To Share With

I was recently watching a DVD called "At Close Range". It's the story of internationally acclaimed National Geographic magazine photographer Joel Sartore. It's a fantastic DVD that I highly recommend. Joel is a great photographer with a neat personality, but he's also a father and husband. Much of this story details the struggle he has with balancing work and family. He spends weeks and occasionally months on location, sometimes without any way to communicate.

Joel said something in the movie. It was not featured, in fact it was in a non important thought to the subject at hand, but it caught my mind. He said, "Everyone needs someone to share with". When I heard that and it settled into my head, I had to pause the movie just to think about it a bit. I couldn't agree more.

Not having someone to share your dreams, hopes, experiences, ideas, frustrations, joys, triumphs, and failures with is like being the only one on the golf course when you sink a hole-in-one. Yes.. you still got a hole-in-one. It still counts, but it doesn't have the same satisfaction of having someone next to you screaming, hi-fiving, and jumping up and down.

My wonderful wife allows me to share with her. If I didn't have that in my life, I don't know if I could survive. Just yesterday, she sat there and let me rant to her about how frustrated I've been with my own performance at work. I'm talking about 2 hours of this. She was my sounding board. She allowed me to share and she help me guide my thoughts. I felt better after. But, I'm not talking about just someone to "vent" to. I'm talking about truly sharing with.

I say, "Hey Heather, come listen to this". She doesn't have to say a word. She just sits next to me while I play a song I found on iTunes that I like a lot. She doesn't have to do anything, but allow me to share that experience with her. I love to take pictures. I love to look at great pictures. She can sit down next to me and browse photos from a photog that I really like on Flickr. It's wonderful.

The joy of doing something.... anything... is far richer when it can be shared with someone. Heather is my someone.