Twenty five, the metaphysics for the number tell you that the number Twenty Five denotes wisdom  with a touch of diplomacy and curiosity. It’s about intuition, self-awareness, and interest in nearly everything.  Now, there are many things on the internet which will tell you it has different meaning in a different context.  However, given this is my blog, I’m going to stick with the above!

Why, because this year is our twenty fifth wedding anniversary! Unfortunately I’m spending it in ICU with a tracheostomy!  It doesn’t reflect any of the above.  Well perhaps curiosity, wide awake, local anesthetic, cauterization, the smell of a BBQ and the weird sensation of breathing through a hole in your neck.   But that’s what twenty five years of marriage gives you.  No!  Not the tracheostomy!  It gives you caring, unconditional caring no matter the situation!  When you take the metaphysical meaning, it gives you all the requirements to get through twenty five years.  In fact all relationships should be based on these six characteristics.  If they are used as the cornerstones to the foundation of a union of two people, wed or unwed, they are bound to find the meaning to a successful union.  Perhaps that’s where they came on these characteristics!  We should teach these to our children.  They actually form the base for any successful union, friendship, business partnership and family bond!

Today though I’d like to talk about it in the context of twenty five years of marriage. Mathematically  it’s thirty years since we first started going “steady”.   I’m not sure what kids today call it!  We were kids, twenty three years young.   Naïve, brave, stupid, in love, no money and perhaps a bit of curiosity.  We unfortunately stumbled our way through married life learning the hard way about Wisdom, intuition, self awareness and diplomacy.  The interest in everything is what really got us through the twenty five years or at least a fair portion of it.  We now have the scars of wisdom and have learnt to be diplomats in the process!  Certainly better diplomats than Donald Trump!   Diplomacy or the art of negotiating, is an interesting one.  You can either follow Donald Trumps style and pay Stormy Daniels large sums of money to remain quiet, imagine how much his diplomacy is costing to keep Melania happy!  I suppose if you wealthy money could perhaps be an acceptable source of Diplomacy! I was never good at diplomacy, early hours of the morning stumbling home to negotiate with the porcelain bowl doesn’t really work when it’s one sided! Have I become better at it?  Not really.   Antoinette on the other hand since I’ve been diagnosed with ALS has become a master at diplomacy.  A fierce tiger one minute and the next tactfully bringing all parties together to agree and align on what we need.  Perhaps Donald should take a few pointers!

The most beautiful part of the number twenty five, the product of the five characteristics! Obviously, for those concerned about the mathematical correctness, it’s the sum of the square of these five characteristics!  Children! Or in our case a single beautiful example of how over the past fifteen years these characteristics have been honed.  A child, our child, Tallulah.  She taught us to sharpen these skills.  Self awareness , curiosity, the interest in everything is what you quickly come to grips with as a parent.  Self awareness, how love, empathy and tolerance are instilled into children, who, as the go through life mimic what they hear, see and do! It doesn’t take long for us to realize we have not been aware when our darlings, or as I did at a young age, standing up on the church pew during service and letting out a row of expletives at the top of my voice.   Mom, Dad?

Probably one of the most elusive traits, Intuition!  Defined as the ability to immediately understand without conscious reasoning!  In a marriage this is the ability to think you understand something through “inner sensing” something which eludes most men and which all woman claim to have!  The reality is that woman are better at this than men.  They hone their skill on understanding what our beautiful babies need before they can consciously reason what they want!   After twenty five years this still trips me up!  We look for signs, body language, hints, clues, anything that gives us the ability to understand what our partner is feeling or needs.  Without these signs I was and am still useless.   Black and white, in the lines is what I understand, we understand!  Without communication in marriage, Intuition doesn’t exist.   For me, it’s about reaching a point in a relationship where you know the person well enough to understand the subtle signs and gestures to know what the correct response should be, however it’s still about communication!  It’s never been more clear to me than now, reduced to a rag doll, no body language, no voice, not even sign language .  My head and eye gestures the only body language left, you’ll be surprised how effective a death stare can be!  Communication and understanding is the basis of intuition, without communication, nothing can be understood.   Take it from me, no amount of conscious reasoning can tell Antoinette that the motion of my eyes downward, with the blink of the left eye and the jerk of the head left means, “please move my leg to the left so my privates can breath!”  Intuition = Communication, I’m not trying to get out of twenty three years of missing almost all the cues, I finally understand it!  If only I knew that at the start, vows should say “I will strive to communicate until we live intuitively”.

All that’s left for me to say, THANK YOU Antoinette for the past Twenty Five years of friendship, love, caring and curiosity!  For nurturing our relationship, believing in us through good times and bad.  For your unconditional caring, for being my tiger and most of for loving me for who I am!

I will strive to communicate until we live intuitively,  until death us do part!

2nd April 2019

#ChallengeALSDXB