Tennessee Williams wrote a story about a shy young man who inherited a bookstore and married his sweetheart. But she wanted more. She had a fine singing voice and left him to follow a career on the stage. At their parting, he gave her a key to the front door and said: ‘One day you’ll want to come back, and I’ll be waiting.’ Then, to escape the pain, he immersed himself in his books while he waited for her to return.
Fifteen years later she did, but he didn’t recognise her. She said she was looking for the book about the ambitious wife who left her husband to seek a career, but could never let go of the key he gave her.
‘Don’t know it,’ he said. ‘Sound’s like something from Tolstoy.’
She dropped the key and fled, and he turned back to his books.
It’s so easy to become distracted by the routines of life that we miss what our hearts want most.