Charles Baxter wrote, "When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch."
I think that’s really true. I’m blessed to be in love, and I think we do a lot of staying quiet together, just being, not moving an inch. And I think it’s great, because all the hustle and bustle of being single, even watching another person do it, is so tiring. And really, isn’t all of that hustle and bustle just an attempt to find a person with whom you can get to the place where you can just stay quiet together? So finally getting there, being there, is blissful.
Except I don’t think that’s true for a lot of people. I am always listening to women at work bitching about their S.O. And then they act as if it’s a rite. Of course they have complaints, because that’s how things are supposed to be. And the fact that I have nothing to complain about with N just means we haven’t been together long enough. If I wait for it, there will come a time when I have nothing good to say about him, when I’ll be glad he’s away for a night, a weekend, even better a whole week! Well I think that’s sad. Why do we have to drift into these stereotypical responses?
N and I have been married almost five years, together for 6.5. That’s not a phenomenally long time, but it’s a bit of time. And in that bit of time I have never regretted being with him, never wished he would go away, never had the urge to vent to "the girls" about him. I wanted to be with him in the first place because I love who he is, and I still do. That’s not to say that he’s perfect, or that I am or we are. But there is never a day when I am not grateful for him in my life.
This may sound like boasting, and I guess it is. I don’t mean to come across that way. For people who are in genuinely unhappy relationships, I am very sorry. But in general, I think women who are in good relationships still find things to vent about, because it’s fashionable. But N and I don’t talk that way to each other, how fair would it be to him for me to turn around and talk about him in public? I say keep your laundry, whether it be clean or dirty, in your own house. If people could practice being grateful a little more, I think they’d find it catching.
I think it's nice to sit still with N. And we have been so stressed and unstill lately due to the whole fertility fracas. I try so hard not to get in the dumps about it, or whine, but it's hard. I try to remind myself that if I start asking "Why me?" about the bad things, I'll have to ask about the good things too. And although I've had some definite downs, I think my life has been mostly ups. I don't want to forget that. I want to take the time to appreciate all the ups as they come.
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3 comments:
I think the majority of the reason that people complain like that is based in the fact that they are unhappy and disappointed with the life they have and instead of taking responsibility for it is much easier to blame the person near at hand. There is also the fact that if the fault lies outside of them they can not be held accountable for not changing it.
It is basically a combination of fear of change and an unwillingness to leave something that is comfortable, even if the comfort in that situation is cold and miserable.
Well my question is, how is that my problem? That sounds ruder than I mean to be, but it's the basic gist.
It isn't your problem. They will keep trying to get you to play along though. The fact that you don't play the same game is a threat to the belief structure of the people in question.
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