You will never finish any project that you never start. No matter how simple you think it’s going to be, nor how daunting the task. You have to get it started if you’re going to get it done.
I’m not really sure why I was such a procrastinator for much of my life or why I would fail to take care of things that needed my attention. With a big project, it can be so overwhelming that you simply don’t know where to start. You look at it and it all just seems like too much. Sometimes that was the case for me. That was where Mort Fertel’s emails were such a godsend. I didn’t have to figure out what to do. I could just follow the instructions.
In the routine maintenance, however, I had no such excuse. I just didn’t do what needed done. I didn’t pay attention. I neglected to maintain the romance and the special things that keep love fresh and new. I still wanted our love to be like that, but I hadn’t done my part for years and I finally more or less gave up.
Seemingly out of nowhere, as I would walk through the apartment, I began to see my wife and our history all around me. Things I hadn’t thought about in years, and things that I had forgotten altogether were suddenly returning to me with great force. As I passed by a shelf or opened a drawer or cupboard, I would see things that had always been there, but now they reminded me that they had been gifts we had given each other, or were keepsakes from special times and places in our lives.
Where I had forgotten all of the good things that we had shared for more than a decade and allowed myself to focus on the disappointments, I was seeing anew how special and wonderful our marriage had always been. Where I had allowed myself to blame my loving partner for the marriage going downhill, I could now see how she had always tried to make me happy and had only wanted my love in return. I was living in the same place, surrounded by the same things, but seeing it all so differently. I saw her in everything and knew that I had blown it.
That evening, I tried to talk to her. “This is us, remember?” I tried to get her to see what I had seen and feel what I felt, but her eyes hadn’t been opened. Her heart was still hard. And I was taking the wrong approach. I would learn that in the days to come.
The Restoration Tour 