Blinded By The Light

She tugged on my curtains.
SHE TUGGED ON MY CURTAINS! In my bedroom. On Monday.

She wandered around my house and as we stood outside my gorgeous home, she said, "I can sense the disappointment in this place."

I was thinking to myself that the only disappointment she was sensing was her sincere dissatisfaction that our home ─ our BEAUTIFUL home ─ was not going to grace the cover of Home & Garden in the near future. So she set us up with a "potential timeline to get this sh*t done".

When she left, @denmarkguy and I were in a state of shock and began the task of individually processing the noise of our bubble popping throughout the day. Peter went off to the gallery ─ @reddragonfly ─ and I had a commission on a logo to occupy my raw senses. The day dragged on. I started cutting myself and Peter extra slack for the overgrown garden. the poorly tended labyrinth and the stacks of "things" in the corners of Casa Messerschmidt that are the keynotes of anyone running a business out of their home. We run four. Businesses. Out. Of. Our. Home. And we have loads of friends, we're involved in our community. Dammit, we're not hoarders, we're BUSY! GAH!

We were both looking forward to what we call "Coffee Time" later in the afternoon; so we could wah wah together. As it turns out, we both came to the conclusion that Ms. Real Estate Agent was most likely suffering from macular degeneration and the spectacular light orbs accompanied by the fractal patterns in sacred geometrical designs must have blinded her.

We're not selling our home in the near future, and that's final.
We're back on our original four-year plan! So take that Ms. Blinded By The Light Agent! I wrote her right away, thanked her for her time and numbers and printouts. Then I explained that we had decided to take a bit longer to prepare the selling of our dream home.

Oddly enough with that under our belts and a renewed desire to love our castle harder, the world became brighter. We sat staring at each other over steaming cups of a lovely French Roast ( Starbucks in bulk was on sale! ) and started laughing. Seriously laughing. We turned around and hugged the patio doors, ran our hands lovingly over the wooden stairwell and caressed window sills with our eyes. We love our home.

We love each other.

Which brings me to point two of "Blinded by the Light".

If you're in a relationship when was the last time you had a long conversation about your day with your loved one? Peter and I spend loads of time together, but it's all about work. We argue, we disagree and we compromise. As partners, but at the end of the day we take a time out to sit with coffee. Very seldom do we miss this late afternoon ritual and when we do, it's a huge slice of our mental pizza that causes a rift in the time/space continuum. I did a little research about how much time couples spend together, and it turns out the average is pretty rotten, especially when 55% of that time is actually spent just watching television, not really interacting!

In an article at the Huff Post (yeah yeah, it's a British Rag, stop judging me) based on an informal survey that was eventually backed up by a white paper published later after a valid study in the "Journal of Marriage and Family".

The average couple spends 2% of their normal, working day in each others company as they push their relationship to the back burner to make time for the daily grind of work, household chores and childcare.

And we wonder what is happening with the foundation of our central processing unit: The Family. The Family isn't going to survive if the Partners at the helm don't take time to talk. We should put "family" on the endangered species list!

Peter and I don't write long letters to each other anymore because we spend an equal amount of time daily just talking. Getting to know each other.

Sometimes, I'm blinded by his light.
And that's what I really wanted to say.
When was the last time your honey bunny blinded you with their light? When was the last time you blinded them?
Go on a talking date.
In your backyard, with a cup of coffee (or some other beverage) as often as you can. You probably won't regret it.

The Blue Collar Goddess is a Luminary Savant, Wife, Polymath, evANGEList™ & stuff! Find her here, there and everywhere else she might be.