THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER

Today’s post was planned in advanced (I had mentioned my wife’s sudden fascination with IKEA and wrote a lengthy description about her shopping habits and her pet peeves) but for some reason I decided not to use the material. For one, after all her talk about wanting to go to Canton, she decided against it. I’m not sure I know why. I thought for sure it was a done deal, that writing about her trip to IKEA in advanced, even if she didn’t go and I said she did, would be no worse than Mitch Albom’s claim that two ex-Michigan State basketball players attended a Final Four game when in all actuality they were somewhere else. If Mitch’s credibility survived scrutiny (his employer, the Detroit Free Press, swept it nicely under the rug) then why shouldn’t I survive scrutiny? Why not post what I had already written?

I’m the type of person that will over analyze a situation until I’m perfectly comfortable with the outcome. Further justification of associating my wife with a trip to IKEA would have to be James Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces. Even though parts of it were fabricated, it hasn’t hurt the sales of his second book, My Friend Leonard. People have embraced his writing and understand that his second book is fiction (It is ... isn’t it?). In my case, wouldn’t people appreciate (or not) my words regardless of the truth? Afterall, what control do I have over how other people feel? I can only control how I feel.

So why did I have such a change of heart? It didn’t really strike me until I examined the above photograph one last time. I wondered: How well does one person know another person? It doesn’t matter whether that person is your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, sister, brother, mom, or dad. How well do you know them? How close can you really get to another person? How well do you know your self? I leave you with these questions, not to depress you, but to make you value the relationships you have. Lastly, the person behind the three balloons is in fact my wife, and we’ve been together for approximately eighteen years. I am proud to say that I am still getting to know her.