Fishing with Mr. Patience

I am just sitting here on this rainy night, contemplating our upcoming anniversary outing this weekend.  We will probably drive a few hours just to “get away” and go fishing, something we both enjoy and I don’t have the pleasure of doing very often.

I felt the corners of my mouth turn upward into a smile as I recalled a day of fishing with my husband when we were first married.

We were fishing one afternoon and although I enjoy it when the fish are biting and I’m catching, I’m not such a die-hard that I won’t put my pole down for a while and lay in the sun with a book for a while, (which may exceed fishing as far as the relaxation factor goes).

We were way up some creek and the bugs were buzzing, gators were cruising and the occasional fish jumped near the boat.  It was getting late, so we were hoping to catch dinner soon.  Suddenly my husband had something on, and it wasn’t giving up easily.  This motivated me so I jumped up and grabbed my pole and casted, sinking my bait right where I wanted it.

In the meantime, my husband had pulled his beautiful fish in and was anxiously awaiting my turn.  He didn’t have to wait long until I also had a bite and then he began coaching me, like he always does.  This annoys me, but he can’t help it so I just deal with it.  In my humble opinion, I did everything right.  But something went wrong, and I lost the fish and it was a big one.  Not your ordinary big one, mind you, but a monster.  My fairly new (at the time) husband lost his patience with me and proceeded to explain in a somewhat aggravated tone, that if I’d done as I was told, we would have a fat fish in the boat.

I did what I always did back then, long before I was blessed with age and wisdom and the ability to admit that I am wrong and laugh about it.  I threw my pole down, stomped to the back of the boat and sat down sulkily, book in hand, anxiously awaiting the expected apology.

He got the poles situated, grumbled for a minute and then looked back and me and smiled.  I was much too stubborn at this point (and age) to smile back so I feigned extreme interest in my book and ignored him.  A minute later, he made his way to my side and hugged me and told me he was sorry for over-reacting and within seconds, all was forgiven.  My world was righted again.

I smile now because I think of all of our absurd little arguments and how so much anxiety could have been avoided if I’d only known then what I know now.  Surely others learn more quickly than I did, certainly we don’t have to be briskly approaching fifty to begin to see things from a broader perspective.

However, watching the younger ones, I see the same silly mistakes, the same ridiculous arguments and I realize we truly do live and learn and that living out these things is sometimes the only way we can learn.  Besides, some of the arguments that seemed to be such a big deal at the time are the ones I look back and laugh about now and actually remember fondly, because of the apologies and the way love has grown through all of this.  We have lots of stories to tell our grandchildren!

So, in a day or two, we will be alone, fishing again and I will have a book and he might lose his patience, but at the end of the day, we will still have each other.  And hopefully, enough fish for dinner.

Me with a nice red