The Differences that Unite Us

Last night was the beginning of the new seasons for Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis as well as Battlestar Galactica on SciFi Channel. I have to admit I was waiting for these new seasons to begin because the shows ended on nice cliff hangers last season. With the new season being here it was also time for B and I to slip into a routine we had come to miss after a while. We love SciFi Fridays on SciFi Channel. But, last night, I slipped away to go to the computer and write some on a short story that had my interest. So, for the next hour, I wrote and missed Galatica, but B was keeping me abreast of what was going on by calling in updates during commercials and even coming in at the end of the show to excitedly tell me the last five minutes of what had been happening. It wasn’t until I was in the shower last night that I realized something: Battlestar Galatica is not one of my favorite shows.

Way back when, sometime in the Seventies, I was a HUGE fan of the original BG but it was mostly because of the guy that played Starbuck (I adored him!) and because I loved everything science fiction and fantasy and it was the coolest (if not the only) sf show on at the time in my neck of the woods. Even back then I didn’t watch it religiously and pay attention to what was going on in the episodes. In fact, to this day I cannot remember one single BG episode clearly like I can the old Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. I remember many of those episodes, as well as the original Star Trek episodes (many of those I believe I have memorized, but not to the uber ST fan status, so I suck there).

Battlestar Galatica is not a bad show. It is, in fact, quite good, it just does not fit my particular taste, but it does for B. If I miss a few episodes in order to write my own stories and perhaps get published one day, I don’t see it as a horrible sacrifice like I would for the other two shows mentioned above.

B, on the other hand, can almost quote some of the old BG episodes to you. He can give descriptions of the cylons and the ships and the adventures in pretty good detail. He loves this show, old and new. In being his wife, I love having similar interests with him, it shows our unity, but there are times when we don’t have to be unified - we can like our own shows and our own things and still be just as much the couple – or more so – than we otherwise would be. Realizing that last night sort of removed a weight from my shoulders that I had not fully realized was there, until it was gone, of course. (And, I am not saying I am NEVER going to watch ANY of the BG episodes from this point forth, because I know I will. I like the show, I just do not love the show.)

It is important for us to have fun doing the little things in life, such as watch television together or like some of the same music, but it isn’t essential to our relationship. It is because of our individual interests and natures that drew us to each other just as strongly as it was the similarities in our interests and natures. This had not been a problem for me until I recently noticed just how many of my married friends were complaining that they had to go watch football with their husbands and how much they detested it. In a way it sort of planted a subconscious seed in me that I should like everything B likes, but I don’t. Although I like football, sometimes I do not like to watch the same games he doe, and if there are no stories pressing upon me I sometimes just sit in the living room with him and write letters, read a novel, edit a story I have already completed or do a craft of some type, but I do not ever feel that I should be as engrossed in said game as he is. Quite honestly, I am usually the one watching the football games and he is doing something else while sitting with me! It is good to be different in many ways, just as it is good to be similar in many ways. All in all, we do quite well together with our differences and our similarities, after all, if we were SO much alike what would there be left to discover about each other? Life together then would become quite boring at this stage of the game. Right now, it is just the way it should be, sort of like Goldie Locks and Baby Bear’s porridge, chair and bed – juuuuust right.