No Time for Love
It’s funny how we have so many misconceptions throughout our lives. The older we get, the more we learn. The more we learn the more we know we don’t know.
I often joke about how someday I will have learned so much, I won’t know anything at all.
I also poke fun at my marriage in similar ways. It is a familiar question to ask someone you don’t see every day, “How are you doing?” Or, “How’s it going?” I commonly respond to this with something like: “Fine. Well. . . I think I’m doing fine. I haven’t talked to my wife yet today. Sometimes when I think I’m doing fine, she’ll let me know I’m mistaken.”
Little quips like this are fun to play with and usually harmless. Many of us tend to develop a number of such quips that we use to avoid a serious conversation. Usually because we are too lazy to really get to know someone, as if we needed another person in our lives to worry about.
So, we go about our lives with a set of superficial relationships with their respective superficial interactions. It’s not that we don’t care about people. It’s that we care TOO much, and don’t need another person’s problems tearing at our hearts. At least that’s what we tell ourselves. It’s probably closer to the truth that we are so selfish, we don’t want someone interfering with our life. Maybe it’s in between the two extremes. Let your own guilt trip tell you where you’re at.
Anyway, I’ve noticed how easy it is to develop a crust over our true selves. Sometimes it happens because we’ve been hurt. But, it can also happen because we have filled our time up with being busy. Between work, home responsibilities, TV time, computer time, and personal time, we don’t have time for relationships.
Now, this is tough enough when it comes to people outside our inner circle. The problem with many of us is that it is creeping in on our inner circle as well. Worse, it is becoming the definition of our generation. We don’t have time for others. We don’ have time for our family. And, we don’t have time for our spouse.
A while back, my wife’s and my friend married after many years of living single. A few weeks ago, she sent an email out to her entire address book with a change of email notice. That’s all fine, but she went on and on about how special her man was, how she changed her name, and wasn’t it so-o-o special how she changed her email to the absolutely perfect man’s name. She had changed her email to MRS.HisLastName@her.net and it was so scrumptious and sweet and—-my goodness, it was just stinking and reeking of sweetness over-full of giddy, puppy-like love. For crying out loud! Wasn’t she old enough to be past that!?
Shortly after, I realized how sad it was that any of us ‘get past that.’ I talk an awful lot about relationships. And, here was an example of what mine could be [it once was]. And, I was tromping it down in my mind as silly.
Well, we should all be so silly. I’m gonna open my wife’s car door all the time from now on. Even when we’re in my old beat up pick up truck, and it doesn’t seem as appropriate.
Anyway, you do it too. Do what it takes to keep your spouse feeling special. And, it wouldn’t hurt all of us to scrape away a little of the crust we have to reveal softer hearts toward others in our lives as well. We may find there’s a few folks out there that would make some really good friends.
Regards.
