Ten Years Ago Today
Ten years ago today I invited a girl I had a crush on to join me for dinner in the college dining hall. Debbie and I had spent time together on two or three occasions and she found me enjoyable, but kept thinking to herself how much I reminded her of her best friend. So she asked if she could bring that friend along to dinner, as well as another guy. This other guy was very interested in Debbie but she was trying to shake him off. When we got there, I showed Debbie a lavish 11"x17" charcoal portrait I had drawn of her. She thanked me politely, but her friend raved over it and kept pulling it out of its tube in the dinner line to look at it some more. It wasn't the persona Debbie wanted to project, so she gave it to her mom, on whose wall it reportedly hangs; but her friend knew her as well as anyone and knew I had captured the essence of her personality.
The guy was as sullen as a stone throughout dinner as the other three of us chatted and greatly enjoyed ourselves. He didn't eat much, and eventually got up and tersely took his leave. Clearly, the girls said, having to share Debbie's company with me had made him jealous. Are you jealous? they teased. Well of course I am, I cheerfully replied, shouldn't I be? This surprised and impressed them.
I immediately started dating Rachel. Three years later we sang a duet at our own wedding. Five years after that ceremony, due to changes in our view of relationships, we ended-- we like to say "graduated"-- from our marriage. It had been mostly peaceful and satisfactory, but we were not interested in a forever of merely satisfactory. Divorce created that same sense of a wide-open future which our engagement had. It was the best thing that ever happened to improve our relationship. We're still together today. Although I now know better than to promise "forever" to anyone, if I did, there is no question it would be to her. That springtime anniversary is not today; the ceremony was just a formality affirming something that would have happened with or without society's witness and blessing. In fact, in my view, that is precisely what Rachel and I divorced from. I don't believe that anniversary ever mattered. October 15 is the day we treat as special.
Ten years is long enough to have reached the point, long ago, to expect that a real relationship must have phased into a mere habit. I mean come on, isn't that what happens? asks the jaded cynic. There is a cloudy accreted layer over one's partner, like a charcoal portrait drawn by a decade of memories both good and bad. It covers up the day-to-day observation of the real person. It obscures the observable evidences that the connection, for all its newfound perspective, is as real as ever. Those evidences are undeniably there, every day. Rachel loves me. And I love her.
Comments
marahsk on Oct. 16, 2005 2:40 AM
Ten years is long enough to have reached the point, long ago, to expect that a real relationship must have phased into a mere habit. I mean come on, isn't that what happens?
It *can* happen, but it is by no means inevitable.
cathyr19355 on Oct. 16, 2005 3:51 AM
Rachel loves me. And I love her.
That's the important part. How you get there, and whether and how a marriage ceremony is involved, is irrelevant.
cosette-valjean on Oct. 16, 2005 4:52 PM — Thank-you
Thank-you for writing this. It means so much to me. You saw my tears of happiness. Thank-you for such a beautiful day. I love you so much sometimes my heart hurts with the fullness of it.
Love,
Rachel
twoofdtm on Oct. 17, 2005 2:54 PM — Re: Thank-you
And I love that he means so much to you. Happy "Anniversary" lovely.
I do miss you something fierce!
the-leewit on Oct. 16, 2005 9:24 PM
Not to be trite, but I find this terribly sweet. Thanks for entertaining the random.
~The Random
bardicwench on Oct. 16, 2005 10:04 PM — Just 'cause I said I was going to.....
Awwwwwwwwwwwwww..........
*grin*
*hugs* to both of you.
palindromeg33k on Oct. 16, 2005 11:37 PM
this is the best lj entry i've ever read----bar none.
twoofdtm on Oct. 17, 2005 2:56 PM
*teary eyed hugs*
This was beautiful.
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