Then we have days like yesterday. We rode bikes to the pier to eat tempura fried fish tacos and drink cold beer. We came home and I planted flowers while he played piano. We had a hilarious conversation about 69-ing wherein I asked, "What if it was my fantasy to 69 and that was all I wanted in life? Would you do it?" and he answered, "I'm am not the Make a Wish Foundation." (I should clarify that it is not my fantasy to 69 all the time. I think the topic came up because we were watching some reality show about freaks and freaky stuff.) I hung curtains, he napped on the couch. Then we went back to the beach to watch the sunset. The day ended with our favorite pizza and what he calls "good old, fashioned TV watching." On more than one occasion I had to shout, "My life is awesome!" because, well, it was such an awesome day.
We've been together for more than 10 years at this point in our story. We have ups, downs, and plateaus. We are codependent and needy and selfish. We are lazy and neither of us wants to work at this relationship, but I think we both want it to last. The thing is, marriage is kind of a losing proposition. It's definitely doomed to fail if it's based on love or sex. I love my sisters more than any human on the planet and there have been times in my life that I would have divorced them if it was an option. I'm pretty sure parents would divorce their kids if that was allowed. Love ebbs and flows, comes and goes, and can be there and still leave space for hate. Love makes you stupid, and the tenuousness of it makes you crazy. Marriage isn't love. Marriage is a decision, one that you make every day. Sometimes it's an easy one to make, like yesterday, and sometimes everything in your body is telling you to just say no except a sentimental part of your mind that says "Remember that day you rode bikes and he made that hilarious joke about 69-ing? That day will come again if you decide to stay with this."
I'm barely into my happily ever after and I have no idea what would happen if we were faced with real challenges. We don't have kids, we aren't sleep deprived, we make enough money, we don't have health problems. We have it pretty good, and we've made the decisions we've made to get it that way. But I fully expect the problems that we do have to always be there and to always be trying to wear us out. I wonder what this union will feel like when we're 20 or 30 years in and if I'll have the stamina to keep listening to that sentimental part that makes room for more of the bike-riding, 69-joking days. I wonder if he will.
Luckily, the universe reads minds. I was driving to work the other day listening to the TED Radio Hour and the whole show was about How We Love. There was a lady named Esther Perel on and she was talking about the paradox of love (have) and desire (want) and how modern marriage really makes those two necessary and valuable experiences impossible. The way she spoke of marriage, the experience and obligations of it, really struck a chord with me. My favorite part was when she said, "This dilemma between our need for security and our need for adventure and how we're trying to bring them together under one roof is more a paradox that we manage and less a problem that we solve." Marriage is a paradox. I think happily ever after might just be possible with that as the expectation.
