Thought bubbles

Do you love anyone enough to lick the soap out of their eyes?

As a child - my mom loved me enough to lick the soap out my eyes at bath time. She felt that a washcloth was too harsh and anything else wouldn't do the job better than mom's tongue. Is it any wonder I am an animal freak? Or that I'm as spoiled as I am?

When I think about it - any relationship of mine that ended was either about differing values, possibly selfishness, choices in friends, inability to open up more. But bottom line - if I was complaining that my friend or sweetheart didn't meet my needs or expectations - often times - there just wasn't enough love or respect.

In Gary Chapman's book "The Five Love Languages", he discusses that each of us translate love from one main love language. If our friend or partner does not express themselves in our love language at least some of the time - we're not "feeling it" and likely the relationship will suffer.

I don't believe this unmet need happens only at home. I think this happens in society and at work. Imagine the complexity of the work relationship. Our "contract" states that for a wage and benefits (if you get them) you deliver some sort of output in the form of time and whatever your job requires you to do. At any given point in time - we humans are going through physical issues (ADD, diabetes, gout, PTSD, post nasal drip, PMS and whatever the male version is called), learning disabilities (dyslexia, visual learners without good visual cues, kinesthetic learners without enough stimuli, and all the other variations), over stimulation in the form of meetings, e-mails, phone calls and multitasking. Besides this - who gets enough respect at work? If your love language is quality time and your boss or your team wont explain themselves clearly - do you think it affects how well you cope and deliver at work? If your identity at home is suffering - do you look for it at work? And vice versa. If you don't get it at home or at work - where do you go? Alchohol? smoking? drugs? Internet chat rooms or porn?

Yes, very touchy feely - but we're humans and we need to get our needs met.

Much of my needs are currently being met by a very few number of people and God. This last one has licked more than a few of the bubbles from my eyes. We're going through some trying times - the media present us with the shock value of the words of our current crisis (is Brangelina on or off? Did Newt SLAM Obama?). The economy is bad - its bad in most countries. World hunger, natural and man made disaster (i.e. war, oppression, ignorance) are the soap bubbles in our eyes. Who is there to lick these bubbles from our eyes?

Mom said that natural saliva quickly removes the bubbles and converts the stingy soap to a consistency more like tears. I think the shock value of knowing my mom would do that stopped me from crying and distracted me from the irritation. Anyway - my love language is quality time and hers is words of affirmation. I got my quality time - and she got my words: "thank you mom". Problem solved.

If only we as America could figure out how to get the bubbles out of our eyes and then share with the others. That would be shocking.