(Prelude to His Romance Manifesto 6: For Men Only)

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Dearest ___________ ,

We’re expendable.

Men.

Expendable in war. Expendable to the economy. Expendable to women.
It follows: Next man up.

Keep it moving. Sorta like the assembly line. Something like the new smartphone that’s only months away from an upgrade, a replacement.

I’ve come to terms not only with my mortality, but so too with my expendability–to you. There are no hard feelings, no harsh sentiments harbored, stowed away somewhere in my deeper being. I’ve come to grips.

I’ve never run astray from the truth, never run afoul of the laws of loving a woman: 1) Do no harm;
2) Give, love, but be prepared for its loss; and
3) Enjoy with a kid-at-heart fervor her company . . . in the moments. But enjoy your own just the same. Just in case.

The just-in-case comes more frequently nowadays. Because we men are expendable.

Notice I didn’t say ‘love’ is expendable.

For all its faults, perceived or real, aches and pains and highs and lows, love isn’t a throw-away. Unless you can extricate your very heart from your chest and throw it away, discard it to the refuse pile that continues to litter ever more what our beautiful Earth once was.

What’s love got to do with it? In the trenches, everything.

When you turn the lamplight off to signal night’s end–with the same damn work routine awaiting you the next morning–love lying, breathing next to you has meaning. Perhaps it’s not needed at each bedtime–once a week maybe, twice a month maybe. But when there, and true, bar none, love is ultra-good.

That phone call, out of the blue, “Meet me for lunch at your fave bistro, my treat?”
Nothing expendable there. If I weren’t sitting in the chair across the table from you, it’s not the same. Sure, next man up.

But it’s a totally different conversation. The look in your eyes is different. Your laugh has a different pitch. Sure, I’m expendable–I don’t own the restaurant chair.

But the love? Is it there when my presence is not? Yes, I’m expendable. But what of the love?

Remember when I suggested we try balloon airgliding at sunset, both of us nervous (you more than I) at the prospect so high above water? You clutched my hand the whole while.

Sure enough, you can glide with another as the whim hits you.

But whose hand will yours remember? Especially on Pamper-Her-Friday?

Yes, I’m expendable. But the feeling is not.

What’s love got to do with it?

In the trenches, everything.

Deeply,
Rg2 

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Lest she forgets . . . on Pamper-Her-Friday. -Rg2

© 2014 Pamper-Her-Friday by Rg2®