On marriage and kids

The talk about marriage and kids came early. Before any I love you was uttered. And, though he was drunk and doesn't remember it, he was the first to say I love you, too. Or, at least, that he was "in love" with me.

I was sober, lying in bed, he texted that he was sad, and was going to get progressively more drunk. I called him, and we talked for what ended up being three hours, but felt like mere minutes. We told stories, I talked about things like how I find dimes in conspicuous places, when it seems like I'm on a particular path toward something, and I attribute them to my deceased grandfather, Dale. He asked if I'd found a dime the day I met him.

I had. In the middle of the bathroom rug at his sister's place, where I'd been staying. I remember picking it up, as I always do, and relishing its thin metallic feel, smiling softly to myself, wondering what the day had in store.

At some point in that conversation, the phrase, "I wouldn't be in love with you unless..."was spoken. It took my breath for a minute, and I almost said I love you to him, as I'd wanted to over and over in every conversation we'd been having the prior two and a half weeks. But, I knew he was drunk, and I knew it wasn't time. I knew, in the morning, he probably wouldn't remember he'd said that.

In that same conversation, a propos of nothing, he stated, "We need to get started on having kids early. I don't want to be an old dad." I laughed, and it scared me a little. Even though I'm comfortable with moving "fast," I am also accustomed to people feeling fast for me and it scaring them, so they project that fear onto me and tell me over and over that I'm moving too fast, yet ignore the fact that they're putting out exactly the same language and feeling that I am. It's unfair, and as of yet, I can't figure out a way to handle it. He asked me, at one point, if I didn't think that he and I were "eerily similar." It came via text, and honestly, I balked at the notion. I thought about the things I'd noticed already, that he could grow angry quickly, that he was horribly stubborn... and then realized I could say the same of myself. After, I started to tally up the ways in which we were similar, and it was true. He was me, with a penis. I started to tell people that when they asked me what he was like.

Chris, seemed so cutely sure of himself and his feelings (and it was only in that one conversation that he was drunk), even though he admitted it also scared him. He'd say things like, "If you can guess how many cavities I have, I'll marry you." The answer was 0. I guessed wrong. I wasn't saying anything like that. I'd talk about marriage, about kids, in the abstract, that I wanted to have them, that I wouldn't discount having them with him, but he was interviewing me. He was probing me for information, for things that compiled his list of what he wants in a wife, in the mother of his kids.

We were sitting at a restaurant, about to go for a walk along the Mississippi when he was here before Thanksgiving. He smiled at me, in the sunset light streaming through the windows and asked if I'd want family dinner every night. I told him of course, that that was the way I'd grown up and that's what I'd want for my family once I had one. He nodded. "Good. That's really important to me."

And there were the other times, like the moment when we were talking about pregnancy and how I wouldn't abort if I got pregnant because I'm 34 and it seems silly to me that I wouldn't keep it, even though my life isn't ready for a kid. I know I'd be able to figure things out pretty fast. But, I said, if I did find out that there was a major birth defect, or some terrible illness, I wouldn't hesitate to abort. He grinned, and high fived me. It was one of the many things that could have been a touchy subject, but was not. We were just on the same page.

He told me, too, when he was here, on a night where we went out dancing and I found that he was the first person I was involved with that I could actually dance with and I was elated, and he was elated, and he was adorably listing, in my ear, over the loud new wave and 80s hits, all the reasons he loves me, and he said something about marriage, and I laughed at him and asked him how long he needed to "know" about me, and without missing a beat, he said, "Six months."

I don't know where that kind of talk got lost. I don't where it was, or what happened that made him just give up on us. Because, as far as I can tell, as far as I remember, we never stopped being compatible. Even when we were fighting, we worked things out efficiently, and were able to look at one another with sincere love, affection, and respect. Something dark and significant happened in his head that took his heart from me, bit by bit, and he just let it happen. And I am just at a loss to understand it.

I've been in relationships where I thought about marriage and kids. I've talked about those relationships here. But none of those people thought the same of me. None of those people talked about our potential kids by name (I'd like to name a boy Ivan Jack), made jokes with me about having "witch twins" after passing street names Cremona and Bersota in Seattle, and none of them, certainly, drew a fucking picture of a girl he had a dream about that he decided was our daughter.

Housewife, Sans House or Husband

As my brownies-from-a-mix were baking (sub olive oil for vegetable oil, add peppermint bark chips) just an hour ago, a thought occured to me:

Perhaps I am not meant to have a career per se. Perhaps all this beating my head against the wall, all this existential ennui is just silliness, like women in the middle of the last century getting Home Ec degrees at Brown to pass time until they got a husband. Maybe I'm just biding my time until marriage.

Of course, this is complete rubbish. Well, except for the minutiae which are not. Facts:

I am an incredible cook.
I keep a clean home.
I am organised, and detail oriented.
I am terrific with children.

In short, I could quite excel at being a housewife.

That is, were it not for a persistent gnawing at my gut for change, for personal control, and the fact that I know ennui, existential or no, would not fully abate, then I could quite excel at being a housewife.

What I could be, though, is a woman who works from home in the sort of job that would not need to be relied upon wholly for stability, or to do something in which I was relatively autonomous. Carpentry, I think, could fulfill this need, both as personal fulfillment, as well as providing finances to the home.

I think a lot about marriage. I just got out of a serious relationship, or at least a relationship which seemed more serious than any I'd been in previously, and most definitely one I'd wanted to turn toward marriage, and thus am currently in no position to be handing over that level of commitment to anyone. And yet, when I am out and about, I'm looking at people no longer as potential playmates, but as partners. Given my lifestyle, there is a dearth of options.

A friend joked last week, "You're going to have to spend a lot more time at Target Field."

Therapy, it turns out, is therapeutic.

This morning I was feeling solidly fucked up. 30 Rock viewing did not help me, as even the slightest similarity to my current situation is liable to give me false hope which is subsequently dashed by the vagaries and whims of television writing, which then causes some kind of fissure in any semblance of rational thought I have put together for myself, made of tenuous, fragile bonds.

It doesn't help, either, that practically everything is somehow related to Andy. He'd become so completely, comfortably enmeshed in my life so quickly, and then just as quickly, completely ripped from it. It's been almost a month now. A whole, sad, month.

And so, I walked to therapy today, which I've been excited about for the past few days, which, having been in and out of therapy for the last 20 years, I am fully aware of how beneficial a session can be, but I cried as I walked, somehow still able to be sad despite the Lady GaGa thumping in my ears.

And I cried in my session, with a perfect stranger. Three times. I saw my previous therapist, Monica, for about four months and didn't cry once. The eyes welled up, but no actual loss of saline was made. Monica pointed out numerous times that I seemed to be detached from the tales and problems in my life, that I could talk about very emotional situations and express no emotion about them at all. Which was curious, since I was genuinely feeling emotion, and I wasn't the least bit uncomfortable with her; I was, somehow, detached, though. But not today! No, the waterworks flowed with ease. I went from feeling borderline hysterical, considering rushing over to Andy's today so I could see him, to feeling quite calm and centered, considering.

I like this new girl. She seems to be of similar demeanor to Monica, but Katie is a touch younger, prettier, and she's got a sense of humour. Monica wasn't a wet blanket, but she was also not the sort of gal that I'd ever go out and have a glass of wine with. Which was what I liked about her. She was completely non-judgemental, honest, even blunt with me. Katie's a bit more laid back. She dropped an F-bomb at one point, which I respected. And she laughed at my jokes.

I told her how I'd never cried with Monica, and how Monica had pointed out my detachment. I feel it's Andy that's changed this. I became better with Andy. The best version of myself. I need to get back to that, without Andy. And I think I can. Deciding against Drunk, Slutty Sarah, against casual smooches, against heavy drinking at all, that's a huge step. As is the realisation that I need to begin putting myself in the position to be ready for marriage and a child. I'm two, three years away from that, and that's if I pull it together as of yesterday and make dramatic life changes. Maybe Andy doesn't fit into this plan in the greater sense, but he's certainly been the catalyst for it.

Why do my hands smell like meat?