Back in 1977, Billy Joel sang: “Don’t go changing. I love you just the way you are.”
Bruno Mars followed up with his own “Just the Way You Are” 33 years later.
Who ARE we kidding? We chose our partners in business and life because we DO want to change them, and we really don’t love them just the way they are.
My criteria for dating after my divorce were simple: a woman who accepted the fact I had a child, was on a career path, and looked great in a mini skirt-all reasonable in the litmus test of love. Hopes were a bit less discriminating. Hers were what are your goals in life, what keeps you awake at night, and do you think disco will live forever?
Ok. Neither of us was perfect and to tell you the truth, Hope fell in love with me, because I worked at a cool job, had all my hair, and sent her extravagant gifts.
This was the perfect combination: steak and sizzle, her being the obvious heat and substance. And from that day we met, we have each spent the last 33 years trying to bring the other to our way of thinking.
In fact, when she buys clay pots and furniture, she brings them home only to faux paint them to the style she likes. My question is: “Why buy it in the first place?
Hope is a long-distance runner. To me that is exercise and I hate exercise. But tennis or golf? That’s fun without being hit over the head and it’s good for my heart. Hope will often say: “You don’t want to go run with me, do you?” I always said: “If you already know the answer, why ask the question? “
Hope likes hotels that have five stars for ambiance and zero stars for cuisine. I’m just the opposite. I like a dump in the worst part of town with a meal to be remembered for eternity. She thinks it’s more important to look good than to feel good.
I look at glasses as half full. She looks at the glasses and says “You know honey, these glasses are SOOO last year and don’t match anything we have. It’s time we bought some new ones.”
And somehow, over the years, we have each given up some ground but have not abandoned our positions. I now love shopping for clothes for myself. There was a time I didn’t know a Tom Ford from a Gerald Ford, a Christian Louboutin from a Christian Slater, or a Zac Posen from a Zac Efron.
And as far as Hope goes, she now appreciates I can do things around the house without calling down to the super who we left behind 24 years ago in New York.
She has also learned that there were indeed SIX Three Stooges, Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Joe Besser, and Joe deRita but she still thinks musicals are not real and people do not just break out in song. Witness The Jets and the Sharks. She also thinks the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his chest.
While we hold our ground, she does sometimes surprise me and change my way of thinking. I affectionately call her Hurricane Hope, altering everything in her path.
But then I realized it sometimes takes a hurricane to change your life and to challenge everything you thought was right but, while not being wrong, may have needed to be shaken up. Hope is that hurricane and my life has been torn loose from its moorings ever since, on a new kind of journey. But I’ll never give her the satisfaction of hearing me say it!
Laughter, patience, agree to disagree.
And a bit of credit when you get the
FINAL JEOPARDY answer right!
I love you.