One Perfect Day

You know, I was so steamed up after writing that last post that I summoned up the last scraps of energy left over from a very hard week and talked to the Big Dude about all this.

He wasn't very happy about the conversation. Afterwards, I thanked him for listening and he said, "Well, I didn't have much choice". But then, truly, he was perfect to me all day. He talked about how all the things I have been working on are actually going really well. He praised my contribution to our little family. He said how much he loved and appreciated me. He hugged me without me having to ask. And it was like that all day.

And at the end of the day, he said he had plans for the evening to "improve my morale". And how? Through a lovely serving of tofu burger, that's how!

But you know what I liked best about that day? The conversations. When we had interesting thoughts, instead of keeping them to ourselves or burying ourselves in books and TV and household tasks, we shared them. We had great conversations, scattered throughout the day, which I really enjoyed. To tell you the truth, I had half-forgotten what an interesting man he really is.

And I liked the attention. There is something about a person truly listening to you, giving you their full attention instead of still leafing through a newspaper and saying "uh huh" in the right places, that is a very intimate and loving gesture.

Sometimes I think that love is fundamentally about attention. Paying attention to that person. Observing them. Listening to them. Figuring out what makes them happy and trying to do more of it. Noticing when they seem unhappy. Being willing to do the hard work involved in changing behaviour that isn't working instead of talking ourselves into believing that everything is fine, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I complain a lot about some of the bad things that have happened to us and I worry about how they affect our relationship. But to be honest, I find the real enemy of our love is a kind of laziness or inertia. When we stop really listening to each other. When we know what each other needs, but quietly decide that it is all too much effort. When we allow ourselves to get preoccupied by other things, as if those things are more important than the quality of the relationship that is at the centre of our lives.

Sometimes we retreat into wishful thinking about how relationships shouldn't be this hard or require this much effort. We start fantasising about other options or even just get in the habit of waiting quietly as if things will start improving on their own instead of doing something to make it happen.

I see this inertia in the Big Dude and I see it in myself, and I see it around me, in both the "real world" and in Blogland too.

In my experience, relationship issues rarely improve on their own. Most of the time, a relationship left alone tends towards greater entropy. Like that old joke about the second law of thermodynamics and how everything turns to shit.

To be honest, the Big Dude was almost overperforming yesterday. Not that I didn't enjoy it. I was very, very happy. But there is no way he has the energy to sustain that level of effort for long.

To my mind, it was one perfect day. And that one perfect day meant so much to me that it was worth the effort involved in having that discussion, even if that turns out to be the only result.

If he can sustain just ten per cent of the level of effort he put in yesterday, I will be a much happier woman in general.

But to do that, he will need to pay more attention, and so will I. And that is the hard part.