Sometimes You Forget. October 16th 2023

       Last night something came to mind while watching T.V.   It was a Sunday night and Sunday nights we spend watching PBS.   Sunday nights are dedicated to English drama series that we really enjoy.   We were seated on our couch in the office when I asked Carol to move a little closer so I could put my arm around her.  " Just for a while. " I said.  "Just until you're uncomfortable."   And therein you have the difference between new love and old love.  

         In the days where you first meet someone who interests you and you have that opportunity to sit beside them and embrace,  you could pretty much be sitting on a thumb tack hours on end without ever risking moving away.   Eventually, and perhaps later than sooner you will be cognizant that what isn't comfortable for you likely is every bit as uncomfortable for the one you love.   That comfortability?  Well that may be what love is. 

         Facebook memories (As they often do) started a conversation about the kids and their kids the other morning.  We have some independent thinkers in our clan.  Story tellers and conversationalists with far reaching imaginations and noteworthy vocabularies.  We were laughing at some of one of our grandsons observations about life when Carol made an observation about me.   " I never met anyone that thought through things the way you do."  I have met a lot of people who have made such an observation.  Although being around someone who has never landed inside the box can be the ground work for an infatuation,  it is usually a short period of time before difference becomes annoying.  Unless of course it involves love.

         Life in my world is pretty good.  We live in a nice house in a beautiful town in a wealthy province.  We have a very comfortable retirement with a great social life and most of our immediate family very close to us.  Sitting down to a full plate of wholesome delicious foods with a glass of good wine,  well it is pretty easy to allow the content.....ness wash over you.  Sometimes it's easy to forget what goes on outside your protected insulated world.   

       I haven't slept well lately.  I have been riddled with aches and pains.  I clued in yesterday what is making me feel this way.   It is happening half a globe away to the victims of a terrorist act in the middle east.  I am talking the citizens of  both Israel and Palestine.    People who are collateral damage in what seems to be a never ending brutal clash of neighbours.  A clash that both Eastern and Western worlds can't seem to keep out of.   An event that mixes modern weaponry with brutal criminal terrorist acts.  

        This last week, I have started to avoid the news.  I have found myself  immersed in fluff such as seasonal formula movies.  I have walked a little farther.  I can do those things because of where I live.  My family is safe.  I have a life partner who mixes comfort with companionship.  I have a social network who accept my outside the box reasoning sequence.   I have a whole lot...... A whole lot of what the world wants.    It shouldn't take a terrorist act of such magnitude to remind me of what I have, but sometimes I forget.