Here's Looking at You

In a recent sermon I said that there’s nothing all that miraculous about love at first sight. What is the miracle is that someone can continue to love you after 20 years of looking at you.

As my partner and I celebrate our 20th year together I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

I know that there are people who question just what it is that V. and I share. We still have the occasional disagreement. Sometimes we shout at each other over things, that in the great scheme of life, make absolutely no difference whatsoever. There are still the off days in which we are cranky, ill-tempered and downright bitchy to each other.

I have a bad habit of being snappy when she can’t read my mind.

Over the years she has seen how frightful I can look first thing in the morning.

She’s brought me any number of capricious requests when I’m sick and whiny – mostly just to shut me up.

She’s supported me as I’ve looked for my calling and tried to make a living that made sense to my soul. In 20 years she’s never complained as I’ve worked:
- at a workout facility
- in an insurance office
- as an elementary school teacher
- in graphic arts
- in marketing
- at a t-shirt place
- as a missionary in the United Methodist Church
- mowing grass
- back in graphic arts
- as a janitor
- as a pastor

Some of my jobs have cost her a lot. She lost her sense of place as we were forced to move. She lost a lot of her privacy as we moved into a church parsonage as she became a “pastor’s spouse.”

In spite of all my flaws and eccentricities she continues to look right at me – sometimes right into my soul.

We might have lost a lot of things in 20 years together. Not much the other thinks or does is very surprising anymore. There aren’t a ton of topics of conversation that we don’t know how the other will respond. We know a lot of the minefields to avoid stepping into.

But there’s another assortment of things to take the place of what we’ve lost over the years.

A pot of coffee on a Sunday morning, shared as we watch the birds in the feeders with no conversation being needed – just companionship and quiet. We don’t have to wonder any more what the other’s motivation is at any particular moment. There’s no price that can be placed on trust earned over what seems like a lifetime.

So, as we prepare to enter our 21st year – here’s looking at you (still!)