$\"Green$ <\/a>

Green for sustainability, a little scuffed for reality<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cOur lives are so boring,\u201d my husband remarked recently. \u201cPretty much the same thing from one day to the next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why the girls have a horror of becoming us,\u201d I replied. \u201cAnd also why it\u2019s so hard to write the holiday newsletter year after year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong,\u201d Jonathan continued. \u201cI\u2019m really happy with our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me too.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s just self-delusion, but I\u2019ve long thought that the secret to a happy marriage is a high tolerance for boredom. Jonathan thinks the secret is watching DVDs of long-running TV shows, like Friday Night Lights<\/a>.<\/em> Our Friday nights consist of pizza and Netflix. Our latest addiction is The Good Wife<\/i><\/a>, which has the advantage of 6 seasons with 23 episodes each. Not to mention the salutary impact of the title\u2019s subliminal message!<\/p>\n

Still, even Jonathan and I have our limits. So the other night we decided to shake things up a little by going to see a live one-man show at our local community theater. As soon as the lights went down and the performer appeared onstage, Jonathan\u2019s eyes closed. I would have elbowed him awake, except my eyes closed soon after. We made our escape at intermission, and settled in for the next episode of The Good Wife<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the natural arc of long-term love moves from rutting to rut. Couples dubbed by \u201cModern Love\u201d editor Daniel Jones<\/a> as \u201cappreciatively resigned\u201d fare best with this trajectory.<\/p>\n

We can come to appreciate some pretty strange things.<\/p>\n

The other night, for example, I was laboring over a clogged toilet that looked as if it might defeat even Roto-Rooter. Jonathan came in and asked if he could help. I remembered a midnight years ago, same toilet, same linoleum floor, my exhausted husband cleaning up from the latest round of our daughters\u2019 stomach flu. Back then I was inexplicably turned on watching him mop, flush, and mop again. \u201cIs this what it\u2019s come to?\u201d I\u2019d thought in despair. I couldn\u2019t imagine anything more depressing than reviving muted passion\u00a0over an overflowing toilet. How low we had sunk from the days of mutual fascination! But a wise friend saw it differently: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more intimate than seeing someone take such tender care of those you love.”<\/p>\n

Those kids are gone now, leaving none of their messes to clean up. Intimacy is the glue that keeps us together. Not the intimacy of candlelit dinners and sexy lingerie, but enduring intimacy, which requires a continual process of mutual forgiveness for not remaining as exciting as when we first fell in love. We stay together precisely because we know each other\u2019s messes, and mop up after them patiently and lovingly time and time again. Not because we have to, but because we want to take care of those we love.<\/p>\n

And because we always look forward to the next episode.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"