Secret Quirks

Everyday cleaning up is always a painful chore; however, nothing bets the clean up I had to do at my grandparents’ house. Needless to say, my grandparents were pack-rats who saved everything from pictures, to old newspaper, to old movie stubs. Every inch of this tiny little house in Venice, Florida was tightly packed, and needed a cleaning since the seventies. However, the one thing I found in abundance was jewelry.
Jewelry of every shape and size ever imaginable could be found in this house. Jewelry was hidden in the medicine cabinet and in boxes carefully placed in the middle of folded clothes in the dresser. I found jewelry pouches hanging from hangers and in the bathroom drawers. I found a hidden jewelry amour in the guest room closet, which was packed full even though it was only three feet tall. By the end of the week of cleaning, I found over ten normal sized jewelry boxes, which were in plain view on top of counters; I counted over 30 watches and over 80 pieces of jewelry never worn.
I learned from my father that my grandmother had recently found a new source of entertainment: the Home Shopping Network. My grandmother would spend countess amounts of money buying jewelry for herself and ‘gifts’ for relatives that over the months she had forgotten about and were never sent out. Although her intentions were good, my grandfather was furious that my grandmother was spending so much money. So, my grandmother took matters into her own hands. She took to hiding the jewelry wherever she could find room; which included wearing at least four watches (none of which are working), four rings and six bracelets.
My grandparents were married for over 60 years, and yet still kept secrets from each other. My grandfather would watch The Sopranos while my grandmother was at church, and my grandmother hid her jewelry. I never doubted but grandparents love but yet they still somehow individuals too.
Some have said that you should not keep secrets from the person you love, but maybe secrets are needed in a relationship. Finding out interesting facts about who you dating is half the fun part. So what happens when you have been married for over 60 years and you know everything tiny possible detail down to their bathroom habits. Where’s the fun in that? Secrets help keep things mysterious and intriguing.
Of course big secrets like cheated on your partner is not a good secret that helps keep a relationship going, but fun and quirky things like secretly eating forbidden chocolates are good for relationships. The individual side to your personality almost always takes over. Growing up as teenagers, we felt the need to first fit in and then to stand out from those around us. Just like couples who have been together for forever fit in perfectly yet now they feel the need to branch out a little.
Within every relationship, people feel the need to be an individual as well as a couple. After 65 years of marriage, the only way for my grandparents to become an individual was to keep small innocence secrets from each other; which of course lead to my fun treasure hunting adventure within their house. My grandparents learned how to become a solid, loving couple but at the same time they manage to find their own individual quirks.
Now, that’s what love requires: secrets!