{"id":231,"date":"2005-02-16T10:23:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-16T15:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lawrencem94.sg-host.com\/?p=231"},"modified":"2005-02-16T10:23:00","modified_gmt":"2005-02-16T15:23:00","slug":"a-many-splendored-erg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/?p=231","title":{"rendered":"A Many Splendored Erg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was reading Becky&#8217;s blog and her musings on love in the wake of Valentine&#8217;s Day inspired some thoughts of my own.<\/p>\n<p>The main thought being that nobody anywhere portrays love as work, and I think that&#8217;s a huge disservice to love. I can hear the sniffing, &#8220;Well, love shouldn&#8217;t BE work&#8221;, and I guess love in itself is not work, per se, but marriage, and healthy relationships do require it. (and it&#8217;s not BAD that it&#8217;s work, either.) It&#8217;s just that you have to put something into it, all the time. It&#8217;s not a painting that you save up and buy and hang on the wall and you&#8217;re done.  I think that&#8217;s the big myth that is perpetuated, because how can you quantify 365 days of work each year into a 2-hour movie?  Hollywood scripts it so we see <br \/>1. Initial attraction, <br \/>2. Ensuing pratfalls and hilarious obstacles, <br \/>3. Magical moment where all obstacles are swept away, <br \/>4. Happily Ever After.  <\/p>\n<p>They don&#8217;t show minor squabbles or the satisfying moments when you lean your head against your partner and feel their warmth transfer to your own skin. <\/p>\n<p>And I do believe in Happily Ever After. You just have to live it one day at a time, and have realistic expectations that not every day will be scripted by an adept writer. I&#8217;ve talked to my dear friend who has been married for over thirty years &#8211; and she&#8217;s the first to acknowledge how much work goes into a successful marriage. I think there&#8217;s an unfair, negative association with the word &#8220;Work&#8221;, because in our society, it&#8217;s usually the opposite of &#8220;Fun&#8221;. So maybe the more palatable word is &#8220;Investment&#8221;. Or maybe we start using poker terminology.<\/p>\n<p>JWo, I&#8217;m all in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was reading Becky&#8217;s blog and her musings on love in the wake of Valentine&#8217;s Day inspired some thoughts of my own. The main thought being that nobody anywhere portrays love as work, and I think that&#8217;s a huge disservice to love. I can hear the sniffing, &#8220;Well, love shouldn&#8217;t BE work&#8221;, and I guess [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}