The soft world of the unsaid. The beauty of being understood and accepted without words

How reassurance and understanding can come in the simplest forms

A simple exchange between my SO and me yesterday spoke volumes about our relationship.

As I have been whingeing about my home move, covered here (separate bathrooms as key to a happy marriage) and here (new beginning), I have not reflected on the little things that bring comfort and ease in a new home.  One of those areas is keys.

I still don’t know what keys go for which door, and can never seem to remember the sequence on the key chain, why it exists in the way it does.  So, opening a door, is a struggle as there are a number of keys required to go from street to inside.

At our previous home, I had these little coloured rubber things on the keys which made it easy to remember.  Lavender was the front gate, dark green was the back gate, the square key was the front door, etc.  Easy enough, only this house has more locks, and the keys are all the same shape.  So some kind of colour coding system would be in order.

My S.O. and I were discussing this as we pulled into the drive.

“Do you have any different shades of nail polish?” I asked, “it sure would make it easy to mark the keys.”

“You have different colours,” she said, “mine are all red.”  I was thinking about the various colours I had bought with her in tow to repair various scratches to rental cars we had made over the years.  They were all sitting on my desk.  But I knew this isn’t what she meant.

“Well, don’t you?” she continued. “You have every colour under the sun, don’t you?”

“Well yes, I guess I do, but how do you know?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

And that was that.  Acknowledgement of this vast subterranean landscape that lay underfoot.  She understands, sometime acknowledges, even if she never talks about it.  

It is communication.  But most importantly it is communication about acceptance.