Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Relationship is a State of Mind

I'm always amused when I hear nouns used as verbs. "Let's coffee tomorrow." or "I'm going to office from home today." And of course the now-infamous "I googled him before we went out."

Then I started to hear, "I'm in relationship." Excuse me? In relationship? Isn't there an "a" missing, as in "in a relationship?"

But I realized that, no, it was true. Relationship is not just a state of being, a state of couplehood versus singlehood. It's a state of mind, too.

I know, this coming from the girl who met her husband-to-be just before high school graduation, got engaged to him a year later, and married him a year into graduate school. In fact, we just celebrated our 16th anniversary. Over 20 years together, I've known Husby longer than I didn't know him. It's a cool milestone to pass. We're in relationship.

I also just finished reading Amy Cohen's The Late Bloomer's Revolution and sent off my interview questions for her blog tour.

If I'd seen the book in a bookstore, or even in the library, I probably would have passed on it for one simple reason: relationship. And I would have missed a great book.

It's a memoir, a sometimes heart-rending, sometimes exhilarating, always funny account of looking for love but not quite finding it. And as a long-time married woman, with kids no less, I wasn't quite sure if I'd see any of myself in this book.

Boy, was I wrong. Because it's not just about being single or being married. It's about - all together now - relationship. It's about how you see yourself and how you project that to others. It's about how much you love yourself (without going overboard) being the measure of how much another can love you. It's about coming to terms with who you are and where you come from and using it all to take risks to grow and change. It's about life.

I suppose dead people might not get that much from reading it, but I recommend it to everyone living. Especially if you're in relationship, or looking to be.

2 comments:

Shira Salamone said...

Yep, it's hard not to see oneself in relationship to another person to whom one's been married for over a decade. :)

For the record, my current pet peeve in spoken American English is the doubling of the verb "to be." What do you mean, "The problem is, *is* that . . ."? (Now, if I could only figure out whether the question mark goes inside or outside the quotation mark . . .)

Jack Steiner said...

I suppose dead people might not get that much from reading it,

Show me a dead person who is reading it and I'll show you how we can set ourselves up to retire today. ;)