Have you ever fallen in love? I mean not loved somebody… because that’s different and I’ll get to that in a minute. But fallen in head-over-heels, change-the-way-you-see-the-world kind of love?
When I was younger I thought I knew love but it wasn’t until I had my first child that I knew truly, without a doubt, I had. Everything looked different, felt different. The day of his birth was the day my life renewed. I will never be the same.
Then came his sister and it happened all over again. That’ll be two years ago next week.
I found another love more recently and I wanted to tell you about it because it’s changed my life yet again, albeit a little differently.
Normally I wouldn’t let you into my home so much but I feel like I owe it to you because you’ve been there for me through 31 columns at this point and I feel like this is a supportive relationship.
I’m in love.
Blindingly in love.
With my Instant Pot.
It’s weird to say because I’m sure it’s not at all safe to use a high-tech pressure cooker without seeing what you’re doing.
It’s changed the way I plan meals, the meals we eat, and it’s even changed the way I organized my small appliance cupboard. You can see what I mean about how life-altering this acquisition has been.
I cooked a huge piece of halibut the other day in 10 minutes and then I dumped in some green beans and one minute later (three if you include the time it took to re-pressurize) my family was eating a mega-healthy dinner on a busy work night. I get butterflies just thinking about it.
(This is not a paid ad by the way.)
I know that like most love early on, that initial weak-in-the-knees feeling will fade with my Instant Pot. I’ve realized that the kind of love that often begins with romance, flowers and fancy dinners out (or in this case quick dinners in) can fade and that real love looks more like late-night trips to the store for ice cream sandwiches and taking the garbage out in the rain.
That kind of love I call blue-collar love. It takes work. Blue-collar love is the kind that keeps a player with the same ball glove for 10 years even though the laces have been replaced three times and the leather on the palm is so thin it hurts to catch a line drive but you can’t bear to part with it because that fit, that smell, is home.
That kind of hard working love is the kind that makes marriages last; when you are up to your eyeballs in your toddler’s vomit at four in the morning and look up to see your husband rinsing bed-sheets in the toilet before chucking the chunkless linens into the wash. That’s blue-collar love.
My kids are young. I’m still (and admittedly hope to remain) head-over-heels for them despite that blue-collar love beginning to creep in.
The days are long but the years are short, they say.
I’m pleased to say my marriage is in the blue-collar zone. To me it is such a comfort to see the person you’ve chosen to be with for life working just as hard as you to keep it that way.