This Little Light of Mine

Poor Chris.   Poor, poor Chris.   He’s such a cool, calm, collected guy and life lately has been anything but cool, calm, and collected.   There are so few things right now that he has any kind of control over, and I think its starting to take its toll on him.   I’m a basket case.   We are starting the second (or is it the third?) wave of house repairs and renovations in order to prepare for Thanksgiving house guests.   The dogs are being attacked by vicious birds.   His backyard is beyond repair at this point.   And leaves are taking over what’s left of the front yard.

He’s a king without a castle.

In response to all of this, he has contined to keep his cool, calm, and collected demeanor.   He is still attentive, patient, and loving.   In fact, to the outside world he seems unchanged.   Unharmed.   Uneffected.   But a wife knows better.

In an effort to take control back over something in his life, Chris has become an electricity freak.   Last month he had to pay our bills because I was probably in a toilet somewhere, and he was completely outraged by our electricity bill.   And now he is taking action.   He has taken control of the electricity.

He has replaced all of our lightbulbs with energy efficient light bulbs.   This means that my lights now flicker when I turn them on.   That is, if I am allowed to turn them on.   I am now permitted one light per room.   And when I leave that room, I must turn that light before I can go into another room.   Only one TV can be on at a time in the house.   And the front porch light does not get turned on until 9:00 PM (incidentally, our entire neighborhood goes to bed at 8:30 PM, which sort of defeats the purpose of the front porch light, but that’s another blog post for another day…).

I will be the first to admit that I am not a great energy saver when it comes to lights.   I do recycle.   I do carpool.   I don’t do laundry or run the dishwasher until after 8:00 PM.   But I do like me some lights.   I don’t enjoy a dark house, and so I tend to leave a glowing trail where ever I go.   Lately though, where ever I go, there is Chris to turn out my lights.

Normally I would pitch a fit.   Its getting darker earlier now and I don’t want to spend all winter in a dark, gloomy house.   But right now, that electricity is Chris’ lifeline.   Its his little piece of power (power – get it?) and so I’m going to play his game.   I’ll sit in dark rooms.   I’ll ignore the flickering lightbulbs.   I’ll use candles.   Because I love him.

And that’s what marriage is all about, right?   Loving the people that light up your world.