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Saw other Paul today (obviously, seeing as it is friday) and we had a conversation about the nature of love, real solid trying to be with someone forever love. How it isn't all fluffy bunnies and valentine hearts and actualy how that soppy romantic crap so doesn't matter. Its the day to day things that build solidity, that build trust. It is looking after each other after a tough day. It is dealing with each others nightmares. It is shoring up and enabling to the best of your ability the others hopes and dreams. It is doing the others washing for gods sake. It is always, always being interested in each other. My paul and I have been kicking around together for nine years now and there are still things we dont know about each other. It is knowing the worst and best that the other person has to offer. It is not sex or romance, for me romance is about shoring up the staus quo and the outdated gender boundaries. Now sex, I think sex is important in relationships and does create deep rich conections if the relationship is working, and truly it does get better (if less frequent) the longer you have been with someone but it wont make the relationsip work. Love, the kind of love that builds long term relationships is damn hard work, is persistance, is commitment, is always negotiating and not assuming. But also is not complete obsession with the relationship.It is being prepared to work on yourself as well and not expecting your partner to solve it or fix it, whatever it is. Too many people seem to think relationships build themselves and walk away when they can't seem to make it work. Saying that every day of my life I remember how damn lucky I am to have ended up with the partner I did.
This poem encapulates compleatly how I feel about the matter.
There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;
Which checks the insurance, and doesn't forget the milkman, which remembers to plant bulbs;
Which answers letters, which knows the way the money goes, which deals with dentists
And road fund tax and meeting trains, and postcards to the lonely
Which upholds the permanently rickety elaborate structures of living; which is Atlas.
And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing to my brickwork;
Insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dry rotten jokes,
Remembers my need for gloss and grouting;
Which keeps my suspect edifice upright in the air,
As Atlas did the sky.
U A Fanthorpe
This poem encapulates compleatly how I feel about the matter.
There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;
Which checks the insurance, and doesn't forget the milkman, which remembers to plant bulbs;
Which answers letters, which knows the way the money goes, which deals with dentists
And road fund tax and meeting trains, and postcards to the lonely
Which upholds the permanently rickety elaborate structures of living; which is Atlas.
And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing to my brickwork;
Insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dry rotten jokes,
Remembers my need for gloss and grouting;
Which keeps my suspect edifice upright in the air,
As Atlas did the sky.
U A Fanthorpe
