Fifty Shades of Beige
Since early December, after breaking up with your girlfriend, you've been able to be your own man. Horizontally and digitally linked into everything sports. Hibernating, waiting for February 14th to be over so that you can get back with your old girlfriend. Back to normal after all the craziness and expense of Christmas, New Years and then Valentines Day that you so cleverly planned to miss. The oh so cheap winter of you. Go to work, come home and do all the stuff you can't do the other three seasons. Which includes everything but going out and having a good time.
I say that because you were stupid enough to do a selfie of yourself and send it to your post Valentines Day sweetheart last year. The very same picture she used for her screen saver at work. Because now you have a whole army of your ex-girlfriend's friends that know what you look like. And you have no idea who they are!
Why you may have even been unlucky enough to try and hit on one of them. They knew who you were right away! They may have even trapped you into making a fool of yourself. Cause they just love going to work the next day and telling your ex all about your last nights failed adventure.
Now the ex has knowledge of what an a#% you are. She may tell you right away or keep that knowledge and use it against you in the future. Oh it could be as far away as your 25th wedding anniversary, but she'll use it. And you'll try to deny it (mostly because you honestly won't remember it). But she will assure you it was you, and has the pictures to prove it.
So if you really like her, stay home. Don't listen to your buddies. You don't need to go out and have a good time. You don't deserve it. But they do!
They went through Christmas and New Years with all the expenses of fancy festive feasts, perhaps vacation, gifts, parties and more gifts. And now it's all over. Their girlfriend has dumped them, because it's a depressing time of year, their depressed and it's the guys fault.
So on money they don't have, they want to go out with their friends, also suddenly single with no money, and share stories of woe. And as they cry on each others shoulder about women, plans formulate to date more. Perhaps your ex girlfriend, you're not dating her,...yet. But that's what buds do. We're guys! Beware of other males at the watering hole.
Your only chance to win her back is if you can remember that conversation she had about everything she ever thought of and her favorite flower. Because that would mean you cared and listened.
It would be that conversation she started just as you laid down on the couch after a hard days work. Women think when a guy lays on the couch he wants to talk. You can spend the whole day together and nothing. Get back home lie on the couch and she starts up. She wants your opinion on this and that, on her hair colour, her make-up and that dress she wore to her cousins birthday. She wants to tell you about that so and so at work that stole her position, how she loves yellow roses, her girlfriend's pregnant and the paint in the bathroom is to yellowie . It's about this point you're wishing you could run out and get hit by a bus! But you nod and smile, throw in the occasional ah-ha and mention the word yellow a few times cause you heard her say it.
WAIT,..WHAT? Yellow,.. Yellow roses. She likes yellow roses. You send her yellow roses...you're back together...you paint the bathroom beige and before you know it you're married. WAIT,...WHAT? Married?
Married! And now with children, your lives are now no longer your own. Late night feedings, diapers and sickness. Its the best of times,..the worst of times. You're driving kids everywhere. The house is filled with action and drama. Feelings are being expressed through and by the kids bedroom doors. They graduate, they drive, they start their lives. And then somewhere in there, if you're lucky, your children have children. It's a good time now. Most of your fighting is done as a couple. She had more stamina, and so she won. Your children are no longer teens and they've lived long enough to forgive you. You've built a history together that probably has more years in it than the time from now 'till death do you part' does. It all happened so fast.
You're still in love with her, whatever that turned out to be. It seems different with each couple. Hallmark doesn't have your definition of it in the Anniversary section at the Dollar Store. The one that reads ' I want your pain and sorrow, your aches and woes, all the disease and sickness in your bones. So I don't have to listen to you go on about it!'
You're the lucky ones, still together after all the years. She fell in love with a big dufass and over the years you've proved her right over and over. But her day can't be complete without you. And you would be totally lost if not for her. That's what happens to love.
It's sometimes not wanted, not expected, it just happens. Your plans of being aloof fail. And you're glad they did. Love is not all the wild, crazy, fifty shades of grey, electrifying no kids for the weekend kinda moments. But more a fifty shades of beige. You're the masses, the norm. You, me and our significant others, are the many unsung loving marriages that make up most of society. The day to day couples that through love and sacrifice unite and bind families together. You see us in the malls and grocery stores just frumping along, nothing special. Two people working together, building and running a family. We unfortunately for the advertising world are the face, taste, smell and the desire of love. The fifty shades of beige love. A love that asks nothing, other than to be with them tomorrow. And then all the other tomorrow's you both have left.
Bob Niles
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