An alter for Bettie
“…The kind of love I’m talking about is the deep-seated concern that makes you put your loved one’s concern above your own. Eric Fromm says that you can really love someone only if you love all mankind. Well, he wasn’t talking about B. Dale. B.D. is afflicted with too much natural cussedness, as are a lot of my friends, to love on such a high plane. We are vain and thoughtless. And if you have to learn it, we are in school 7 days a week. The love I’m talking about sort of sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking. It becomes as natural as breathing, and, like Tevye’s wife, you hardly notice it.
There is pain in loving. On two counts. First, when your loved one hurts, you hurt, too. Second, when you love, you are really vulnerable to being hurt by your loved one. Cf. the aforementioned cussedness. And on these occasions you do notice it.
I’d like to talk for a minute about the last couple of decades of a marriage. You have long ago given up on trying to change each other. You’ve decided who’s boss and who’s REALLY boss. You’ve learned which buttons will cause your spouse to a) scream, b) fly into a rage, or c) give you THE LOOK designed to shrivel you up like a peach. So you don’t push these buttons except now and then (cf. cussedness). It’s not thrilling, but it’s warm and comfortable.
In this connection I have a regret: That on a typical, dull Sunday afternoon, when nothing was going on, and we were just sitting around reading or doing nothing in particular, I didn’t pause to realize how much I was enjoying it. And my advice is: Stop now and then on a dull day when nothing much is happening. Stop and remember how good you’ve got it…”