You never get a second chance to make a first impression. —Will Rogers
As much as I’d like you to think that my Gentleman Friend and I have been married blissfully and perfectly happy for the past several decades, I’m going to take a risk and tell you that sometimes, we fight. Our fights aren’t typically the loud, plate-throwing variety. We’ve mastered the art of subtle tiffs, starting out as a tiny slight that grows into a stand-off —— and I am the half of us most guilty of this —— in an all-encompassing silence that can be louder than a freight train.
I feel I can tell you this because I’m guessing at some point, you yourself have had a disagreement, an argument, or a misunderstanding with someone you love, whether a romantic partner or a family member or a friend.
I feel a little embarrassed admitting this to you. Isn’t it funny that we don’t like to reveal that the outward appearance we like to keep isn’t 100% of the entire picture? Feeling a little “off” with one another from time to time is one of the most human things we do, like sleeping and eating. Relationships come with a caveat: Once we allow someone into our heart to love, it also means they have VIP access to hurt us —— and vice versa.
One day I returned home after work feeling…a little blah, I guess. I wasn’t in a foul mood, but I wasn’t my regular happy self, either. Nothing in particular had happened to bring on this malaise, but it had seeped into my muscles since the morning and eventually took hold of my bones by late afternoon. I dropped my purse just inside the front door, sighed a long, drawn-out sigh, then slunk over to tie on an apron and began peeling sweet potatoes for dinner. Even the sweet potatoes gave me further proof that my mere existence was mundane and inconsequential. I sighed again.
My Gentleman Friend’s key rattled in the door. He was home from work.
“Hello?” he said, calling out to me before he saw me in the kitchen.
“Hi,” I answered, flatly. I only turned my head a bit, maybe flipping my hair a bit in his direction, but never breaking eye contact with the lumpy sweet potato, continuously sawing at the vegetable peeler.
If my life were a movie, this would’ve been the moment the pause button would be pushed. The narrator would say something like, “In one suburban household, this singular moment threatened to tarnish this couple’s entire evening.”
If my life were specifically a movie on VHS tape, the rewind button would scramble back to the exact moment on repeat. We’d listen to the monosyllabic, flat-sounding “Hi” over and over, until the music swelled to something foreboding and dangerous.
But since our life isn’t a movie, the moment passed, and it wasn’t long before we stood in the kitchen, facing each other,
awkwardly asking each other what was wrong.
(This is what we do: we are both overly sensitive creative empaths, so if either of us think the other is mad at us, we begin to feel wronged. We get defensive, insisting that we were doing the best we could given the circumstances, and it was unfair for our partner to act mad or in any way dismissive of us. This pattern of behavior is exhausting and often leads to monumental misunderstanding, but hey —— it’s us. Warts and all. Haha.)
You guessed it: when asked what was wrong, we both answered “nothing.” Because nothing really was the matter; it was just a blah day. But when the door opened and my Gentleman Friend came through the door, instead of pushing through the blah, we both sank down into it. I wallowed in “meh” and he answered me with “blurg.”
“You know what?” he said to me. “I think we need a do-over.”
I was confused. I didn’t know what he was referring to. I was even more puzzled when he turned his back to me and walked out the front door.
But in a few seconds, I heard the rattle of his keys at the door again, and then I understood.
“Hello!” he bellowed, swinging the door open wide, letting the late afternoon sun spill into our entryway.
This time, I stopped what I was doing, looked up and met his eyes. I dried my hands on my apron and bounded to meet him at the door.
I threw my arms around him. I didn’t say anything, but I hope he saw that I was already feeling a lot differently than the person who barely acknowledged him before. “Thank you,” I whispered into his neck. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“It’s good to see you,” he said, squeezing me a little more tightly.
We stood there an extra moment, ignoring dinner on the stove. I smiled, but some sneaky tears escaped past my eyelashes and onto his shoulder. I was happy. I was sad. It had been a long day, but we were home now.
Thank heavens when the rare opportunity for a do-over occurs. Thank goodness for second chances at first hellos.
