Fodschwazzle

There are a lot of accidents that made me who I was, blithely bumbling through adolescence and about ten years of being an adult, but I've always been a lover. Even when I was 5 years old, I was having imaginary girlfriends. I kissed a girl in preschool. In the third grade there was that pop song that went “I love you, always forever / near and far, we’ll stick together,” and I fantasized that it could be about me and a girl who I only started talking to because her brother got attacked by a dog, and I felt sorry for her. In the sixth grade, I had a dream where everyone I knew got married to each other, and I was left alone, extremely single, outside the church. Unfortunately, I was often most in love with the idea of love–not a good foundation on which to start a relationship.

Growing older made me more weary of the beginnings of relationships and more content with the slower parts, the parts where we are just OK and maybe waking up is a struggle, but we take care of each other. I love myself when I am a trustworthy, consistent, attentive partner rather than someone who must be in love or remain unhappy. When I say I am a lover, beyond just falling deeply for someone, I mean that I also try to be someone worth committing to even after the butterflies fluttering in our guts get quieter.

And the first thing I knew about you, besides a handful of your political and pop culture opinions, was that you too were a lover. At least, I hoped that I knew that and wouldn’t get to confirm it for a while–we were strangers at that time. You always talk about brawling (behind the Waffle House, specifically) with people who disagree with things like whether or not Whataburger is better than Burger King, but you cry at pictures of kittens and yearn for a person to “crush the soul back into” you like a weighted human blanket. You talk tough, but you are cuddly beyond belief. I saw you posting openly about your love for your friends and your love for your children, and I knew it was true.

I didn’t really mean for anything to come of reaching out as a Facebook stranger and telling you that I had a crush on you; however, I was totally overwhelmed by the feeling that you were a really exceptional person, and I did not want you to spend any extra time feeling like you weren’t. I figured that people who are captivated by other people should say so before they never have a chance again. Whoops, now we’ve been dating for almost four years.

A lot of other things happened, like the year we spent playing different games together online before I ever made a more serious move at you. The one time I missed out on hearing you drunkenly relate the nitty gritty of your whole life story because I had to go to sleep to work the next day? I know the details now, but I would still cling to your words like honey if you told it all again. I may not be as in love with falling in love as I was when I was young, but I was like a pudding cup around you, where only a thin membrane kept me from spilling out all of my feelings all over the place, recklessly making a mess of our friendship before we became partners. 

We laugh at the same things, we ogle the same pretty colors and places, we love the same movies and almost all of the same foods and music. Our beliefs intertwine when they don’t fuse together. We have exceptional cats that love both of us. We both like to travel, and we’re both homebodies at the same intervals. We often think each other's thoughts before the other one speaks. We are most comfortable curled up against each other, like cats sharing a bed.

We are lovers! I am as fascinated with you as ever and am delighted to be part of your story.

*****

Do you remember, when you were young, you felt like maybe you could have a destiny?

And then you got married too young to somebody and the love wavered and you realized painfully that life was arbitrary and capricious? Maybe that sense of destiny came back as a sort of curse. That, because you had done something unforgivable, the universe sought to punish you ceaselessly. 

Is it weird that I felt that way too? I got stuck in a loveless marriage for eight years, and I was so caught on that notion that I should try to be a consistent partner that I browbeat myself ceaselessly for times, earlier in my marriage, where I was less consistent and reliable and loving. I felt like I was atoning for something. 

Then all of a sudden we weren’t married anymore to our respective spouses. I got stuck thinking that I was unlovable, that my social anxiety was too overwhelming and my perspective on relationships too skewed to make me compatible with anyone. I’m simplifying–the trap I put myself in was infinitely more complex and cyclical, like no matter how I tried to perceive myself as someone worthy of love, I couldn’t drag myself out of that loop. I climbed the tallest mountain I knew for some damn perspective and found nothing but sore legs.

Then you came along.

Listen, I don’t feel religious or spiritual. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if I failed to see a ghost if it was in front of me because it would know not to waste even one glob of ectoplasm being spooky at me–I’d try to rationalize it too much. I would be tedious for a ghost. But I find the presence of you pleasantly haunting, like knowing you this well proves that a soul can exist. Suddenly, I can see something like a plan or a path that brought me here. The pieces of the puzzle that put us together are too small and too precious to be pure happenstance; that’s how it feels.

If this was my destiny and I suddenly gained control of all the threads that made past-me live through those queasy nightmares, I would not change one iota of it if I couldn’t guarantee I would wind up back here again, with you.

Being with you is like finding a lake in a desert and knowing that it is a gentle, safe place. I know you don’t feel gentle and safe because everything about the world is still chaotic, capricious, and often mean-spirited, but I don’t have to wonder where the love is; I’m swimming in your love for me, drinking my fill, cooling myself off, getting too many freckles in the sunlight.

I only hope it is the same for you. I hope that you bring pool noodles. I hope you make ice cubes out of me for your tea. I hope that you never feel like I am drowning you or like the sun is too oppressive. I hope you build a house on my shore with a deck that lets you dip your toes in. I hope I feel like a place where you can raise your children. I hope that you never feel like this oasis is an escape from reality instead of reality itself. I hope that you realize this lake is fed by a river that is never dry, no matter what kind of drought we are in. I hope your friends visit you here and know that you are comfortable, you are safe, you are deeply loved.