Hope to get to know you better…

I don’t know about in your part of the world but in mine… well me and Mr S are a bit of a rarity… we’re not unique but we’re certainly not in line with what seems to be latest fads and trends and fashions and our oddity is not something I consider really but every so often there’s a comment made that draws my attention and makes me think…

Such as a week or so ago getting a phone call from school and being addressed as (insert name of child here)’s mother…

Which kind of irritated me considering all the sodding paper work with my personal details I’ve filled in and surely it’s only polite to do a quick name check before you ring someone… No…? Mmmmm…. like I say…. I’m old fashioned…

I suppressed my annoyance… but conversation went from bad to worse and eventually I said… Look… if you want to update me then don’t ring me, email me…

I’m laughing now… but at the time I was WTF????? W???T????F???? as voice on other end of the phone said…

And do I address you as MISS Tarot?

Now that sent me all…

As I said…

MRS!!!  SEALEY!!! THEY CALL ME MRS SEALEY!!!

Which preceded an unfurling and lashing of my tongue that ceased only when I heard a wobble in the voice on the other end that seemed close to tears… after it had exhausted itself with back peddling and stuttering and stammering over policies and political correctness and we have to call you x’s mother, we’re not allowed to assume your name…

Mmmmm…. again…. drop the policies and political ineptness and p.p.p.p.pick up a penguin…. eh? no…. politeness!!! Go check your files and protect yourself from my sarcasm overload! 😀

Yeah… my guilty pleasure in case you hadn’t guessed…. sarcasm …oh…. and dicking with people who think they have authority over me because they have a trumped up job title that they prefer to introduce themselves by rather than use their name…

Ok… I’m off on a tangent here… so yeah… my point…

Apparently it’s bloody rare to be old and married and in a stable long term relationship…

Now someone else once said to me a few years ago – you and your husband make me sick, you’re so loved up with each other… don’t you know how lucky you are?

I said… Luck has f@ck all to do with it! We’ve had to learn to love each other as neither of us has the luxury of being able to f@ck off and run away when things get tough… we decided very early on that we would make this work…

See the first flushes of relationships are good and groovy and ha! floods and rushes of endorphins and hormones and whatever other tricks mother nature has up her sleeve to get you to shag and keep the planet populated… but what happens next…

Well if your partner was a mobile phone then you’d be looking for an upgrade and a better tariff and tossing the old one away in favour of shiny new buttons to press and apps to play with…

I don’t like that whole disposable culture thing… always looking for the new and the next big thing…

I think it leads to tossing things away before you’ve even discovered what they are fully…

In my more youthful years… I must confess that I confused romance with love…

It’s easy to do when you’re surrounded with people cooing about grand gestures made by their beaus…

I remember the approach to one Valentine’s day and wailing at poor old (actually he was not so old then) Mr S… There’s no romance in my life! You don’t woo me any more…

Now he made a valiant attempt and he brought me chocolates (I like them dark… like my soul… 😀 ) and he brought me the reddest of roses…

But also…THAT CARD!!!

My heart soared… this beautiful picture on the front and then I opened it… and the melt down began…

MAN!!! NO WAY!!! OH!!! MY!!! GOD!!! WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS???

HOW COULD YOU???? NO!!!! NO!!! NO!!!! YOU DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO READ THIS!!!!

DO I MEAN NOTHING TO YOU???

His little worried voice slowly asked… ok… I’m not sure what’s happening… what does it say…?

It says… I HOPE TO GET TO KNOW YOU BETTER!!!

Ok… you got me busted… I didn’t read it, I just thought you’d love the photo on it… why is that so bad?

I HOPE TO GET TO KNOW YOU BETTER!!! Man!!!! We’ve kids and cats and mortgage and car and stuff and shit and promises to grow old and die together and you don’t even know me… am I wasting my time and throwing away my life???

And then I sobbed until I found the hilarity of it and for maybe the next 10 years… every Valentine’s Day I would laugh and mock him and say… Hey! Still want to get to know me better?

In fact we still to this very day both laugh about it…

Because… Really… It was not until this year that I realised it was the most wise and profound and beautiful thing he could have said…

We are both so different from the people we were then… we’ve both grown and changed in ways that neither of us would have imagined and we fall in love with each other over and over again…

It’s not been easy, we’ve had to learn a lot about our own individual selves and face up to our demons and insecurities and learn not only how to be together but also how to let each other be apart when needed… to give each other time and space to pursue our own interests etc…

I said to Mr S a couple of days ago… you know… how come we don’t have those we need to sit and talk about our relationship type conversations?

He said… because we’re pretty undemanding and know when to leave each other alone…

I laughed… he makes me laugh a lot…

He makes me laugh uncontrollably like a small child…

I make him giggle and snort…

Our kids look on quizzical and tell us to grow up or get a room!

I don’t need hearts and flowers romance these days…

I know what I have is much better…

I have shared memories and in jokes and a man who I can reduce to helpless heap of chuckles by simply saying to him…

What’s the difference between a goat and a sheep?

We both know the punchline and the story behind that gag and it’s stupid things like that that keeps us glued together even when other things feel unstuck 😀

Oh… and in case you’re wondering….

My definition of love?

(Or maybe…Successfully resisting the urge to murder your long term partner whilst they sleep…)

😀