in the fury of the moment

give me love in my tank

Over the weekend, I took a lil' roadtrip with the fam ... and it was good. Aside from the show we went to see, I didn't do a whole lot but sit in the back of a mini-van and read Dr. Seuss books to my nieces (with the voices and all), but it was good.

On the trip back home, I had a few minutes of my own while my nieces were sleeping, and I dug around for the book that I brought with me. Turns out it was in the other car, but in the meantime I stumbled across a book that my sister is reading ... "The Five Love Languages," by Gary Chapman. That's right, I said luvvvvvv. Something I don't think about too much myself these days, but the car was quiet and I was awake, so I figured maybe it was meant to be that I check out this book.

Well, I only got a couple chapters into it before the little munchkin woke up and wanted me to do the SpongeBob voice ... but still, there was good stuff in those couple chapters. I apologize to Mr. Chapman and to anyone else who may actually have read the book and had more than 20 minutes to process it ... but here's one thing that I remember reading. Something about how we all have these "tanks" inside of us. Sort of the same idea as gas tanks (and no, I'm not saying we're all full of gas) ... but instead of running on gas like a car does, we run on love. And depending on how our tanks are filled or not filled when we're younger, we are more (or less) prepared and equipped to love others. It made lots of sense when I read it -- maybe it's not making quite so much sense now that I'm writing it.

Anyway, yesterday I was walking to the garage after an icky day at work, and for some reason the whole "love tank" idea popped into my head. I was feeling grumpy, and I wasn't feeling like talking to much of anyone. And then the guy behind the counter at the hotel (my parking garage is actually a hotel parking garage) caught my glance as I was desperately trying to make it to the escalator without actually establishing any type of human contact. He grabbed my glance and refused to let go ... and he shouted out (across the somewhat crowded lobby), "rough day there, honey?" I think I muttered something like a "yeh, it was long" or something similarly friendly. And he said, "Well, at least the rest of it is yours now, to actually enjoy. I hope it gets better. Now don't you forget to smile there." Seriously, he said these things to me. And I just sort of grunted in his general direction and made my way up the escalator. As I moved up toward the garage level, I realized that I felt a tiny bit better than I had when I walked into the lobby. And I knew that of course, it had something to do with the kinds words spoken by this man whose name I don't even know. And this is when the love tank thing came to mind. With a twist.

Wouldn't it be cool if we had these indicators that showed how much love we had in us, or if we needed to refuel? Sort of the same idea as the little indicators on our car dashboard (the indicator that I usually choose to challenge to see how "low" my fuel really is) ... but somewhere on the outside of us. Like on our forehead or our arm or something ... a flashing light telling everyone around us that we are desperately in need of a little lovin' before we shut down. In truth, this isn't something I should even think would be helpful ... because we all need love, pretty much all the time. But still, it would be helpful to see who needs it a little more, maybe ... like if you're in a crowded room, and you see lots of half-full love tanks, and you're sort of milling about with the halfsies ... then you spot a single person whose indicator is glowing red that she is way past the E mark and on her way to stalling out ... and you see this person leaving the room ... wouldn't you want to run after this person and pour some love out on her, because otherwise she might not even make it home?

I don't know, call me crazy, maybe I want things too easy ... maybe it's really about adding a little bit to each tank wherever we go. But keep me near the gas station ... I want to have a full tank myself, so I can share a little here and there.

posted by Krista @ 1:52 PM