Before Midnight

We call Valentine's Day "Hallmark Day" in our family. Before you think my husband horribly unromantic, let me explain his theory.

His view is that he should show me EVERY day how much he loves me, and that it shouldn't be limited to a one-off on the fourteenth of February. His parents raised him like this. I appreciate the thought, and his parents have been married for a very long time, so I can see how this works. I also realize that when we were first dating (albeit as teens), he did celebrate with the obligatory flowers, chocolates, and occasional gift (mainly stuffed animals). He also, about seven and a half years ago, orchestrated the most romantic proposal I've ever heard of, involving slow dancing on a giant boulder in Santa Barbara while the tide came in, the sun set, and our song played on a boom box straight out of Say Anything.

We've been together for a long time. Much longer than most 35 year old married couples, because most people our age weren't dating when they were 16. If you're okay with even rudimentary math, you know that means more than half our lives (even with the prerequisite high school and college break ups).

I was watching Before Midnight tonight- watching a movie 18 years in the making- and marveling at both the incredible accuracy of its message, and the ageless hotness of Ethen Hawk (sorry, I digress). If you're not familiar:

Step one, rent Before Sunrise
Step two: rent Before Sunset
Step three: rent Before Midnight, then come back here.

You won't be disappointed. Long story short, this couple meets on a train when they are 20, fall in love over the course of the night, and of course, promise to meet up in six months (one of those ageless classic movie ploys). The sequel was nine years later. They never met up, they both have different lives and different spouses (Hawk's character is in a loveless marriage he stays in for his son, and Delpy is in a going-nowhere-fast relationship), and once again, they have a limited amount of time together. They fall deeper in love.

Now, nine more years later, they are in a long term relationship together (Hawk left his ex-wife for Delpy, and the film starts with them putting his son on a plane after a summer together, then driving off with their own adorable twin daughters). And it's not all pretty. It's not all sweet touches and will-they-or-won't-they moments. It's not all sunrises and sunsets. It's deeper, and passionate, and poignant, and honest, and comfortable. And that's okay.

I think you reach a point in a relationship where you realize that the fairy tale whirlwind romance needs something a little more substantial behind it to survive in the real world. A while ago, I'd read a comment a teen had posted that ended up on the Huffington Post, one that stated “My love life will never be satisfactory until someone runs through an airport to stop me from getting on a flight.” I cringed. I think because the longer we are in a relationship, the further away we get from moments like this- and we realize just how deluded we once were.

I've lived through this drama. The "do you love me/don't you love me" that inherently goes with young romance. When you thought drama was the only way to make someone feel something for you, when you thought you had to fight to test each other, when you thought passion could only come from anger or fear or secrecy.

I've seen my friends struggle through break ups and make ups, the constant merry go round of emotion of lust and extreme like, and possibly even love, that involves gigantic gestures and declarations. I've seen the movies, the ones that end with music swelling, lights dimming, and well-timed kisses, after mistrust issues, cheating, misunderstandings, mistaken identity, etc., and thought, "what on Earth are they going to have to talk about once they settle in"? 

Because settling in is what happens. You get comfortable with each other. You know each other's quirks. You can finish sentences and quotes, because you've seen all the same movies, share the same stories, and have probably been living together for quite some time. And that's where the fun starts.

What I've learned over the years is that that passion needs to remain. You have to get a little thrill every now and then when the person you chose (and importantly the one who chose you, over everyone else in the world) walks into the room. And I'm not just talking about on a rare date night, when you're getting ready to go out and they're all done up. I'm talking about when you look up from your Facebook page, or your work, or that book you're reading, and notice that that handsome guy reading Library Lilly to your daughters for the 825th time is pretty damn cute. 

It's that while an airport run is nice and all, those little moments throughout your life, the "mundane" ones, are the ones that reaffirm faith in love. It's at 6:30 in the morning, when the baby is awake, and your spouse went to put them down so you could get some extra sleep. It's that when they come back, you curl up next to them, and they wrap their arm around you to wordlessly express, we're in this together.

It's that you know how to make him laugh- REALLY laugh- because you know what makes him tick. He knows all your movie quotes, and you know his. And not just in the funny moments. But in the hard ones, when that laugh is so needed because everything else is just too difficult, and you need that salvation of giggles.

It's in the difficult moments, too. I've told friends that relationships shouldn't be hard, and gotten weird looks, and seen comments all over the place that "relationships are hard work." I call BS. RELATIONSHIPS shouldn't be work. There should be a camaraderie of friendship first, of fun, of wanting to spend time together. Yes, there will be difficult moments in life. But those should come from outside forces (health, jobs, friendships, family even), NOT from within your relationship. Sometimes, those difficult moments are the ones that make you realize how simple and easy your relationship is.

In my experience, it's that after your baby is born, and you're lying in a hospital bed terrified because they rushed her out of the OR, and you know something isn't right with you, when he comes back and cries with you that she's finally out of the woods, and holds your hand knowing you're not yet. It's that he's the one who hands you your first born, hours after you thought you'd hold her for the first time, and you swear you're not going anywhere because these people are your life.

It's sitting in a waiting room for 14 hours while he has his 7th shoulder surgery, heart pounding waiting for the doctor to say he's okay. It's driving through a blizzard to be at his bedside in the hospital, so that he's not alone. It's sitting at a table after he's back at your house- the one you picked out and fought for together- carefully washing his arm around the pic line that's in there so that his antibiotics can go in daily, and applying the new dressing.

It's taking road trips, and sitting in non-awkward silence, and telling stories about your childhoods and memories (and knowing most of the ones you’re hearing already). It's seeing or hearing something, and not wanting to wait to tell your spouse about it, because you already know their reaction, and can't wait to see it. It's about playing the card in Cards Against Humanity that you KNOW is going to make him laugh, so that you can win.

And it's about knowing that if you asked him to run through an airport for you, he probably would. But you don't ever want to be separated long enough to cause him to have to.

I wrote this a year ago, and at the time, was so caught up in my husband's 7th shoulder surgery (he's now had 8), and the exhaustion that went with it, that I didn't ever publish it. But I want to, and I think it speaks to relationships, and places we've all been, and places we want to go.

For Dad- 2015

I can divide my life into BDD and ADD.  BDD is Before Dad Died.  ADD is every day since January 12, 1999.   Each year, I try to honor him by writing something, by sitting down and spending a solid day remembering the man that taught me to fly, first by lifting me onto his feet during leg presses, then by throwing me out over the deep end of the pool while I laughed and flailed my tiny arms.  And finally, by leaving this world way too soon, so I had to learn to soar and dip on my own, no giant arms or pool below to catch me.

BDD I was a happy-go-lucky kid.  I had an idyllic childhood.  My parents were high school sweethearts, able to finish each others' stories and sentences with a grin or a look.  Mom made dinner every night, and we sat together discussing our days, dad to my right, mom to my left, my little sister across from me making faces.  Dad coached my soccer team until we needed more trained guidance, and then he was our manager, bellowing encouragement from the sidelines and analyzing game plans on long car rides while Les Miserables or The Grateful Dead blared out of the speakers.  We watched operas on PBS, Twilight Zone marathons on the WB, and took summer road trips as a family in progressively larger vehicles.

I was a typical teenager, an elite athlete, a hopeless romantic.  I knew about life and death, sure, we'd studied those in health class and my great-grandfather died when I was 6.  But I hadn't lost anyone close to me, and felt like that was something that happens when you get older, when the parents around you turn grey, and your grandparents start to forget things.  Relationships were taken for granted, the pulse-quickening drama taking the place of the desire for happiness, always thinking there was another chance out there, another shot at love or school or soccer.

It was college, sophomore year, and after having my heart broken twice in a summer, I had friends back from my childhood, girlfriends that had reconnected thanks to the beauty of the internet, and my anger at men in general for being mean and hurtful- every man except my dad, of course.  He gave me hope, sharing something with my mom that was making each other laugh and dancing in the kitchen in their pajamas.  He made me laugh, he loved me unconditionally, he fought for me.

I thought we had all the time in the world.

Fast forward to a little after 10 PM on a Tuesday night.  The phone rang and I knew something was wrong.  I won't rehash the details- I don't want to right now, and I know I'm going to have to someday, but that someday is a little ways off right now.

After that, it was ADD- After Dad Died.

I was depressed.  A doctor gave me several antidepressants, and at one point I was on a Xanax a day, to the point where they stopped making me feel tired.  I gave up on this drug-induced haze after my aunt died, and I couldn't cry.  I wanted to.  Crumpling to the floor in my mom's kitchen, my back sliding against the custom cabinets next to the pantry, my body suppressed the reaction it should have had, and I decided I needed to ween myself off.  Group therapy at my college helped, crying for an hour straight every Wednesday with a group of semi-strangers with little in common beyond the wail of grief.  I took on a mothering role to my friends at school, excelling in my classes (my temporary escape), cleaning up after drunken friends post-party in town houses, and throwing myself into the Student Government Association (SGA became my one respite from a college I desperately wanted to transfer away from- I had a close girlfriend, two buddies since freshman year, and a good looking older guy who sat next to me and laughed at all the right moments).

I grabbed on to what I could.  I threw myself into school as a distraction. My GPA skyrocketed.  I threw myself back into an on-again-off-again relationship that had long since ended, clinging to some fear that if I didn't, I'd lose someone else I cared about.  This was perpetuated by a friend saying that maybe my dad had sent this guy back as a way of taking care of me.  I wanted desperately to believe that, ignoring all the warning signs of a bad relationship in favor of the supernatural.  I was terrified of death, of being left alone, of missing out on something.

There were some positives to ADD after a few years. Never having lost him- for all the good that has come of the transformation I experienced, if I could go back and make him live, and still end up with my kids, I would (I know the Butterfly Effect way too well, and I don't think I can have both, but if there was a way, I'd take it).

But I took chances.  I drove to California chasing several dreams, and left there some years later with different ones begun.  I told people I cared about them.  I sought out advice from trusted old friends, reconnecting to people I cared deeply for using the steadily increasing social media streams.  I found that no matter how much time passes, people who loved you once will always love you.  I stopped taking people and relationships for granted, and started trying to live in the moment and appreciate each tick of the clock.

It's been 16 years.  The pain of losing him is duller most of the time, but at others, it's so pronounced it physically hurts.  "Salty Dog" comes on the radio, and I smile, but my eyes water.  A hundred times a day, I think of something and wonder what he'd say if I could tell him about it.  But since I can't, I call my mom, or talk to my stepdad, or call my sister or my husband.  And if I see something that reminds me of a friend, I make sure to take a second to share it with them on Facebook, or send them an email, or a text or call them on the phone.  I invite people I haven't seen in years to parties, or out to coffee, or to watch a football game.  Because time isn't unlimited, and 16 years can go by in a flash while we learn to fly, arms flailing in the wind.

My thoughts on this piece: This was more therapeutic than anything, and I needed to get it out.  I'll probably polish it some day, but it's down for now, and that's what counts (sort of).  There are too many sentences that start with I, too much focus on me.  I think I'm bitter because it's been 16 years, and while I can remember his laugh, his voice is hazy.  His arms were strong, and he had wavy hair.  It was a bright orange curly fro when he was younger, but by the time he had me, it was duller, whiter, shorter.  He made me laugh- a lot.  And then, when he was gone, I cried more than I ever thought I could.