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2006-01-07 13:19:12 ET Wrote this on the occasion of our first anniversary. Found it buried in the depths of my laptop…thought I’d post it here so it won’t get lost again. Forever. For life. In good times and in bad; in sickness and in health. Until death do you part. Love. Love is patient, love is kind etc. What does all that really mean? Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking so hard. Thinking about what it means to love. Thinking about what "forever" means. Does it mean, just until I get tired of you? Just until you do something that doesn’t fit into my idea of what you should be? For example, does it mean you start smoking so I’m going to bail because it doesn’t fit into the mold I made for you in my head? I keep expecting some Cosby world relationship. But I’ve got so many unanswered questions. I know why I love, but I can’t figure out how it happened. I can tell you the moment I knew that you were the one, the moment that I fell in love with you but what does that prove? What do you mean when you say you love me? Does it mean you’re willing to live with all the little things that piss you off about me for the rest of our lives? Or does it mean that you love the idea of me, the idea of being in love. And that the moment I break from the idea you’ve concocted of what I should be, you’d be gone. Can we handle forever? Why am I even thinking about these things? There may be no reason to be even asking these questions. Perhaps, I want to experiment, hurt you for no reason, just to see if you bleed. To test the depths of what I mean to you, test the limits of your unconditionality. Do you bleed? What do I mean to you? What are your plans for me? For us? Where is this going? I feel like I’ve no right to be asking these questions, yet at the same time, I feel perfectly justified. Am I wasting my time? It’s been a year now and while I feel I know you, there is so much, I have no idea about. Don’t you ever feel like you don’t know me at all? You’re telling me that you think you might only be in this to keep some nostalgic connection to college. You’re telling me that you’re not satisfied. I don’t know what I can do to solve that for you unless you tell me. I don’t want to be some momento that you tuck away in a box and look at sometimes when you want to remember what life in college was like. Maybe we base too much of our relationship on the intimacies that we are (or aren’t) sharing. What do you believe? Is what we have purely a physical attraction? Or is it deeper? Deeper than skin and . . . maybe not, or maybe so. Am I too insatiable for you? Do you find my desire for you too overwhelming? Have I crossed the line, told too much? Should I be keeping my thoughts and urges to myself? Does it turn you off when I express my needs? Are we intimate enough? Physically, emotionally, spiritually? Is it any different being a girlfriend or a wife? Some women say no. Some say yes. If you marry me, can I be the wife you expect? I’m not sure I can. I don’t even know what it is that you expect. I don’t even know if you’re satisfied with my girlfriending technique anymore. You say, "I could always be more satisfied with you" and I don’t know what that means. I’m afraid of the ramifications of forever. Mostly because I don’t know if you’re even looking in the same direction that I am anymore. You say that you would leave if I changed. How does that fit into my view of what a marriage vow stands for? Profoundly. I can’t live a life where my partner might up and decide to leave the moment I change from the conformity he thought he had. Is love some cosmic joke played on us by the powers that be just to get us to reproduce and populate the world? Or, is it something more? Some God-given gift? And further than that, what of my individuality? Am I to become so lost in you that I forget myself? Is that what you want? Do you get to retain all of what makes you who you are, while I am to forget all of what makes me who I am to fulfill the requirements of the mold you want me to fit into? Am I to done an apron and an apparent lack of ability to think for myself? Give up my hobbies, my thoughts, my beliefs and attitudes? Lay down my inner bitch and submit to what you want me to be? I don’t know if I could live like that. But, still I’m suddenly afraid to reach out and fully embrace that girl. She does not fit snugly or even losely into what I believe the idea you have of me is. Would more space between us make you appreciate me more? Would less time spent talking make you miss me more? What am I to you? A servant, a partner, a lover, a girl who you happen to be friends with? Are you okay with the space we share? How did this come to be? What if it is just some deluded attempt to keep in touch with our college years? Maybe a break between us would help us to sort this all out? Is that what you need? Would space and time apart, help you to find out where you want this to go? You have plans for everything else. Do you have a plan for us? Do you ever ask these questions of yourself? Do you love me at all? I mean, I said it first. Maybe I should have waited. Maybe it wasn’t time yet. Maybe by saying it first, I coerced you into saying something you didn’t really mean? You left once. How do I know that you won’t leave again? I mean, I kind of initiated us getting back together, again, maybe I coerced you into something you didn’t really believe in? How was it that you explained us? "A solid foundation built on shaky ground". How accurate that was. How accurate that is. I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of monumental forever bliss and there’s no safety net. 10 weeks turned into a year and yet I find myself sometimes desperately missing the days when I thought it would all be over too soon. Maybe it’s because I thought our time was so limited that I savored every single moment, every breath that we shared. Now, I can barely remember what we did yesterday, but I can tell you in detail every nuance of some obscure day last April. I can remember exactly the way the sun felt on my back when we sat outside working before Chorale rehearsal. I can remember the exact look on your face when you papers blew away and you had to go chasing after them. I remember exactly what you wore the day you came to see our last Spring concert and exactly the way you smelled when you embraced me before leaving the chapel. I can remember watching your strong arms write while you sat on my dorm room floor keeping me company while I prepared for student teaching the next day. I remember how tired you were those last few weeks. I remember things like this, because I didn’t know if there would be more moments and I wanted to keep all that I could while I was able to get it. The changing of the seasons brought so much to remember back then. If I said that I missed you, would you understand? Would you understand if I said that I missed the day we took a break to get Chinese? I can relive those hours by closing my eyes and suddenly the sun is there and I can feel the grass beneath my bare feet. Will I ever walk barefoot through the grass with you again? It all seems so simple when I think about those times, like a kodachrome picture. Some grainy snapshot of the people we used to be and they are strangers to me now. Perhaps I love you too much. Perhaps I’ve put too much of myself into this already. Is this old, is it stale? Are you bored with me? With us? Am I worth your time? Are you ready to give up? |
