Tuesday, January 11, 2011

an expression of love

In the way that I evaluate the world, I put great stock in the ability to love something or someone to the point of oblivion to everything else. If you have to pencil it in your calendar and force yourself to make time for it, it is a chore, it is not love. When you are in love, you never have to find time, it makes its own time. It nudges everything else around and makes its own space. When you are in love, you don’t think I have no time to call her, no, you think how am I going to finish all this other stuff up so I can call her. When you are in love and she calls you, you don’t bark a ‘what?’ into the phone. No, you just cannot believe that she has finally called you, you try to hide how happy you are, and yet the smile that is exuding from every pore of your being somehow makes its way across the oceans and seven thousand miles away from you, she is happy too. That is love. I know it because I have been there, I have had it, and nothing you say now is going to convince me otherwise.

He now tells me that ‘all the work I do is for this family, for all of us, it is an expression of my love’ well, that is such baloney and crap. Because all the work you do is an expression of your contentiousness, your taking the responsibility of providing for this family, it is not an expression of your love for me. And you are right, you are doing an amazing job of providing for us, I have absolutely no complaints in that regard. But when you have to take your blackberry out to figure out when you can or cannot have lunch with your wife, and you end up telling her you don’t see how you can make it anytime before the 15th of February because you are just so swamped with work meetings, it is not an expression of love.

And the least you can do is understand why she is not so appreciative of you trying to give her some time. You should wipe that bewildered look off your face when she gets up and leaves, ‘Forget it, I don’t want to have lunch with you. Ever.’ Seriously, you are not the injured party here, so please stop acting like one.

No comments: