The “Always” Relationship-Killer

Always! What a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

Extremes – life is full of them, isn’t it? And words like “always” and “never” are the ultimate extreme. They leave no room for error, no room for wiggling. Always is always and never is never. It’s black and white and perfectly built for breaking promises.

I wonder though, are women really more fond of using it than men? Or do women just verbalize more which inevitably leads to voluntary – or involuntary – slippages of “always”? I think, as a rule, women prefer to know where they stand in a relationship. Not always (<– on purpose!)…but usually, I think women want and need to talk through their relationships. And since I am a woman, I suppose I should be saying our relationships though I fancy that I talk less about my *gasp* feelings than most women. Perhaps it isn't the word "always" or the desire to have it last forever that spoils romances but rather the fact that women cannot be content to allow something play out as it naturally rolls down the hill. They…we…I…tend to pick apart and twist and turn and magnify and over think all the tiny nuances of relationships, trying to mold and fix them into a shape we like.

Maybe that's why a life-long passion can't last as long as a caprice.

“That awful thing, a woman’s memory!”

‘Tis true. Women will bring up thought-to-be-long-forgotten tidbits at the most inopportune times. Remember this, men. Remember this!

 

Beauty, Genius and Youth

I’ve wanted to read The Picture of Dorian Gray for a long time. As I’ve made my way through the first 60 pages, I’ve discovered that Oscar Wilde is fascinating in his use of one liners and short paragraphs that elicit a great deal of pondering. Definitely worthy of taking a few moments to really think about the things his words bring to the surface.

And Beauty is a form of Genius – is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon.

I find this statement interesting in that most people separate beauty from intellect. I do. How often was I told as a kid, “Beauty is as beauty does.”? Okay, never. Besides, the real quote replaces the word “beauty” with “stupid” and comes from the movie Forrest Gump. But it fit well before I explained it all away, didn’t it?

Rarely have I married beauty and genius together. In fact, I often am guilty of the opposite. I assume people blessed in the physical attractiveness department have not been particularly blessed with brains. Which is ridiculous. Smart people can be pretty, or they can be average looking. They can be six feet tall or legally defined as a midget. They can be thin, round, one-armed or three-toed. Since when do IQ levels pay attention to beauty? And why are our definitions of beauty what they are?

The definition of beauty is a transient and fleeting piece of societal garbage. Definitions place boxes around things, ideas, people, places…

But here, Oscar Wilde is saying that beauty is a type of intelligence. That beauty is actually higher than intelligence, because you don’t have to explain it. Beauty stands on its own; it exists; it just is. Perhaps what Oscar Wilde is talking about is less the physical beauty of humans – though this entire book is based on the extraordinary looks of Dorian Gray – but perhaps he is also saying that beauty of nature, the beauty of the things around us, is higher than intellect because there is no need for words when making a connection with that type of beauty. It is enough to just be with it in silence.

But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty, becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!

Time is impressive in its power. We can’t stop time. We can’t turn back time. We have no control over time, and that’s what is frightening. I think youth is rarely appreciated to its fullest extent while it is being lived. Rarely do we appreciate the things we have while we’re holding them in our hands. But I’m not sure that growing old has to be such a thing as turning into “hideous puppets”.

Though his description of limbs failing and rotting senses couldn’t help but remind me of the several folks I know with Alzheimer’s and dementia. That type of losing my youth is a scary prospect. I worked in a nursing home for awhile, and the sadness that permeated the Alzheimer’s unit was one I did my best to avoid.

Youth is indeed something wonderful. The strength and energy young people have, the ability to bounce back from injuries, to pill about and make mistakes only to chalk them up to “being young”.

With age comes responsibility. With age comes experience. With age comes an increasingly broadened view of how life truly is. Growing old can be something as Wilde has depicted, a sad deterioration into a shell of the vibrant youth you used to be filled with regrets and longing for another try. But growing old can also be something wonderful and amazing. I think. I don’t know, really, as I haven’t ventured too far down the lane of growing older though some days I certainly feel like it.

Because I haven’t gotten very far down the lane – I’m only at the quarter-century mark – I have to believe that growing old is not a terrible thing. For my sanity, I have to believe that – with the right attitude – growing old can even hold the possibility of wonderful things if only I choose to look for them.

 

Greetings from the Readin’ Redheads

There are a lot of book blogs out there, I know that. But here at Readin’ Redheads, it’s less about the book and more about the reading. By that I mean you’re not going to hear us give big long book review spiels. We’re not going to rate books or run out and grab the latest release and do a write-up of it. Sometimes I think we get so caught up in the reading of a book that we forget to think about the book.

I do anyway. I have that problem, it’s true. I was a voracious reader growing up. It was one of my very favorite pastimes, and for an outdoorsy person, that’s saying a whole lot. But I couldn’t tell you a whole lot about the books I’ve read, because I can’t remember all the nitty-gritty details. I was a fast reader and I’d get through with a book and toss open another one without ever slowing down to think about what I’d read. To roll around in the ideas and emotions and thoughts that book had elicited in me.

That’s the beauty of reading, I think. It allows us to experience all these places, ideas and situations we’d never otherwise be able to. But as has been my MO in the past, I’ve never taken enough time to get all that I should be getting out of these places, ideas and situations I’m experiencing between the book covers.

Besides, the older I get, the more forgetful I am. Readin’ Redheads is the place I intend to write about the books I read, the ways in which I react to them and the potential impacts they may have. Reading is powerful, yo.