Tuesday, March 23, 2010

You’re not going to put that there are you?


This is the way relationships go. I don’t know how many times J has heard me say those words. 15 years later, she still tries to rearrange an item or two, or position a new found object somewhere in the house. She never gets away with it. Whether she hears the words or not, it’s not staying where she put it any longer than it has to. That’s usually under a minute or so, on the outside, a day. But I have to say, each time, I am wondrously amused by her efforts. It is the most endearing thing to watch, and my heart fills up like a balloon as I silently take it all in. She trusts that I will, at the very least, wait for her to go through the charade of placing the object and let her enjoy the momentary delight she finds in doing so. It’s like an inside joke between us. She knows I let her ‘do her thing’, always very clear about the fact that she will be overruled. I love this about us.

This dance actually takes a lot of forms and it moves in both directions. She reluctantly ignores my gorging myself with ice cream, (because I feel it) and then very gently, three quarters of the way into a quart, says, “are you sure you want to do that?”. I always shamefully, but with a lot of theatrics, stop eating whatever I was sliding deep into my throat. In my head, I’m bullshit I couldn’t have finished it before she said anything. Externally I put on a face and thank her for saving me from the additional calories.

We also have some secret signals we covertly mime when either of us forgets where we are and publicly exposes one of our awkward or annoying ticks or bad habits. After so many years, we have developed quite a few signals. This requires extra time on the front end if we are meeting up with friends so we can review and practice some of the newer gestures. J actually isn’t very good at this and has twice knocked over a salt shaker while trying to signal me under the table about my clearing my teeth. I end up having to be quick with a comedy routine to cover up the error, and it pisses me off. It’s always SO obvious something stealth was going on.

We let each other ‘get away with things’, and other times we’re just helping each other along.

Just like that cliché of riding the wave of love…the ebbing tide…that always, inevitably, gives it up to the wave.

The best part is the constant falling in love with new parts, or parts you forgot you loved so much. I like re-falling in love, over and over again.

2 comments:

  1. https://twitter.com/shitmydadsays
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  2. Happy to know that the spark is still there in your marriage n that you are falling in love all over again. Enjoy being in love, hope it never dries up for you :)

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