Three Degrees of Passion
T.J. Seitz
Copyright 2011 by T.J. Seitz
It’s not a good idea to try to define vague concepts such as love. They are too subjective and highly dependant on an individual’s conscious and subconscious interpretation or feelings.
Everyone knows the cliché picture of love that troubadours sing praises to and inspires poets to compose but if one looks closer more people experience or understand love in a more unique and personalized manner. To some love can be as warped as an abusive relationship; others believe that love can be a one way unreciprocated relationship. An upheld promise or commitment such as marriage vows is considered a form of love and then there is the notion that true love is just being able to accept and support what is without judgment or expectation. These understandings only fall under the romantic side of the concept. It gets more complicated when blood and family get thrown into the mix because it’s hard to deny the truth of being related to someone. People can lie but not their DNA. Marriage is the intermingling of blood and choice.
With love comes intimacy. Intimacy is the bond or connection be it close or shared between two individuals. It can take the obvious form of a relationship but can also be something like an experience (such as attending a school, working at the same place or fighting a war together) or religion/belief.
Passion is how deep and meaningful the intimate connection between two people runs. Lack of passion means the connection is weak and/or obligatory and lots of passion in a relationship usually means that connection runs strong. The grey area in between indifference and zeal is the most confusing kind of passion because it gives us lots to think about.
First Degree
Ron is 43 years old. He is of average height and weight. Is clean shaven with short curly brown hair, which is specked with grey on the sides and slightly thinning on the top. His eyes are brown. He used to wear glasses but had surgery last year to correct his vision. At work Ron wears polo shirts and slacks. At home he likes to wear flannel shirts and jeans. He is pretty quiet and could easily exit in a large crowd of people unnoticed because he is not a very remarkable or outstanding person. He has no hobbies or favorite things to do during free time but is pretty handy around the house and keeps himself busy taking care of the yard and repairing things.
Ron has worked as a design engineer for Lockheed Martin in Syracuse, NY for almost 20 years. He got the job soon after graduating from college. He’s a very reliable employee whom everyone says is likable and easy to work with. He is never late, leaves at the end of the day on time and works overtime if asked to. He only calls in sick once or twice a year and rarely uses all of his 25 accrued vacation days in the course of a year.
Ron has been married to Sarah for a little over 12 years now. They have three children ages 10, 7 and 9 months old. Two boys and a girl.
Sarah is a few years younger than Ron. She is neither ugly nor unattractive. She is about five foot five and about 20 pounds overweight for her size and body type. Her frizzy shoulder length hair is dyed auburn and naturally brown. She does not wear make up, dresses in frumpy oversized stained torn t-shirts and sweatpants without a bra because she is still breastfeeding. Sarah always looks tired, even when she is getting a full nights sleep. She wears blue contacts when she goes out and regular glasses when she is at home. Her eyes are really brown. She also has a slight smell of curdled breast milk and spunky body odor, even after showering. Sarah is a very frustrated and loud person. She tends to yell a lot even when it’s not necessary. It’s easy to notice her in a crowd. She stands out like a sore thumb.
Before meeting Sarah, Ron lived on his own alone and with roommates. His life was pretty calm and uneventful because he worked full time and had a mortgage to pay. He dated a number of women on and off, two of which he had significant long term relationships with. Sarah was not one of those women. Ron and Sarah met at a reunion party hosted by a mutual friend that was a member of Ron’s college fraternity.
Sarah also went to college. Her BA was in education even though she had no intention ever to teach. It was the easiest means to a goal. She was a marginal student because she really didn’t want to be there or know what she really wanted to study. Parties and fleeting social causes were what she applied herself best to. She worked after graduating but never really held down a long term job or pursued a career. Instead she spent a lot of her time traveling/backpacking around Europe and South America. She was very creative at finding ways to live a millionaire’s life on a pauper’s budget and loved to mingle amongst those crowds, even though she was not one of them.
When Sarah met Ron she was at a point in her life where she was getting worried about her biological clock and noticed that all of her friends where getting married and settling down. She thought it was a good time to settle down and figured that all she needed was a stable respectable man with a good paying job to fulfill that purpose in her life and never thought beyond those vague expectations. Ron also wanted to get married but was a little more realistic about what to expect while married, his parents were a troublesome match from the beginning and almost divorced several times over affairs, kids and money problems but always seemed to work out their problems and genuinely love each other despite all the bad blood. He didn’t understand why they stayed together but vowed to never to put his wife and kids through that kind of uncertainty.
In the beginning both Ron and Sarah were very happy with themselves, each other and their marriage because it was just them. They did things together like watch TV, went out to dinner, weekend getaways and vacations. They talked about their past and revealed their hopes and dreams openly Ron had a good paying job that covered most household bills which made it easy for Sarah to get comfortable pursuing her whims and continue living as she always had, sleeping in late, shopping trips with friends and going on short trips alone when she felt like getting away.
It was easy for them, to talk to each other and share their feelings because they had few immediate responsibilities beyond caring for themselves and paying their monthly bills. After the birth of their first child though things began to gradually change but it wasn’t until the birth of their second child that the novelty of parenting and Sarah’s reality crashed into a brick wall. Her freedom vanished in a puff of talcum powder. Since she chose to stay home and care for the kids full time assuming it would mostly be fun and easy along with saving them money by not having to pay for daycare she quickly discovered that she could get an ounce of personal time alone or privacy, not going anywhere or doing anything without one or both children attached to her hip including going to the bathroom and sleeping in past 6AM became impossible. She was shell shocked by the experience. No one ever told her this was what motherhood was all about. She didn’t remember her childhood much and her mother had Alzheimer’s so she didn’t remember either. She was afraid to ask her friends because she didn’t want to look stupid. God forbid trying counseling, she’d rather slit her wrists than do that since that would imply there was something wrong with her. The unplanned birth of their third child pushed her way over the edge into the realm of insanity. Ron’s home life was transformed from a haven into a living Hell within a few short years because Sarah was not happy with herself and the decisions she made but was too afraid to admit it. Marriage and children made her miserable and she was not sophisticated enough to consider getting a divorce or looking into daycare help. Deep down she knew she would be far worse off if she left, with or without the kids so rather than leaving she took it out on, justified and blamed her erratic behavior on her husband and kids. She did look into the cost of daycare and gawked at the costs. Nannies and pre-scho
ols were too expensive. Sarah wanted to spend her money on herself and having fun not daycare because if she paid for that then she’d have no money left over to spend during her free time and she didn’t want to work.
Instead of getting angry, Ron conditioned himself to cope in silence by always having a half filled juice glass of cheap bourbon in one hand and the TV remote control or tool in the other. He learned to numb the noise in his head and the constant stress of being around his wife by tuning out, denial and avoidance. Ron simply juggled his life amongst his job, his recliner, running the kids to appointments, friends’ houses, after school activities and fixing things around the house as needed. All of which kept him and the kids away from the wrath of his wife allowing for a few precious moments of peace, quiet and most of all fun.
Sarah was marginally OK when left alone with one or two of the kids weekdays for a few hours simply because they where in school, napping or at a neighbor’s