For better and for worse

 

So, for better or for worse means a little give and a little take.

I fell for my lover about quarter of a century ago. We were wide eyed teenagers as hungry for adventure as we were for each other. We travelled the world for a decade before we stood underneath our vows. For better or for worse as we had already supported each other through sickness and in health. It was a time when all I had to give him was my heart, and all he had to take from me was this simple offering of mine.

Life moves pretty fast when your not watching it. Over another decade, we gave a little and took little as our family began to grow. He stepped in one direction, I in another. Before long it took a conscious effort every so often to reach out and find his hand. I seemed to spend a lot of time at Coles. He seemed to spend a lot of time in a library. I found myself trapped in a gender stereotype – relentlessly giving him clean shirts and coffee so he would get up and I could make the bed. I started giving more and in turn started taking less, and before long –

I began expecting it.

This morning, I rose early while my lover lay long in bed. I watched how our new norm had quietly unfolded. My love of the early light, his need for the later dark. He took the coffee that I gave him as his alarm to wake up. He greeted me naked, as he flapped around in his sheepish Sunday morning man-hood. I rolled my eyes to the sky as he tried to convince me about my luck. In his self-perception of greatness he called out to me – would I prefer someone in my life who continually put in as much effort as him or someone that completely forgot to try.

I cleaned my teeth and wished. For him to say he was cooking tonight. For him to say he’d take the smalls for the day. For him to say he had passed all that he’d spent the last decade studying for, and the library that had taken him from us had now burned down.

I rinsed my mouth and turned to see my lover standing before me with his arms open wide. Wearing nothing but his sheepish Sunday morning grin

and purple ribbon tied around his penis.

Think abdominal twists, standing forward folds and bhramari breath.

We can spend a lot of time getting lost in the buzz words of society. Let’s be grateful to build empathy. Let’s be curious to build learning. Let’s be creative to build resilience. Soon it seems we’re lost in what we should be thinking and doing in order to be the best version of ourselves social media believes we can be. We begin watching the world and trying to find our connection around and within it. And sometimes I can be so consumed by my efforts inwards, I forget to reach back outwards.

Relationships can be like the movement of the river. Sometimes there is a gentle flow and sometimes there is crazy chaos. Sometimes the water is still and sometimes the water is stagnent. There is a fundamental difference between the two states of the same thing even though they can both kinda look the same. One being focused and controlled, effortlessly graceful and directed. The other being impulsive and festering, unconsciously impressionable and fleeting.

Where there is holding in the mind there is holding in the heart. If we hold our heads in a particular space continually, we begin to expect that space to always be. We forget that our ego as an activity – not a thing. We easily forget to notice when we are doing it rather than being as one with our world.

Any sentence that begins with “I” is at risk to be illusion of it all.
No matter how much you think you give or you take.

Our relationships are fertile ground for practicing our creativity and our awareness. A space to practice gratefulness and explore curiosity. To consider how we can connect with our loves and how we can sometimes forget to do so. I know my lover hates where he has to be at the moment just as much as I do, but he understands that at the moment that is absolutely where he needs to be. Right now, his “give” to me can’t be a meal. His “better or worse” can’t be a date-night. His “take” can’t be a shop at Coles. But he can wrap his dick in a simple purple ribbon and in doing so remind me that he has never stopped creating ways to make me laugh and he has given me completely the whole of his heart. And the simple, graceful and directed thing for me to do is to accept all that he can give me right now. To remind myself to expect nothing less than his simple love as a reminder of the original state of myself. That our river is still flowing in it’s quiet gentle way and times of stillness are gifts to be treasured rather than stagnation to fear. My lover will always, always make my soul shine.

Because he knows that purple is my all-time favourite colour.

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