choose your own adventure and settle in for the long haul;
i love him in grey sweatpants, even when he leaves them in a pile on the otherwise clean floor. i'm growing to love the way i make the bed when i get home every day because he'll never find the time or reason to do it in the morning. i hope to eventually love the fact that he'll never bring his cereal bowl into the kitchen and what little leftover milk there is will cement itself to the bowl's bottom.
i'm beginning to think i'd recommend this. sure, sometimes i feel like we're prematurely elderly, sometimes i wish we still had any incentive to actually plan things, but everything comes out even when i factor in every moment we wouldn't otherwise have. i feel like there are two distinct parts of me - one that wants a ring and a cat and a shared last name, and another that wants to run far and fast because i'm still so young, because there has to be other bodies i'm supposed to see naked, other lips i'm supposed to taste. both sides scare me equally and i'm left without a middle ground.
each day takes it a little farther away from playing, pretending and a little closer to some sort of permanance. for how long is it dress-up before it becomes the expected garb? for how long is it make-believe before it becomes every day ordinary? growing up isn't something you try on; there's no receipt and certainly no exchange policy. by living in this studio apartment with him i'm simultaneously not being a single twenty-something throwing together one haphazard combination after another to see what best fits.
it's so easy to forget that life is all about choices, and that even the ones that no longer feel like decisions are always excluding some alternate option. i feel like part of me has been mislead by reading so many stories. i think that it's okay to take a stab at this for a while because i can always go back to the first page, pick a different setting and a new cast of supporting characters, but that's just not the way it is.
and still, when it dawns on me that this life is a decision i've made, i can't think of anything i actually want to change. i can't imagine my bed without his body beside me. i can't imagine any ending that doesn't include him unless i was able to go back and erase our beginning. investment is its own layer of protection - how can you walk away from something that defines you? all of sudden i understand husbands and wives in denial everywhere. when there's such a beautiful beginning you simply can't help but see it out.
and maybe that's just love, much less of a choice than we'd like to convince ourselves. and maybe if comfort is a trap, it's one in which i'd willingly get caught.
today my kids found a spelling list tucked inside one of my childhood books. it was mine, from fifth grade, and when they read from it they said the year 1994 like it was before they were born. which it was, for the most part, and as they oohed and aahhed over my anal-retentive ten year old cursive, i found myself, for the first time in my entire life, feeling truly, unexplicably old.
i'm beginning to think i'd recommend this. sure, sometimes i feel like we're prematurely elderly, sometimes i wish we still had any incentive to actually plan things, but everything comes out even when i factor in every moment we wouldn't otherwise have. i feel like there are two distinct parts of me - one that wants a ring and a cat and a shared last name, and another that wants to run far and fast because i'm still so young, because there has to be other bodies i'm supposed to see naked, other lips i'm supposed to taste. both sides scare me equally and i'm left without a middle ground.
each day takes it a little farther away from playing, pretending and a little closer to some sort of permanance. for how long is it dress-up before it becomes the expected garb? for how long is it make-believe before it becomes every day ordinary? growing up isn't something you try on; there's no receipt and certainly no exchange policy. by living in this studio apartment with him i'm simultaneously not being a single twenty-something throwing together one haphazard combination after another to see what best fits.
it's so easy to forget that life is all about choices, and that even the ones that no longer feel like decisions are always excluding some alternate option. i feel like part of me has been mislead by reading so many stories. i think that it's okay to take a stab at this for a while because i can always go back to the first page, pick a different setting and a new cast of supporting characters, but that's just not the way it is.
and still, when it dawns on me that this life is a decision i've made, i can't think of anything i actually want to change. i can't imagine my bed without his body beside me. i can't imagine any ending that doesn't include him unless i was able to go back and erase our beginning. investment is its own layer of protection - how can you walk away from something that defines you? all of sudden i understand husbands and wives in denial everywhere. when there's such a beautiful beginning you simply can't help but see it out.
and maybe that's just love, much less of a choice than we'd like to convince ourselves. and maybe if comfort is a trap, it's one in which i'd willingly get caught.
today my kids found a spelling list tucked inside one of my childhood books. it was mine, from fifth grade, and when they read from it they said the year 1994 like it was before they were born. which it was, for the most part, and as they oohed and aahhed over my anal-retentive ten year old cursive, i found myself, for the first time in my entire life, feeling truly, unexplicably old.