LJ Idol Minor+ Prompt6: "Keep the Fire Burning"

[sorchawench]

We've been married for 21 years. We've been together for 28.

We're best friends. Each other's shield, shoulder, and support system.

But we've reached a point where the fires, well...they don't burn quite as hot as they used to. Part of it is medical. He's on medications that keep certain fires from flaming, if you get my drift. But a good deal of it is just...comfortability.

We're just too comfortable.

The fire is banked, we're tucked in for the night, and sleep is calling our names.

~*~

I remember Fire.

I remember when the flames burned hot, and high, and almost out of control. We burned like the dry brush of a forest fire. Licking, devouring, razing the landscape bare until we lay alongside each other, covered in sweat, panting for air.

.
.
.

When we were younger and had more energy and less stress.

~*~

Some nights I think about stoking that fire. Adding a log, some tinder, and blowing to see if the spark can be rekindled.

But my own insecurities raise their head and I draw back from the woodpile. Almost afraid to find out that no amount of kindling will get even a small fire glowing in the night.

~*~

Today the fire sometimes seems to be barely there. A kiss here, a touch there...a far cry from what we once were.

But just enough to see by the glow of the fire's light.

Comments

[adoptedwriter]

Great analogy. I get it. We experience the same. Stupid chemo effects and heart meds…he stays living a meaningful life, ergo we all do, but there was / is one price.

[sorchawench]

Thanks, I was hoping the situation would come through the writing.

He takes it harder than I do, at his lack of ability to perform like he used to. And so I'm hesitant to even start some slap and tickle, because I know how it *won't* end, and how he'll beat himself up about it.

But I'd rather have him alive and healthy than the alternatives.

[erulissedances]

I enjoyed this. I've been through the same - DH and I have been married for 42 years, together for 45. We're certainly not burning as hot, but we still burn, we make a point of it. Neither of us are dead yet - LOL - and we don't intend to fall completely off the wagon until we are.

- Erulisse (one L)

[sorchawench]

We need to make MORE of a point of it I think. I miss the intimacy we had. Not the mad passionate monkey sex, necessarily.

[gunwithoutmusic]

My husband and I have only been married for about five years, together for about ten, and I definitely get it. Life has a tendency to get in the way sometimes, and comfort has a tendency to dull the flame of love a little bit. I take solace in knowing that it's still there, and I can see it in the little ways like when he smiles at me, and I try not to let it get me down. And, if I'm honest with myself, sometimes I think the comfort is maybe not so bad itself.

[michaelboy]

A wish that you once again find that fire among the insecurities of rekindling.