The task I thought would be simple. A. Define love and B. Somehow eloquently explain the depth of my love to my wife of 20 plus years. How hard could that be? I mean, she knew I loved her, didn’t she? I had made it a point to tell her that as frequently as possible. Convinced that if not constantly reinforced our relationship would slip into the abyss of divorce like so many others these days. So there I sat, trying to articulate this vague concept. One of the first problems I stumbled upon was the fact that you cannot see love. You cannot smell it. You cannot taste it. But you can feel it. How then was I, an emotionally challenged man, going to describe something that although real is still indefinable? I mean, as a small child I had loved our dog Bridgett dearly. However, I was pretty sure that this would not be a wise thing to share with my wife. Even though, "Bridgett" when properly groomed, had been a very attractive French Poodle. (Eerily similar in fact to…OK, again, not a good idea). I felt confident that such a comparison had all of the makings of disaster Soo...I had really, really loved my father's 1968 Dodge GTS as a teenager. And although we had called it a she, I worried my wife would not find the fact that I got an even bigger thrill looking under her "hood" as much of a compliment as it was meant to be.
Maybe I could talk about the way she made me feel. Yeah that was it. I could tell her how when she was on my arm I felt like I had just hit the lottery…only without the cash...and aside from the facts that I couldn’t buy a boat...or quit my job and play wipe-out on my boss's desk with his fancy smancy golf clubs! But it was something very similar…kinda? No, I needed to do better. Let me see, I thought. I loved Notre Dame Football and my wife was part Irish? And lord knows how happy I was when either one of them scored! Oh my, this was just getting worse. How did all these gay men do it? I was sure there had been more songs, poems and movies about love then you could count. Why couldn’t I come up with something?
Maybe I needed some music. Let’s see. Dawn-a…I just wan-nn-a..let you no-ah. Argg, that stunk. How about if I used one of those mushy ballet type songs chicks dig. Yeah a ballad, that was the ticket. Uhh-hum! “Did I ever tell you about my tat…tooo…?” OK, OK maybe? “It is not a rat…but it’s…about you-o-o...” I’m toast I thought! Besides, who was I kidding? I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. And forget the poems. I still struggled years after hearing it to get the whole "There once was a girl from Nantucket” thingy out of my head and I doubted a limerick would produce the Enrique Iglesias moment I was aiming for anyways. How much easier it had been when we were young. If we were ten years old, I could just walk into her office stick out my tongue, punch her in the arm, and run like the dickens out to the parking lot, waiting behind the door to scare her as she chased me out! Or, I could catch one of her coworkers in the hall and ask them to pass her a note. I LIKE YOU in big block letters. It was no use! Unless I could find a modern day Cyrano de Bergerac, I was dead in the water. Try as I may I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe after all it was a woman “thing”. They, it seems are much better at this whole nurturing fad.
And although I am sure, there is no way for me to love my wife any more deeply than I do. She will just have to settle for the typical guy cop-out. A dozen roses, a sacrificial dinner, and an artless Neanderthal communique. I Love you Princess and thank you for putting up with me for all these years, in spite of me being just a smuck.
The task I thought would be simple. A. Define love and B. Somehow eloquently explain the depth of my love to my wife of 20 plus years. How hard could that be? I mean, she knew I loved her, didn’t she? I had made it a point to tell her that as frequently as possible. Convinced that if not constantly reinforced our relationship would slip into the abyss of divorce like so many others these days. So there I sat, trying to articulate this vague concept.
One of the first problems I stumbled upon was the fact that you cannot see love. You cannot smell it. You cannot taste it. But you can feel it. How then was I, an emotionally challenged man, going to describe something that although real is still indefinable? I mean, as a small child I had loved our dog Bridgett dearly. However, I was pretty sure that this would not be a wise thing to share with my wife. Even though, "Bridgett" when properly groomed, had been a very attractive French Poodle, (Eerily similar in fact to…Ok, again, not a good idea). I felt confident that such a comparison had all of the makings of disaster
Soo...I had really, really loved my father's 1968 Dodge GTS as a teenager. And although we had called it a she, I worried my wife would not find the fact that I got an even bigger thrill looking under her "hood" as much of a compliment as it was meant to be. Maybe I could talk about the way she made me feel. Yeah that was it. I could tell her how when she was on my arm I felt like I had just hit the lottery…only without the cash...and aside from the facts that I couldn’t buy a boat...or quit my job and play wipe-out on my boss's desk with his fancy smancy golf clubs! But it was something very similar…kinda?
No, I needed to do better. Let me see, I thought. I loved Notre Dame Football and my wife was part Irish? And lord knows how happy I was when either one of them scored! Oh my, this was just getting worse. How did all these gay men do it? I was sure there had been more songs, poems and movies about love then you could count. Why couldn’t I come up with something? Maybe I needed some music. Let’s see. Dawn-a…I just wan-nn-a..let you no-ah. Argg, that stunk. How about if I used one of those mushy ballet type songs chicks dig. Yeah a ballad, that was the ticket. Uhh-hum! “Did I ever tell you about my tat…tooo…?” Ok, ok maybe? “It is not a rat…but it’s…about you-o-o...”
I’m toast I thought! Besides, who was I kidding? I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. And forget the poems. I still struggled years after hearing it to get the whole "There once was a girl from Nantucket” thingy out of my head and I doubted a limerick would produce the Enrique Iglesias moment I was aiming for anyways.
How much easier it had been when we were young. If we were ten years old, I could just walk into her office stick out my tongue, punch her in the arm, and run like the dickens out to the parking lot, waiting behind the door to scare her as she chased me out! Or, I could catch one of her coworkers in the hall and ask them to pass her a note. I LIKE YOU in big block letters.
It was no use! Unless I could find a modern day Cyrano de Bergerac, I was dead in the water. Try as I may I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe after all it was a woman “thing”. They, it seems are much better at this whole nurturing fad. And although I am sure, there is no way for me to love my wife any more deeply than I do. She will just have to settle for the typical guy cop-out. A dozen roses, a sacrificial dinner, and an artless Neanderthal communiqué. I Love you Princess and thank you for putting up with me for all these years, in spite of me being just a smuck.
