Billy Joel: Seeing the familiar...

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An excerpt from Billy Joel, "Just the Way You Are":

Don't go changing, to try and please me
You never let me down before
Don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore

I wouldn't leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I'll take the bad times
I'll take you just the way you are

It's a lovely song and Billy has a way of writing lyrics that might seem overly sentimental coming from others, but from him are simply wonderful. I was recently listening to this song when the line, "Don't imagine you're too familiar // And I don't see you anymore" struck me.

With each passing day, by indiscernible increments, I know my dear wife better and better - I love her more and more. As we spend more time together I learn who she is. As my understanding of her grows, so too does my ability to see her - to see her and not who I might think she is. This is one of the blessings of marriage together: I grow to know her. The flip side of this marriage scenario is the danger that I forget how to see her.

When things become too familiar, we can take them for granted and assume that we have seen them and know them already. Everyday occurrences can become thought so common as to be completely forgotten: the evening sunset, the mountains on a clear day, the cool spring breeze... all of these can be right before me and I can fail to see their beauty because they have become too common, too familiar. How much more the danger that a person I see every day can become commonplace; how much more the danger that I can fail to see my wife as the beautiful, dynamic creature that she is because I assume that I know her, that I know who she is, that I have her figured out.

There is a danger that things and people can become 'too familiar' and that we can fail to see them as they are (and not merely as we think they are). All too often, we put people in boxes. The truth is that human beings are too big for boxes; and if we do attempt to put them in boxes, all we ultimately accomplish is that our eyes are blinded and we can no longer see them.

The challenge, then, is to see others and accept them "just they way [they] are".

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