Mike Humfreville
Super Nomad
Posts: 1148
Registered: 8-26-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
Cabin Fever
Cabin Fever
We?ve been sitting in our tiny rented home here in Southern California for the past weeks? rain. It?s cold and way wet and so soggy I can?t walk on
the grass without water running into the tops of my boots. But, like living in Baja, it does give me time to think. Time to settle in, do some home
work daily and think about what life will be like when I slow down, am no longer a member of the workplace. The slower I go the more I think I will
enjoy it.
The other day, with rain pounding down, I was reflecting over relationships. At least relationships where love is involved. I was sharing a
conversation with others and I had to think quickly about the subject before I spewed my thoughts out. I often don?t do well with thinking quickly,
as I like to chew on my thoughts before I voice them. Maybe that?s why I?m not big on IM?ing. Besides, I can?t type. Except by the hunt and pack
method.
So, in my mind, I put relationships into two categories: infatuation and maintenance. I know, there are many more, but those are the two top ones.
Infatuation:
They meet, fall in love and lust, get married, do a number of years honeymooning all over the earth, live in Baja for a summer, have children and
spend 20 years in various forms of love, attend T-ball and soccer games, do the laundry, outline life for their children with principled ribbons, and
grow into what he, at least, thinks of as an immature maturity. They have a love that confuses their sense of hearing to the point that it stops
working, the pulse-pounding, throbbing tell-him-this-meaningful-thing, ask-her-to-marry-me-question, when-will-we-start-our-family-issue, are all
hitting them in the face and dancing.
Maintenance:
Somehow now the major early decisions of life and family are all behind them and they are faced with the future, unknown. The kids are gone and leave
the parents wondering. They are still in love. The definition of love may have changed somewhere along the way. Its not like family is gone, but
the children are raised. Work and earned income are things soon to be of the past. Love is as much part of the picture as it was during infatuation,
but its form has changed. If only a little. How could it not? After living together 40 years?
But it all comes together. As we age we?ll continue to find varying ways in which we need each other. Those ways will always be changing. In Baja,
we?ll be away, at least part of the time, from our family and will redefine my two categories of infatuation and maintenance. With our lives
shifting, rejuvenating themselves into a new structure of just-the-two-of-us, I guess we might be entering a whole new cycle. Maybe, on a stretch of
sand on the east coast of Baja, we might just experience the high drama we had when we first met. It won?t be quite the same. We know each other
well now, our good traits and bad. We?ve learned to live with them. But I know there is more to experience.
It?s out there, just waiting for us with a smile and a hug.
|
|
|
Diver
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4729
Registered: 11-15-2004
Member Is Offline
|
|
Mike,
You're getting it !
Life's changing phases normally cause the intelligent person to reflect.
Retirement from the formal working place will be a great freedom that will grow on you.
Love, love love....
Partners in trust, love and lust, partners in parenting, partners..........
By the later years we have been partners in so many different phases of our lives. Our relationship has changed, grown, changed
again........retirement is just another phase of the partnership !
Good partners are hard to come by !
You're much better with the words than I but the more I look towards my drooling, open zipper, more forgetful years, the more I look forward to the
company and support of my partner.
By the way, discovering the new, free, together-a-lot-more, retired life has enticed many over 60's to have sixx on the beach ! (and other fun places)
Often !
Enjoy !
|
|
|
djh
Senior Nomad
Posts: 936
Registered: 1-2-2005
Location: Earth mostly. Loreto, N. ID, Big Island
Member Is Offline
Mood: Mellow fellow, plays a yellow cello...
|
|
Thanks, Mike 
Its all just stuff and some numbers.
A day spent sailing isn\'t deducted from one\'s life.
Peace, Love, and Music
|
|
|
Mike Humfreville
Super Nomad
Posts: 1148
Registered: 8-26-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
Thanks guys,
but Diver, don't you hate that damn sand?
|
|
|
Diver
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4729
Registered: 11-15-2004
Member Is Offline
|
|
As usual, you are ahead of me already.
Personally, I prefer a blanket or a splash in the surf........nuf for the imagination; more than enough !
Remember those nasty burns on the back of the wrist from carpet ? sand can be worse !
Ah, the memories.....wonder where the wife is mmmmm......might have to go find her ? Better go fast before I forget where/why I'm going !
Good night all !
|
|
|
Eli
Super Nomad
Posts: 1471
Registered: 8-26-2003
Location: L.B. Baja Sur
Member Is Offline
Mood: Some times Observing, sometimes Oblivious.
|
|
O.K., Mike, so........
This is an area of expertise that I have next to no experinse in. Often, I see older couples sitting on the bus, heads turned into each other, deep in
a discussion born of an intamicy that only rasing a family and getting kicked around by lifes up and downs can bring. And yes, I must certainly admit
that with all my freedom of go where I want and when I want and do pretty much what I want to do, I certainly do envy them.
This late in the game, it is highly unlikly that I will be able to taste that side of being a humane being, so thank you Mike for telling me about
your life experinse, I will count your story along with my mental image of the middle aged couple on the bus grown togeather into one.
Which brings up an important issue born of ignorance of not completly experinsing the cycle myself; I have always been concerned that in the two
forming one (couple), do you lose your indentity as one individual? In the one serious realionship that I had in my life (17 years), I felt that I
just about completly lost who I was in playing the part of what my partner felt I should be.
Ay sigh, here is to an Old Love, if it is a good and true love, than I am sure it is the best love.
[Edited on 1-14-2005 by Eli]
|
|
|
Mike Humfreville
Super Nomad
Posts: 1148
Registered: 8-26-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
Sara,
I don't think you lose your identity. But that my thinking, not everyones. I'm sure a submissive personality ruled by a dominant one might feel
differently. We're all so unique that each couple has their own connections to weave.
|
|
|
movinguy
Nomad
Posts: 257
Registered: 3-19-2004
Location: Chula Vista, CA and Tijuana, MX
Member Is Offline
|
|
I read somewhere (don't tax my memory) that a long-term relationship consists of several distinct "marriages". That is, every 10 years or so your
relationship enters a new phase that is somewhat akin to starting over. And these changes require corresponding adjustments in priorities, values,
attitudes and so forth.
Being 17 years into my current and hopefully only marriage, I can offer only the following observations:
1) Be thankful for what you have. It shouldn't take tsunamis or cancer to make one appreciate life.
2) Don't sweat the small stuff. If it's not REALLY important - like tsunamis or cancer - let it go.
PS:
In the last 5 years, the closest moments my wife and I have spent - emotionally and physically - have been in Baja.
Go figure.
|
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
