July 21, 2011

“Who Knew?”

            “I just knew,” the old woman says, matter-of-fact. Next to her on the old couch, her husband of fifty years glazes over, stares straight ahead. “I knew, like you know about a good melon.”

            What did she know and how did she know it? It seems I’ve searched for that knowing for years—all my life, even, yearning to know something about someone else, about love, about where I was ‘supposed’ to be.

            But belonging is tricky business. In all my past relationships, that sense only came after multiple negotiations I made with myself—he would eventually get a job, fuck me, stand up for me, not take credit for everything I accomplished, get friends of his own—you get the idea. The list was long, but the benefits outweighed the compromises until they didn’t any more.

            Part of the reason I married was because I could see myself growing old with my ex—I could picture us wrinkled and creaking on matching rocking chairs. I could see the ashen wood porch, and the long grass beyond silver, bending with the wind.

            The problem with this picture is that though it’s a nice sentiment, it wasn’t my idea. It’s from some movie I saw, something I appropriated from John Travolta’s Phenomenon. And like the opening quote from When Harry Met Sally, those were actors—not real people. My idea about relationships is a construct filmmakers (read ‘society’) push to promote order, to encourage assimilation of ‘the American Way.’ 2.5 kids, a mortgage, and a steady job: the trilogy I’ve been consciously trying to escape since I can remember.

            But I never ran from love, believing I could have it without the rest.

            Which is why it’s ironic—hilarious, even—to be exactly where I am right now. I have a mortgage, a steady job, and I’m embarking on a relationship with a man who has two kids.

            After all the fuss, turns out I want to have kids of my own, too. With him.

            For the first time in my life, I just know something. For all the searching I’ve done, I finally get it. Knowing doesn’t mean I’m clairvoyant. It just means we fit. Perfectly. And it feels right, no matter how much I turn it inside-out looking for flaws.

            This time, I look into the future, there’s no sitting on rocking chairs or watching grass grow—there’s nothing orderly about it. Instead, there is chaos—kids with the flu and kids winning football games, playing hooky hiking in the mountains, and finding post-its with messages like “you captivate me” in my underwear drawer. There’s going to bed at 8:30 at night so we can get up to watch the sun rise together, visit farmers’ markets with organic eggs, and seedless watermelon. There are broken sinks, peanut butter fingerprints, and lots of lovemaking.

            There is no script and no perfect words; instead there’s the real me living a messy life. In complete and utter bliss.