Tick Tock

When Eric is gone, I end up spending a lot of time reflecting on our relationship. When I woke up from my Stephen King dream the other night, I came up with some ways to explain how our marriage works.

Eric and I together are like an heirloom quality grandfather clock. I am the inner workings of the clock. Eric is the beautifully carved clock case.

I am a fine tuned machine. No matter what is going on around me, I keep on ticking without missing a second. Nothing affects me enough to take my mind off of the goal of keeping time. My greatest goal in life is function. I deal with my problems efficiently and quietly, in order to get back to my goals. I will stop ticking when I'm dead.

Without Eric, I am just a clock mechanism laying on the ground. Even though I can boast the most impressive German engineering, when exposed, I am not very attractive. I was never made to be seen in public. Laying on the ground, people walk past me and avert their eyes. I make them feel slightly awkward and uncomfortable, afraid to get too close, suspicious. I am nothing that people want to scoop up, take home and hang on their wall. I am raw mechanics. The only people who are comfortable approaching me are people like me, other clock mechanisms. But they pass by so infrequently. After all, clock mechanisms can't walk.

Eric on the other hand is the clock case. He is meant to be seen in public. He is beautifully carved, lovingly sanded and sealed. People can't help but walk up to him and admire the intricacies of the handiwork. Everyone wishes they had him in their home. People want to show him off at parties. He's something everyone wants to hand down to their children's children.

But without me inside, he's an empty case. He has no sense of purpose, he feels hollow.

Together, we're a perfect match. He provides me with acceptability. With him, people can appreciate my skills. There is a glass door between me and the world, which is probably a good thing. He's my buffer. He softens me, by giving me a place where I fit perfectly. Eric makes me beautiful. I give him purpose.



If you need another analogy, here's one for you: He's the front end, I'm the back end. I'm the Java source code, and he's the GUI. Imagine if you went to a website and only saw this:

function LCMCalculator(x, y) { // constructor function
 function checkInt(x) { // inner function
     if (x % 1 != 0)
         throw new TypeError(x + " is not an integer"); // exception throwing
     return x;
 }
 this.a = checkInt(x);
 this.b = checkInt(y);
 this.ab = this.a * this.b;

You'd close that browser window immediately. It would make no sense to you, it would make you feel annoyed and awkward. You would probably never realize that what you had just seen was the code for the coolest website in the world. That's me.

But if you went to a website and saw this (hover over the links).....you'd ooh and ahh in amazement. You'd marvel at the beauty and the creativity. You'd forward it to all your friends and they'd think you were so cool for finding it first. That's Eric.

Together, we're great.


He's form, I'm function.



I'm the notes, he's the timbre.

Want some more analogies, or do you get my point?

P.S. We also work so well together because he will realize that, from me, this is a love note.

(I wonder if Eric will agree with anything I just said.)