"Six Months"
The
magic number approaches—if we can make it past six months, I thought a few months ago, we’ll be in
the clear. But that’s only ten days away,
and there is no clarity except that I’m in love. I’m amazed by the way my
boyfriend considers me—how he tickles my back when we’re standing still, always
asks me if I’m okay, rubs my calves and kisses my toes. He takes my advice and
tells me how smart I am.
Six months later, and he still
loves to sleep with his arms around me, which proves it wasn’t false advertising—all
that talking we did before we had sex. Whenever I freak out he stays sane,
tells me that this love is sure—the surest thing he’s ever felt, that it calms
him and makes him feel safe.
So why do I still wonder about the
future, worry that the bottom will collapse out from beneath us, and fear my
heart will break? Why am I not so sure, even at this, the point at which I
thought I would be?
I think it may have to do with the
entirety of what we are. Because we aren’t just us; we are his parents’ white-knuckling-it
since he got divorced, his children’s false alarm screams for ‘Daddy’ that wake
us in the middle of the night, and his ex’s verge-of-tear depression.
And we aren’t anything in my world
except the occasional dinner with my mom. We don’t stay at my place or do
things with my friends who drink and swear like I used to. Which begs the
question, where have I disappeared to? Have I melded so completely into this
new life with kids that I’m no longer the me I used to be? Or have I chosen
something better for my arteries and my liver—a life I never knew I always
wanted to live, a life full of little girls giggling and little boys’ tantrums?
Am I somewhere in the middle—the
parts I’m not super comfortable with, trying to catch up with this newness? Will
the day come when I break out and away from this grinning person who calmly
picks up scattered Nerf bullets and dirty shirts because I want to give back
some of what I’m getting, want to nurture these beings who keep making my heart
soar?
Where.
Am.
I?
I am six months from the old me
whose calendar was always full of lunches and dinners, drinks and movies. But
where did she go, who attended events in high heels and short skirts, who
accessorized and perfumed, who danced under strobe lights, sipped wine and
amuse bouched? Is she sleeping?
This me wakes at 5:30 a.m. instead
of after 8:00, drinks herbal tea and not coffee, and spends her days with less
clothes and more sun. Instead of happy hour, she runs miles alongside her
boyfriend and they talk about work—something she’s missed ever since her father
died. She eats things with acai more than meat, and never after seven. She’s in
bed by nine, and makes love before falling to sleep and dreaming about the
multitudinous blues of the ocean.
Everything changes. Then it changes
again. But I’m embracing everything about this me, even the feminine parts that
would once have made me gag. That he orders for me. That he’ll pick me up and
carry me to bed. That he opens doors for me and buys a second set of everything
I need at his house because he wants me to feel at home there.
And maybe it’s because I’m becoming
more of a woman than I’ve ever been that I barely recognize that person I used
to be, who paid all the bills and complained about not getting laid; it’s because
I was that person that I can tell the difference.
And maybe six months isn’t enough
to be sure about anything. Because there is chaos inherent in children; it
lives beneath their beds and nestles inside the follicles of their hair. The
only way to placate the drama of brothers stealing socks and sisters pinching
biceps is to feign sureness, to pretend to know the answer of what’s fair, and
to keep believing that the change which comes will make them (and us) into
better people.
