Lent - Day 10

One of the things my husband and I would do together, since the beginning of time, was to watch a bunch of the Oscar nominated movies together in the weeks preceding the award show. (Don't ask me how I am doing this now... I am not going to tell you.)

The other day, I watched Avatar without him.

Vern is not interested in watching the Oscar movies this year because he is busy doing other things. Which is okay. But I miss sharing them with him.

I like sharing a good movie with Vernon. It makes the movie itself that much more enjoyable to be watching it with someone who can appreciate it in the same way. Vernon is my kindred movie spirit. We've always liked and admired the same kind of movies. We appreciate independent, documentary, good-quality, and creative films... films like In the Bedroom, Magnolia, Little Children, Boys Don't Cry, Life is Beautiful, Crash, Sling Blade, Hoop Dreams, Memento, American Beauty, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the like.

Watching a good movie with Vernon is better than having sex. (Well, maybe not SEX, but definitely better than foreplay.)

But now, Vernon will never know how freaking amazing Avatar is, which makes me just a little bit sad. 

Which, like I said, is okay. Vernon is busy with other things because he has a purpose. He is not a paralyzed lion, and I love him for that. Vernon has a passion and he is pursuing it, and, I will tell you right here and now that it is changing him for the better. It really is.

I used to be the type of person who wanted to spend every waking moment with the love of my life. I wanted to model our relationship after Paul and Linda McCartney. I read something about them once where they said that they had only spent one night apart in their almost 30 years of marriage. At the time, I liked that idea. I REALLY liked that idea. There was something very romantic about the idea of Paul and Linda McCartney (or Vernon and Allison) never being apart. I didn't want to be apart from Vernon for a night... ever.

But lately, I'm starting to think that there is value in living our own lives. And what I mean by this is in living our own lives separately, but together (if that makes any sense). I think what I'm trying to say can best be described in the poem On Marriage from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. The last lines of the poem say:

And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Vernon is the oak and I am the cypress. We can grow, but not in each others shadows because then neither of us get any light.

I like that poem.

So, even though Vern isn't watching the Oscar movies with me (of which I have three more that I need to get watched by next weekend: The Hurt Locker, Crazy Heart, and Up In the Air), I am okay with that. Because that is what allows us to grow. And that is a good thing.

So, today, I am filled with love for Vernon. For all of what I've listed above and for this:

 

Because there is nothing sexier than a man wearing a sling. I repeat: There is nothing sexier than a man wearing a sling. NOTHING.