandates about the man being the head of the house, yet he doesn’t even remember where he left his keys, and could barely boil macaroni, so we gotta figure the household needs a more savvy manager.  Not that I am a manager type.  I’d just as soon use my energy doing it myself than to worry about someone else doing it half-assed.

I can’t really say an exact time for when we began to get along better.  When the sons got a bit older and more able to help with chores around the house.  It helped when Husband got a job where he feels better appreciated, and I got done with one where I wasn’t.

Standing in the Produce section of the grocery store, I wanted to grab that girl by the crook of her elbow and tell her that it doesn’t always have to be like that.  Times change, people grow with time and effort, a better job might come along and bring in enough extra cash to buy the baby carrots.  I wanted to hand her two bucks and tell her to give herself a gift.  I wanted to sit the guy down and tell him that his family is a treasure to be loved and nurtured and fed quality food.

Saturday night at the grocery store is a busy place.  When I got home I had a headache.
A couple pills, a nice bed then a night’s sleep.

I believe the same treatment for tonight.  The new crown on my back tooth hasn’t quite made itself at home yet.  It’s still protesting about cold cottage cheese and chewing lima beans.  One more day of ouchie will make a week, so I’ll be calling the dentist to ask about it.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
ps I snitched the picture from Raise the Roof Designs which I found during a ‘Net search about crafts.