Unity

Yet another thing I realized during the moving process was the concept of unity. We were loading the truck, and I looked at the friends helping, and I realized that all the psychological weight that my wife and I had been carrying by ourselves had magically been diminished significantly. It was not only being shared, but it was being cured, it was disappearing.

It's an amazing thing in itself that as husband and wife, we are a team, therefore we are never alone. That is such an amazing thing that we can come to take for granted. We can become too comfortable and instead of seeing the other person for who they are, we see them as a compilation of memories, ideas, and concepts; and we can start to want to control the other person, or have commentary on every little thing. We're all guilty of it in everyday relationships, whether it's husband-wife, father-son, mother-daughter, daughter-father, etc. - the whole myriad of relationships; we are all guilty at times. But it's so fascinating when making an effort to see our close friends anew that a deeper respect and love begins to surface.

And so, these friends were there, and I was just amazed at how with friendship, all fear dissipated. It's a shame we let things slip into habits of self-interest, and so friendship and unity die. I think it's really worth the effort to keep it alive, not in an artificial sense but in the sense of making the effort to really see people, which brings me on to yet another topic.

Prioritizing and Doing Your Best (part 2/2)

And so, we decided to just do our best with our time and quit bitching about it. And you know, in the grand scheme of things, it was so much better this way. We went ahead and got the U-Haul on Saturday and kept it overnight. The two guys who could still help us could do so much earlier in the day. So we got started right at 8:30 a.m. and it was a gorgeous day all day long, with a nice breeze. Having only 2 people was a blessing in disguise because I'm sure if there were 4 or 5 or 6 people, it would have just been hectic and chaotic. Besides, there's only one entrance to the house. One of the guys had to leave after loading, but one of my wife's friends came to help the unloading. So with a loaded truck we all headed to have a nice big lunch at Moe's. The guy left and I did most of the heavy lifting from there while my wife and her friend unloaded boxes. It all worked out great in the end. And so, it was a learning experience. I've always known intellectually when I'm given time to think about it that we are never faced with anything we can't handle in some way or another. We are human, we will die, and in the middle we can only do our best. Stress and pressure are natural in a way, but I think it's imperative that we are able to deal with it without taking it out on other people or becoming ridiculous, because that's what happens when we let it in.