The Way That Angels Get Their Wings (Figuratively Of Course)

I always thought that wisdom came some time in your early twenties after you moved away from home. Believing that all the wisdom you learned from parents would somehow make you the perfect individual, that all the things you learned from teachers would make you the ideal citizen, that all the lessons you learned from mistakes would prevent you from making a fool of yourself.

And then suddenly you realize, only after surviving for another 30 or 40 years, that no one really has any answers. The old proverb that you should never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes is after all just a cliche. After the long hike, you may get blisters or even athlete's foot, but you never really understand anything about another person. People are too complicated. Take marriage for instance. My Annie and I have had a wonderful marriage for over 34 years, and I still wish I could read her mind when the lightening flashes a bit in those chocolate brown eyes of hers and when she sits quietly when I say something that I think is funny.

All I know is that I love her, not for being perfect and not for being rich or famous. But I love her because she loves me as much as I love her, an expectation that every husband should experience, but I don't think they do. All I know is that I like what I have. She is the real deal. She is my soul mate.

And she puts up with my bizarre sense of humor, my taste in music and movies, and my tendency to understand things by talking and thinking about why things are like they are--especially the little occurrences that seem so irritating. So my idea of not judging a person is to try not to judge anyone. I haven't been able to do that yet, because some individuals really piss me off when I am around them, but my Annie is helping me deal with those negative issues by showing me that life is too short to give miserable people like that the satisfaction of knowing they ruined your day, so just to irritate those who do the same to me, I have now decided to love them as if they were a family member. I figure this is a good place to start, because some relatives are difficult to like anyway.

When I saw this picture that my Annie took, it made sense to me. To be a perfect person takes an awfully big eraser. And to influence those who irriate you, it takes a soft step and a large fish whacker.