Caring is Complicated

January 15, 2011

Today the husband recommended that I put a counter on The Puddle. I’ve considered it, but I sense a problem with this recommendation: counting would compel me to care, and caring makes things complicated. Take the first time I really cared about what someone (outside of my family) thought about me, for example. I was high school and I was completely smitten by a boy. He was smart, handsome, kind, cultured, confident, involved in every sport in every season and played every instrument in the orchestra (and a small ensemble of girls as well). But, since he was quite literally the Hercules of our high school class (and for other not-so-superficial reasons) I adored him. I was also completely in denial. Years passed. And then, for some fateful reason, I decided to take a risk and tell him. I thought about it for weeks, how and when exactly to say, “I like you.” This was a big deal. I had never said anything so loaded in my life. What if he didn’t like me too—what would that mean? I wasn’t pretty or smart or _(fill in the blank)_ enough? Or would it be the opposite—that I was too nice, too long or too _(take your pick)_? I was bound to be too much or not enough of something. But, somehow I mustered the courage to care enough that I was willing to take a risk and spill my gigantic bottle of beans, even if it meant spending the rest of my life all alone, cleaning up every last dirty, dejected one. One night when we walked me to my door I told him quickly and awkwardly, right then and there. It was so stupidly quick and awkward that I had to repeat myself. I waited for his response…forever. Then, just when I was about to bang my head against the front door and tell him to drive off and leave me on the porch to die, he smiled. And his sweet, crooked grin echoed my awkward confession. He liked me too—apparently a lot, because every year since then he’s been by my side, helping me clean up every last spilled bottle of beans. My Hercules.

Where was I? Oh yes: caring makes things complicated. Having a complicated life isn’t necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, a complicated life can be the most fulfilling, if you treat it with care. In the case of the hubby, I’m glad that I cared enough to take that risk and consequently make my life more complex. I’m just not sure that I care enough about the number of people who step in my puddles to take the risk and count. After all, the only ones who really count are already reading.