Once upon a time a man fell in love with a lady but after they had been together a while he grew tired of her.  He searched for another.  He didn’t realize that he already had everything he needed to make him happy.  Recognize this story?  It’s told in a song titled, “Escape” or better known as the “Pina Colada Song.”

I was tired of my lady, we’d been together too long.

Like a worn out recording, of a favorite song.

So while she lay there sleeping, I read the paper in bed.

And in the personals column, there was this letter I read:

If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.

If you’re not into yoga, if you have half-a-brain.

If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape.

I’m the lady you’ve looked for, write to me, and escape.

The story may be more familiar to some of you because you’ve experienced exactly what Rupert Holmes is singing about.   I have in my own marriage.  We all tend to be creatures of habit and routine.  The problem is the same old dull routine can become quite boring.

The song continues:

I didn’t think about my lady.  I know that sounds kind of mean.

But me and my old lady, had fallen into the same old dull routine.

So I wrote to the paper, took out a personal ad.

And though I’m nobody’s poet, I thought it wasn’t half bad.

Yes, I like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.

I’m not much into health food, I am into champagne.

I’ve got to meet you by tomorrow noon, and cut through all this red tape.

At a bar called O’Malley’s, where we’ll plan our escape.

Although most of us never resort to reading or taking out personal ads, we do resign ourselves to an uninteresting, lifeless marriage.   But what if we sought to learn something new about our spouse or discovered, again, those things that made you fall in love with him or her in the first place?

This happened for Johnny and me when we changed a few things and forced ourselves out of the monotony of our lives.  We were in the habit of doing things separately and rarely had together time.  About a year ago we became involved in a small group from our church that meets weekly and have made a lot of new friends.  We have taken two classes together.  This helped us see each other in new ways. We realize we don’t have to settle for a dreary marriage if we take the time to discover new things about each other.  Because of that, we love each other deeper and we’ve learned a lot about each other…..things we never knew.

So I waited with high hopes, then she walked in the place.

I knew her smile in an instant; I knew the curve of her face.

It was my own lovely lady, and she said, “oh, it’s you.”

And we laughed for a moment, and I said, “I never knew”…

That you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.

And the feel of the ocean, and the taste of champagne.

If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape.

You’re the love that I’ve looked for, come with me, and escape.

It can be this way for all of us when we realize there is more to learn about the people we love and if we take the time to discover those things.