Category Archives: relationships

Which side of the road should the chicken be on?

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It is almost November and the weather is going to great lengths to remind us of the impending torture of unpredictable temperatures and precipitation for the next thirty plus days.  Today was a glowing example of that.  The remnants of Hurricane Patricia swirled hungrily around our little town and brought with them the feeling of doom that always precedes winter.  The rain fell sideways and the South West wind systematically unzipped our coats to leave us feeling exposed to the elements.

On my drive home from work, watching the storm-laden sky become even darker, I could think of nothing more than crawling into a cave of blankets in my living room and allowing myself to succumb to the heat that would soon be escaping from my baseboard heaters.  The thought of having to cook a full dinner did not impress me at all so I visited the grocery store and purchased a warm, fragrant pre-roasted chicken.

There is nothing better than comfort food on a cold, grey night.  The pungent smell of the chicken permeated my kitchen as I boiled some potatoes and made a somewhat deconstructed stuffing.  Onions and celery were left to saute with some bacon as the potatoes were mashed into submission.  I usually love to add some flare to the presentation of my meals, but comfort food speaks loudly and needs neither pomp nor circumstance to assert its message.

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The food was delicious.  My heaters obliged by taking the chill out of the air but the meal lacked a certain something.  I love my solitude.  I enjoy my own company and I have several friends, one close friend in particular, who admire me for being so content on my own.  But my “Thrifty Thursday” Chicken (as the store labelled it), my mashed potatoes and bread-less stuffing would have tasted much better had I been able to share it with someone special.

There is much to be said about living on your own.  That privilege of freedom defines gratitude better than a thousand dictionaries.  But the joy of being in a room with someone who helps accentuate your happiness is immeasurable.  Whether those moments are shared in silence or lost in a cacophony of laughter and endless conversation, those are the moments that create memories.  And those are the moments that can sometimes make solitude feel a little more like loneliness.

 

I should have saved at least one

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My mother and I never had a traditional greeting when we called each other.  Instead of the banal “Hi Mom”, I could not help but deviate to the voice and the very unusual way Steve Martin used the word in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I mean.  For those of you who have not had the pleasure of viewing this 1980’s masterpiece, allow me to introduce you.

When she was still with us, I would dial my mom’s number and when I heard her voice say hello, the first words out of my mouth were “Muther, muther”, doing my best to imitate Steve Martin as the classic character of Ruprecht.  She would always respond with an elongated “yeeeessss”.  It was our thing.  It was something only the two of us shared and it made me want to call her all the time just to hear that extended response because it made my heart smile every time I heard it.

It’s been just over a year and a half since she left and I still find myself nonsensically picking up the phone to call her.  There are still things in my life that I only want to share with her and, although I know she has all of the details of my life, I just want to hear her voice one more time.

I think back to all of the voice mails she left for me and I berate myself for not saving any of them.  Even if it was the most trivial narration of what had happened in the dining hall, that simple communication contained the timber and gentleness of the voice I have known for longer than I have physically been on this Earth.

Sometimes I think I have been able to pull that sound from the vault of my memory but it will always be missing that special element.  It will always be missing her, just as much as I am.

It was a bad math exam

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I lived through a very tumultuous marriage.  It was a great lesson for me but, in mathematical terms, the product of my relationship was divided by the sum of our differences and eventually created a result that lacked a remainder.   There were so many variables and so few constants that our bond was doomed from the beginning.  I should have been the operator but, instead, I felt like a fraction of my true self.

The formula for a successful bond relies on a form of symmetry.  The arrangement of the most fundamental parts of our lives need to align to create a true collaborative bond.  You cannot expect to live a happy life in a paradox.  You cannot create an answerable question without supplying the linear equation that gives you those answers.  All of the pieces of your life need to make you happy, not just the sum of the happy parts.  Going through the motions and cancelling out the negative parts of the bigger picture subtracts from the value of each day.  Sure you will make mistakes along the way, but those mistakes should add to your education and not take away from your self-worth.

I lived that equation.  The perfect number may exist in the glossary of mathematical terms but it does not thrive in real life.  Perfection takes effort and, at the end of the exam, all of the negatives never added up to a positive for me.  I was in the wrong equation and it was glaringly evident.  It was time to subtract myself and cut my losses.

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Once my math exam was over I learned to breathe freely again and I felt empowered by my freedom.  I learned to enjoy my own company more than I ever had and it was liberating.  What I currently perceive as solitude some would call loneliness but they don’t have the numbers to back up their hypothesis.

I now spend my days knowing that I passed that math test and that my final grade has truly helped me balance my life in a way that I never thought possible.  And now that I have erased the errors of my past, I am free to create a new formula for my happiness.  I can choose to remain constant or I can choose to add or subtract the things that will bring me the most happiness.  Regardless of what I choose, I know I will only add the people who fill the gaps in my life and not those who subtract from my bliss.

When the world seems silent, the heart still has a voice.

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The whisper of real love

tickled my ears so long ago

and feels like a long forgotten conversation.

Those words,

those sweet nothings,

sadly,

no longer seem to be in my vocabulary.

But the book of love

still has music in it and

every so often I open that book.

Those notes play melodies on my heart-strings.

The familiar phrases of love,

the notes on the scales of romance,

still exist

and play wistfully in my memory.

Perhaps I am meant to hear that music again.

Just maybe the songs I hear from that book

are heard by someone else

and we haven’t yet had a chance to listen to them together.

For just a moment,

 I want to close my eyes and really hear the music.

I want the Book of Love

to play a song for me just one more time

and have it be the only song I truly hear

for the rest of my life.

A little water goes a long way

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“It takes a long time to grow an old friend.” ~ John Leonard

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 There is something inherently great about spending time with someone who just gets you.  You never feel the need to have to defend your point of view and you feel comfortable sharing your deepest personal feelings, your laughter and your tears without any fear of judgement.

I am deeply blessed to have many of those friends in my life.  There are some who I see regularly, some who are separated from me by provinces, there are some out of touch by circumstance and there is one in particular who has mysteriously reappeared after we let decades slip past.  But, in each case, we have been able to pick up where we left off and the glue that binds our relationship remains intact.

Friendships like these have sustainability like the house plants you had in your dorm room during college or university.  They may have been neglected and not received the water required to grow, but somehow, miraculously, they continued to thrive and flourish although they were not given the consideration they could have received had they been tended to daily.

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True friendships will continue to grow and spread their roots deeper into the soil of the relationship.  And whether they are watered frequently or left for weeks at a time to fend for themselves, good friendships will sustain themselves during the lonely times and blossom during the moments they are nurtured.

It does take a long time to grow an old friend but it is certainly time well spent.

Discovering what is hidden

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Admittedly, I am going through withdrawal.  I have not gone on a cleanse nor have I given up an addiction but I find myself recently emancipated from certain friends who truly know my soul and I feel somewhat lost.

Cultivating a friendship from a distance becomes easier as more time passes.  The initial shock of distress subsides and the feeling of isolation is adapted to and accepted.  But when that friendship is reanimated at a one-on-one level it makes the strain of separation that much more painful when those friends have to leave again.

I had effortlessly assimilated to a quiet lifestyle and one that I enjoy very much.  I had been very content to come home to an idyllic piece of property in a secluded location that I share only with my dog.  I had become ensconced in a life of post-work anonymity.   And then the axis of my world shifted.

After decades of being complacent, I found my mind wandering.  After years of feeling satiated, I found myself yearning for something I had not known I was seeking.  The thought of a different lifestyle became abundantly clear and my mind was in turmoil.

I have not invited any of these conceptions into the realm of my existence at this point, but knowing I have the opportunity to entertain these strange thoughts is exciting.  Having the ability to welcome these curious ideas into my life is liberating.  And just thinking that there is another chapter of my life possibly waiting to be written is extremely enticing.

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.” ~ Francios de La Rochefoucauld

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I want to think I have not lost myself in the process only to discover I have missed out on writing that new chapter.  I wish to believe that the well of ink still exists and will allow me to continue creating the story that is my life.  And I will never know if that story continues here or exists in another place until I become brave enough to turn that next page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dog days of summer….and fall

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Working in the hospitality business goes hand in hand with working strange and long hours.  I can adapt to the hours but my dog is the one who takes the brunt of my lifestyle.  I will never leave her outside on a chain to battle the elements – she is firmly ensconced in our home, lazily spending her hours watching the wildlife from the comfort of my bed.  I have several people who are more than willing to come over and let her out during the day because she is such a happy dog and, for me, having her be the excuse to leave work for thirty minutes is wonderful.  She is never a prisoner in her home – she is akin to a wealthy home owner with servants to look after her every whim.

During these long days, I often wonder how she bides her time.  Is she going through kitchen cabinets?  Has she mastered the satellite remote?  Does she inventory my refrigerator?  But each day when I get home from my struggle to survive my sometimes 10-14 hour days, she is there to greet me and nothing in the house seems out-of-place.  Until a few months ago…..

I returned home from my usual work day and I was greeted by the reassuring excitability that I have come to expect.  The house, as usual, was completely intact.  The garbage was untouched and the serene ambiance wrapped its arm around my shoulder and pulled me into its embrace to welcome me home.

My attention was immediately diverted to the duvet cover and what seemed to be a single article of clothing bunched up in the middle of the bed.  It wasn’t shredded and remained intact, however the entire shirt was extremely damp.  She had been licking my shirt for the better part of who knows how long, focusing on the remnants of deodorant I had left behind.  The baffling thing was, had I not known where the shirt was originally, I would never have known how she got to it.  My closet is masked by a cloth shower curtain that poses itself as a makeshift door.  Somehow, she was able to remove the shroud of the curtain, gingerly lift the shirt from the pile of laundry in the basket and replace the curtain so nobody would catch on to her devious plot.

As much as I miss her during my day, it struck me at that moment how much she truly missed me during her day.  The writing was on the wall, or in this case on the bed.  My scent comforted her during her lonely day and it made my heart ache to realize that fact.  We have a very close bond and one that she feels as much as I do.

I can only take solace in the fact that my work days will soon become shorter and more structured.  My time with her will increase and perhaps her need to be close to my deodorant-saturated shirts will abate somewhat because I will be here in the physical form and not just the odoriferous form.

And who knows, perhaps in the meantime I can save myself a fortune on laundry.

What is close enough?

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I have admitted before that my guilty pleasure is anything to do with “The Bachelor”, “The Bachelorette” or “Bachelor in Paradise”.  The shows are a ridiculous waste of time but time that allows me to indulge in absurd adult behavior caught on film and edited in a fashion that allows the viewers to quickly form opinions, not necessarily their own, about the participants on “reality television” but leave reality completely behind.

After the most recent publicly humiliating break-up, a female contestant was asked if she was in love with the man who broke her heart.  Her inane response, through a shower of tears, was, “No, but it was close enough.”.

That line stuck with me for a long time after the show ended.  Through a furrowed brow, I frequently went back to that line and mulled over how sad a life she must lead if she is merely willing to settle for close enough.  I know I am giving too much attention to a line on a television show that was edited for its shock value but it made me think about how many people suffer from the same yearning of just wanting to believe they have found that special person.

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This past weekend I was privileged to witness, and be part of, a ceremony that was leaps and bounds past close enough.  Two people, who are a perfect fit, pledged their love to each other in front of family and friends this past Saturday.  Their connection to each other redefines the opposite of close enough.  Their body language sounds louder than an orchestra.  Their eye contact portrays more emotion than a well-directed Hollywood romance.  And their genuine affection and care for each other is as conspicuous as snow in July.

Although I have a few more years under my belt, this past weekend they taught me a life lesson about what it is to truly find the person you were meant to be with.  There is no close enough.  There is no settling.  Love has one definition and there is no room for interpretation.  Love has no voice, only actions.  Anyone can say ‘I love you’ but it is the person that is willing to show you that love who will truly capture your heart.

Robert Heinlein said it and I quoted him in my toast to the happy couple ~ “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”

They have found that love.  And I can only hope that everyone has, or one day will have, the great fortune of finding a love that is close enough to the that bond these two share.

 

 

 

 

 

2 more sleeps lead to 2 important words

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As the dusk envelops an absolutely beautiful day, I prepare myself for one of the remaining two sleeps until my best friend walks down the aisle.  The last-minute details are falling into place.  Decorations are being completed, rehearsals are being performed and speeches are being fine-tuned.  And for me, the cake is being designed and the tissues are being collected and stored in accessible pockets.   The day is near.  Time has passed unusually quickly and the dawn of her wedding day is almost upon us.

We sat tonight, a group of random strangers who immediately became friends because of a common bond we have with the bride and groom, and we shared some precious moments leading up to the big day.  Not only did I meet some wonderful people, but I inexplicably became engaged to a delightful couple from Calgary!

Weddings bring out the best in people.  There is something inherently special about celebrating two people who have found “their person”.  There are details.  There are embellishments.  There is food, wine and dancing.  But above all of the tangible things associated with a wedding, there is a deep-rooted knowledge that the only really important detail about the wedding day is love.

I will proudly make my way down the aisle to stand beside my best friend as she says the two words that will mark the beginning of her new journey.   May they both remember the path that led them here and may they both embrace the adventure they are about to begin.

It’s not what we have in life, it’s who we have in our life that matters.