This is the most inspiring, romantic/realist/just plain decent advice I've ever read on Cracked... at least it sure seems like it to me.
I guess that most of the time when people talked about long-term committed loving relationships, at least over the last couple years, I've sortof smiled and nodded and not believed half of it. But once in a while somebody who actually has lived a little drops a bomb that I can't ignore.
"the amazing thing about being married to someone this long" this person said, "is that they know more about all your worst things than anyone else, and yet they keep loving you... and alternatively I guess I know the same about them, but I love him more today than twenty years ago."
and then there was this one,
"The one thing that does stink about being married to someone you like so much is the question of: What if they die before me? Where does that leave me?"
Holy shit.
yes. That's what i thought, but i let it go, because it just went flying through the air like mashed potatoes at Christmas and we went back to talking about the weather or what-the-crap-ever.
Love that's a long haul...
You know, I'm pretty damn sure that's what i want.
For a bit i was wondering if its all about the action, the romance of playing the field.
F*ck that.
Maybe the fairy tale is over-romanticized... yeah, that's actually pretty likely. And maybe half of all people who get married don't stay married, and that stat is only going to get better because people stop getting married... But on the other hand, its what my parents did, and its what their parents did, and so on... I'm starting to accept that tradition and convention are not the same thing necessarily, and if i ever have kids I think I'll probably do them a disservice if i don't pass on some kind of tradition which i value.
F*ck its hard to be a good human being some days, but I'm starting to think that tradition might actually help.
I love this story I heard about a rabbi's answer to being asked about their Jewish athiest population. He says that its ok. some will return to the tradition. In the mean time, the tradition- the community- will carry on for them, and thereby carry them.
That seems right. Righter than this stand-alone die-alone sort of mentality that many have.
So I get up in the morning and try and face the day. I wrote a while back about switches going on in the brain, where an immediate switch is sometimes possible. I wrote about being a good person because of a belief in the sanctity of life, because you love someone, because you believe in God. But shit, sometimes i wonder if all you have is tradition: a convicted convention, if you will. It says get up in the morning and do it even though you're not sure it matters, even if you've got no-one watching you, even if you're not sure you believe God is watching or even there today. Get up and damn-well do it anyways, because its fucking worth it. Because its better to believe the romantics, the artists, the theologians, the bravest philosophers and Jesus Christ himself for the sake of hoping that the sun will come up on their words, than throwing caution to the effects-of-the-wind and living like an animal to its carnality.
I'll be the romantic, so help me God.
Everything must change
There's a mirror showing me the ugly truth
These bones they ache with holy fire
But I've got nothing to give, just a life to live
If your world is without color
I will carry you, if you carry me
-Martin Smith
