Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Making it easy
In the 1998 movie "The Wedding Singer," the title character, Robbie, has been dumped at the altar. The best friend of his eventual love interest, a cheerfully slutty girl named Holly, develops an interest in him, and after a night out, right before it hits her that Robbie really loves her friend, Holly softly tells Robbie as her brings her home:
You have no idea how often I have longed to hear that -- not that I'm going to get laid, but the "I'm going to make this very easy" part.
Because a responsible life isn't easy, and believe it or not, that's the kind I live. I do a good job, pay my bills, am kind and attentive to my kids, love, cherish and remain faithful to my wife, give to charity, volunteer my time.
And it's hard. I pray, I use what passes for my logic, common sense and experience, but in almost every one of these spheres, I regularly run into situations where I don't know what the best thing to do is, or sometimes even the right thing. And that's especially true in my marriage, where no sin is too picayune too trigger a fight, no issue too insignificant to pout over, no mistake so far in the past that it can't be used to beat me over the head (again, sometimes savagely) in the present.
I don't want a different life. I just want the life I have to be a little easier to negotiate once in a while. Just once every so often, I'd like my job or my wife or my kids or my friends or somebody to say, "We're going to make it easy for you."
Look, Robbie, I know you are painfully shy, and I know you've been hurt. So I'm going to make this very easy. If you come upstairs with me, you're going to get laid.
You have no idea how often I have longed to hear that -- not that I'm going to get laid, but the "I'm going to make this very easy" part.
Because a responsible life isn't easy, and believe it or not, that's the kind I live. I do a good job, pay my bills, am kind and attentive to my kids, love, cherish and remain faithful to my wife, give to charity, volunteer my time.
And it's hard. I pray, I use what passes for my logic, common sense and experience, but in almost every one of these spheres, I regularly run into situations where I don't know what the best thing to do is, or sometimes even the right thing. And that's especially true in my marriage, where no sin is too picayune too trigger a fight, no issue too insignificant to pout over, no mistake so far in the past that it can't be used to beat me over the head (again, sometimes savagely) in the present.
I don't want a different life. I just want the life I have to be a little easier to negotiate once in a while. Just once every so often, I'd like my job or my wife or my kids or my friends or somebody to say, "We're going to make it easy for you."
