Upon seeing my copy of Liz Weil’s No Cheating, No Dying by our bed, my dear husband said, “I read the article in the (New York Times) Magazine. She’s kind of crazy. If it’s not broken, try to fix it.” He paused for a nanosecond. It was as if I could see realization strike. He asked, “You would totally do that, wouldn’t you?”
Busted. The optimism of if we work we can make this better resonated to the core with me. I am a fixer, a helper, and a pleaser. I am also pretty content to push things away, say into boxes or folders, literally and emotionally. I think, under my hubby’s definition, I’d qualify as “kind of crazy.”
He likes me this way. Thankfully.
**
Weil’s depiction of her family’s life, by which I mean small kids, self-directed careers, house overwhelm, quirky selves, parent-pleasing, all a bit too much to handle-ness, even the traumatic event twist, all of this resonated—albeit with our own quirks, kids, careers, house, foibles and twists. No question that I could read No Cheating, No Dying and practically take notes.
I didn’t take notes. But here’s my takeaway: even in the less is more mode of operation I’m aspiring to these days, I really appreciated Weil’s reminder that good intention is a fine thing and that life—and relationships, all of them not solely our marriages—ebb and flow, and that putting energies into some things mean other things slide. In other words, you can’t exactly do it all. You can be happy with good enough. In fact, happiness isn’t achievable if some good enough isn’t good enough for you. Pinnacles are unstable and pointy, after all, not places to hang out for long periods of time. At the same time, earnest efforts, even modest ones, as opposed to can go a long way. We are, after all, alive. We might as well keep moving, doing, learning, thinking—and loving.
