Love Cake

Monday, February 20, 2012

Smart Food

We learn to read food labels, watch what we eat and seek information about where our food comes from. All of that is great either for our health, or the environment and all, but don't you miss those care-free days when you could just eat something because you enjoyed eating it? Not because it has good Omega 3 or great fiber and antioxidants?

Do you remember those days when we ate without worrying about boosting our immune system or finding food that prevented cancer? Smart foods are great for us, but a giant banana split is so much more liberating isn't it?

This is how I feel about relationships. Have you noticed the minute you have to smarten up with someone, some magic and spark starts to die a little? I wouldn't say completely, but if the relationship was a rechargeable battery, the minute you start counting, the battery level would go down to half maybe?

The worst is whenever I feel like the other person is counting, that person triggers a counting cycle which I become stuck into. How can you not count when you're with someone who's openly counting everything? And counting takes so much energy... I never believed math went well with food nor relationships. I do not like to measure portions, count calories, or check the price of my grocery items unless I really have to be reasonable. I do not like to split bills, the concept of prenups or taking turns for doing anything just because it is that person's turn etc...That is what I mean by counting. Math ruins relationships. Or should I say...math ruins magical relationships. If a relationship requires math, maybe it was not meant to spark in the first place. I am not saying that we must never count with anyone, but I think, at the very least, it would be great to be comfortable enough with your lover and close friends to never need to use our emotional abacus for services and favors. What do you think? When there is love, trust, chemistry, but mostly, RESPECT, no math should have to intervene.

I love being dumb in my relationships. With the risk of coming across as naive and stupid, I love to give without tallying and use my intelligence to remember what a person did for me instead. My parents always taught me to be grateful but not to expect anything. Because of that, I may have given a lot, and to many wrong people, but at the least, I loved when I did what I did. By the time I started to smarten up with that person, it was a sign that we weren't as good friends as we thought we were anyways. If you need to constantly be smart with someone to not get fooled or used, perhaps they weren't so much love in the first place...

I am EXTREMELY grateful to have a non-mathematical relationship with my husband. We do not tally turns, nor house chores, nor our money. We trust each other enough to never excessively take from the other when one is feeling generous of their time and efforts to please the other. And the best friends that I still have after all these years are those with whom I never need to count. We don't need to keep track of who calls who more often, sends gifts, come visit etc...We don't count things. We count on each other. Plain simple math that doesn't require any equation.