Mr. Metaphor

I'm always looking for metaphors. Last night, however, an author summed up long distance relationships in a way that I never thought of. I hate that! I had three full years of long distance struggles before marrying Alison, and I'd never wrote it like this. It's like someone else told a hilarious joke that was on the tip of your tongue, or so it would seem after it's said. But I am greatful to Nicholas Sparks for adding that to my memory's dialogue about Ali and I.

Though I knew she loved and cared for me, I suddenly understood that even love and caring weren't always enough. They were the concerete bricks of our relationship, but unstable without the mortar of time spent together, time without the imminent separation hanging over us....Our relationship, I felt with a heaviness in my chest, was beginning to feel like the spinning movement of a child's top. When we were together, we had the power to keep it spinning, and the result was beauty and magic and an almost childlike sense of wonder; when we separated, the spinning began inevitably to slow. We became wobbly and unstable, and I knew I had to find a way to keep us from toppling over.