Your Own Fountain

Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. Proverbs 5:15, 18-19

The silence at Vagner and Sabrina’s dinner table was louder than any argument. Between them was a chasm of routine and exhaustion. Their conversations, once full of dreams and laughter, were now reduced to reports on the execution of daily tasks.

Vagner, an overworked engineer, found refuge in overtime at the office. Sabrina, who had paused her design career to care for their children, found solace in the chats of her online mothers’ groups. Both were thirsty, but they were seeking water from distant springs. Their own fountains, once clear and bubbling, were becoming muddied by neglect.

The silent crisis reached its peak on a Friday night. Vagner came home late, once again, and found Sabrina asleep on the sofa, her phone fallen beside her. He looked at her. He saw the lines of fatigue on her face; the same woman he had fallen in love with in college had lost her glow under the weight of daily life. And he felt a pang of guilt. He was not being fair.

The next day, he canceled his appointments and did something he had not done in years. He invited Sabrina out for coffee, just the two of them.

“I feel like we are becoming business partners, not a couple,” he confessed, the vulnerability in his voice surprising them both. “I’m tired, Sabrina. But mostly, I am thirsty. Thirsty for what we used to have.”

Sabrina looked at him, and the barriers she had built around her heart began to crumble.

“Me too, Vagner. Me too.”

That day, they made a decision. They decided to “drink water from their own cistern.”

They started with small gestures. Vagner began to leave work on time, rejecting the culture of excess that kept him away from home. The first night he arrived for dinner was awkward, almost formal. But then, he started asking about her day—not about her tasks, but about her feelings.

Sabrina, in turn, made an effort to see Vagner not just as the provider, but as the man she loved. She sent him a text in the middle of the day, not with a shopping list, but with an old photo of them from when they first started dating, with the caption: “Remembered us.”

They declared a “screen-free zone” after nine o’clock at night. Instead of getting lost in their own digital worlds, they would sit on the veranda. At first, the silence was uncomfortable. But then, they began to talk. About fears, dreams, about the funny things the kids did. The spring that had seemed dry began to flow again.

The turning point was subtle. One evening, Vagner was frustrated with a problem at work. His first instinct was to isolate himself, to stew in his anger. Instead, he shared it with Sabrina. She did not give him a technical solution, but she listened to him with an empathy that soothed his soul. Her embrace was a source of comfort that satisfied him always. He felt captivated not just by her body, but by the refuge she represented.

Their love was no longer the frantic love of youth, but something deeper, more resilient. It was a love watered by the daily choice to turn toward each other.

A few months later, a recently divorced colleague vented to Vagner.

“The passion was gone, man. It became routine. I went looking outside for what I no longer had at home.”

Vagner looked at his friend with a compassion born of experience. He thought about how close he had been to that same chasm.

“The problem,” Vagner said, with a wisdom he did not know he possessed, “is that we spend our lives looking for new, exotic springs. And we do not realize that the purest fountain, the one that truly quenches thirst, is the one already in our own yard. We just need to take care of it.”

That night, when he got home, he found Sabrina dancing in the kitchen with the children. She smiled at him over their shoulders, and in that smile, he saw the same woman of his youth. And he felt like the richest man in the world, forever captivated by the love he had almost let dry up.

(Made with AI)

This story is part of my book Everyday Wisdom

https://books2read.com/u/3knogL