"Honey, It's Just Broken"

So, has anyone watched the old, classic movie, "A Christmas Story"? If you have, the lamp pictured to the left should come flowing back into your memory banks. The next question is, how does this lamp end up as a blog post?

Good question. I'll get to that momentarily, I promise. In the meantime, perhaps you can relate to the nice person that brought home his/her first lover to meet the parents. Maybe you can relate to the feeling of the first kiss... the first time in the sheets... the long line of memories spawned by a relationship that you deemed to be a very special part of your life.

Now, say that life backhands you in the face, and you are betrayed by this 'special lover'. In fact, it happens over and over again until something even worse happens -- you come down with an STD, you are taken advantage of, or you are used and abused, etc. These relationships are analogous to the leg lamp from "A Christmas Story".

If you've watched the movie, you know what happens to this leg lamp, right? And how does the father respond? He attempts to glue it back together and return it quickly to its pedestal by the window. Then, the world could see its prominence and influence once again. Of course, the lamp is broken beyond repair, and no amount of glue is going to make it whole again.

In a way, perhaps the father saw this as an escape from the reality that his wife's legs will never look like that again... an escape to something that could get his hormones raging again, like they were during his younger days. Nevertheless, internal dialogue kicks into the father's brain... "Honey, It's Just Broken" ... and he gets rid of the lamp and moves on.

As I cross paths with more and more men in the dating world, I wonder to myself, when is that internal dialogue going to kick in for them? Will they run out of glue before they realize that the leg lamp will never be the same again? Will they grow tired of gluing its gaping cracks, and then worrying/wondering when it's going to come crashing down again? When will they stop ignoring the store with a Mega-Sale on premium lamps?

*Sigh* I guess some men look for a new lamp... some men buy another case of glue.

I used to be the man that spent my whole paycheck on glue... and I often wonder what kept me going back for more. Seriously, what is truly behind the difficulty in letting someone go? I can't speak for all the other guys that are still squirting glue at a broken lamp, but I used to think it was the power of sentimentality at work.

Now, I wonder if I was running from something... maybe a deep seeded fear of being alone? Maybe I was running away from some sort of inequity, deficit or surplus? Maybe the glue-squirters of the present are running from something, too?

Whatever the case may be, my key to ditching the glue was to accept that while shopping for just the right lamp, very good things can happen in the dark!