My old man & me.

Loyalty and love. Don’t see much of either of those two things these days and I’ve been thinking about them both a lot lately.

We can be loyal to a team, a singer, a cause, a country, a loved one and a friend. theoretically.But I’m beginning to wonder if the notion of loyalty in these choice filled days of ours is dwindling to a state of quaint obsolescence.

It doesn’t seem to be a highly prized virtue. Yet without loyalty what are we? It is a fallacy to believe that as humans we are evolved further than dogs because dogs are extraordinarily loyal. As I get older I feel that perhaps referring to humans who behave in inhumane ways, as being ‘no better than animals’ does animals a great disservice.

Maybe that’s why TV show’s and novels, songs and film’s presenting friendship groups who support and nurture one another, through the good and bad times are so spectacularly popular.

Maybe this is why we are constantly fascinated by this theme which encompasses love, because so many of us lack the requisite component for making and sticking with a commitment to another human being.

It could be that we live in a disposable age where some of us as readily ditch our life partner as quickly as we do uncomfortable underwear. It could be that the age of battling on and pushing through the pain barrier was one of a previous generation and we are owed perpetual bliss without the effort to compromise.

If you can’t remember rationing you may also not remember the parents for whom marriage was for keeps, not for now. 

Possibly the marriage model is the one that we mirror from the one we first experienced but that doesn’t explain my 18 years with Phil. My parents divorced decades ago.

For us we are bonded by our lives thus far in some way that transcends noise and haste. We have pushed through the pain barrier (Phil would say the sound barrier) of many things which I’m reliably informed would have fractured other couples. There have been low points but divorce was never on the agenda. We just fit together like a child’s hand in their parents palm.

We struggle and grumble but we seem to hang on to the love.

Anyway I’m not judging just hurling my ramblings out there into the festering pool of fury drenched commenting that is the internet. Blogs are the counselling of the new millennium after all.