The Tipping RefrigeratorGreat advice is a difficult insect to pin down. But buzzing around in the jungle of life and love, a few wise wasps will sting you along the way. It has been my experience, that even rarer than a good piece of advice is a good observation. A thing which neither pushes you nor pulls you in any direction; a thing which is true and nothing more. One such observation came fluttering through my life very recently. My Mom’s new boyfriend is not what you would call a sage. He’s an immigration lawyer, big sports fan, very nice guy whose lived a life of responsibility and substance in rearing his child (he was a widower when his son was only 6 years old.) Not a particularly sparkling life of the party type guy, not a mystically silent type – just a good guy living his life. Unremarkable as he would seem to be, he gave to me a description of a relationship that immediately struck me as true. He said: “Relationships are like refrigerators: after the first push, they tip back and forth a few times before they finally fall over for good.” I clucked at that one, half chuckled, half memorialized a few tipped refrigerators in my own life. And as many pure observations tend to do, it leaves me with a bit of advice, two bits actually: You never know where truth is going to find you. This was my Mom’s new boyfriend whom I’ve spoken with maybe a collective two hours in my life and without so much as an instant of hesitation, he had that one to give to me. And of course I had just been dumped! Rather than coddle me or console me or advise me, he gave me that observation. And that seemed to do something that “tis better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all” couldn’t. It gave me real perspective. So piece of advice number 1: be open to even the smallest people you come across in your life. I don’t mean small in stature or worth – I mean that if you remain open to the value of even the smallest cameo roles in the movie of your life, you will come out all the richer and all the stronger because of it. Piece of advice number 2: older men have great stuff to say. Older women too. After all, age is indicative of 2 things; survival and experience. Both are good things. |
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