Tuesday, July 21, 2009

All Flash, No Substance

They were riding in a shiny, black Mercedes.

I could tell from my rear view mirror that they were both in their mid to late 50s. Both in sunglasses, he with salt-and-pepper hair, she with a stark, blonde, perfectly strait coif.

If I didn't know any better, I would have thought she was Cincinnati's local makeup artist to the stars.

The couple trailed behind me for about four minutes up Reading Road. For several of those minutes we were stopped behind a red light, and I took the opportunity to stare.

Shielded by the discretion of my sunglasses and rear view mirror, they had no idea I was watching. For minutes, they both sat there, silent, still, disengaged. As I observed, I hoped for a brief, flickering moment of warmth - something that confirmed their years together were worth it.

Sadly, nothing transpired.

Granted, my conclusions were based on a variety of assumptions. 1) They were actually "together." 2) They've spent many years together. 3) They knew love together in the first place.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume all those variables are in place. If that's the case, what a sad state of existence.

I can't imagine spending my life in a relationship void of conversation.

I can't imagine spending my life in a relationship without any commonality.

I can't imagine spending my life in a relationship without laughter.

Perhaps it's easy for some people to become so quickly enamored with other, unfulfilling characteristics.

Me? I'd take alone and happy any day over together and miserable.

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Kate's Random Musings by Kate the Great is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

1 comment:

HippieLunatic said...

Thanks for sharing this moment. I completely agree that a life with no laughter is not worth sharing with a partner.