It's been a looong time since I wrote. I've had to deal with some work stuff and friend stuff and a nasty trip to the hospital in an ambulance. But all is well now, for the most part. Before everything went nuts, I got caught up in a program my girlfriend was watching about personality types and relationships. It was about some doctor of something who developed this test you can take to determine what your dominant traits are. One specific group is called 'Explorers' and I made fun of that term to no end during the show because it sounds like what they'd call the special kids at a school or something. Then we both took the test and found out we're explorers. We have different secondary personality types, but the first one is 'Explorer'. Then she got to thinking about different relationships she's been in and grown up around and exactly what kind of relationship we have now.
My parents were never really "together" and hers are divorced. My family has had exactly three marriages in two generations that have lasted way long term. One just hit 20 years, another (although they're not technically married) is at 30 years and my great grandparents were married 56 years. My great grandparents marriage is one of those where you wonder what the heck they ever saw in each other in the first place. They never had children together, grandma already had three from her first marriage and by the time they got married grandpa had his hands full with the grand kids. My aunts and uncles were holy terrors most of the time but grandpa loved every minute of it. He fit right into the family from day one. He and grandma were not always the most functional couple, but then what couple is all of the time? As they got older he became the one to take care of her and he would always be keeping busy in some way or another around the house. Grandma was fine, except for her hearing, and sometimes I wished I could put a camera in their house to capture their antics. They'd sit together in the living room and watch their telenovelas and she'd call him names randomly and completely unprovoked. He could never do anything right and she wanted him to know it but he just kept on trucking and he'd joke about it and call her "The Warden". Underneath it all, you could tell how much he adored her and you knew she loved him, even though she didn't say it much. Grandma died about a year ago and Grandpa's had it rough since then. He's happy, for the most part, but you can tell some of the spark is gone. He spent most of his life with her and he's been kinda lost since she's been gone. Hopefully, he's got a lot of life to live, he's only in his 80's (he was younger than her by eight years, very controversial at the time).
Most of what I know about relationships that work came from observing the few successful ones around me. I haven't always applied what I know but I do know it. In fact, I probably haven't started applying most of it until this relationship. My problem has always been boredom. I've dated smart women who were no fun, I've dated fun women who were not too bright, I've dated women who loved sports but were uninterested in art and I've dated creative women who didn't understand sports. There was always one thing missing and I'd use that one thing as my excuse for being bored and then I'd move on. I figured you couldn't have it all and eventually I'd have to settle for someone who had a habit or a lack of knowledge on something that annoyed me. My girlfriend is smart and she understands and appreciates art and she's willing to learn about sports. I'd never really thought about it until recently but we're not really all that similar. We're not opposites either, we're kinda right down the middle most of the time. Somehow it balances out. It's been...a battle, to say the least. But we're happy and that's what matters.
