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It feels like every time I get my hopes up for something good, reality comes out swinging.
My mind will be plenty open when my head explodes in the middle of this bedroom.
His voice is low. Rough. Like the storms that come in quick over the harbor and sit there, thunder rumbling, one rolling into another until the sky vibrates in your bones.
Her voice is smooth. Honey in a mug of hot tea. The window cracked open halfway, fresh air rolling in.
For a second, I can hear the shape of her smile. A half moon in the dark.
I don’t want—I don’t want to think about what I should say or how I should act or…or have talking points in the notes app of my phone for a dinner date at a restaurant that I don’t really like. I want to feel something when I connect with someone. I want sparks. The good kind, you know? I want to laugh and mean it. I want goose bumps. I want to wonder what my date is thinking about and hope it might be me. I want…I want the magic.”
But the rest of it—the real reason I don’t date, the anxiety that there might not be someone out there for me to fit into the life I’ve made for myself, that maybe I want too much, that I’m being too whimsical and naive, that it’s too late for me—I haven’t wanted to talk about that with anyone.
I don’t want to be sent to professional development. Icebreakers are my personal form of hell.
I need wine, cookies, and my best friend. In that order.
Maybe I need to be tugged out of my comfort zone. Maybe it’s time for something new.
I’ve been with my husband for sixty-five years. Every day isn’t a fairy tale. We’ve worked hard for our relationship. To build it. To maintain it. I’ve become so many versions of myself and so has he, but we’ve found a way to fall in love with one another over and over again. Every time.
Sometimes a little discomfort is a good thing. A necessary thing. A thing that leads to better things.
I’m allowed to want soft, special things.
“What if this is what you’ve been waiting for? What if it’s all a string of choices and moments and events and decisions that have led you to exactly right here? And what if what happens next—what if what happens next is the good part? The part you’ve been waiting for.”
“I like that. Thinking that I’m worth paying attention to. Something ordinary made extraordinary by the person you’re sharing it with.”
“No one at school has quite lived up to Aragorn yet.” God, I love this kid. I lean over and press a smacking kiss to her temple. “I hate to break it to you, kid, but no one ever will.”
Maybe that’s its own sort of bravery. That I’m willing to try again.
It certainly feels like I have a gambling problem every time I’m around her. I’m constantly pushing all my chips toward the center of the table, no matter what my cards look like.
I’m possessive of her, apparently. Of her time and her laughter and her smiles that stretch so wide her eyes slip shut.
The house settles as I move up the stairs. Sleepy sounds that move like a symphony. A song I know every word to. Floorboards creak beneath my feet and the door of the haunted closet at the end of the hall groans open as the heat kicks on.
I feel like I’ve swallowed an entire swarm of bees.
I’ve been texting her every hour, on the hour, in an attempt to keep her mind on me as much as possible. I’m the toddler on the playground, tugging on her pigtails to get a reaction.
I wish I could wrap myself in the sound. Carry it around with me for whenever I’m feeling hollow and defeated.
Meanwhile I’m practically bursting next to him, champagne bubbles of happiness rising in the center of my chest.
Like I’m basking in the sunlight she throws off.
I officially want the planet to swallow me whole. I want to become one with the magma within the Earth’s crust.
And I’ll try not to let my heart beat out of my chest, my life so much fuller than I ever allowed it to be.
She said she wanted magic and I thought we found something better. Something real. But apparently there was a little magic, after all. A bunch of breadcrumbs dropped like pennies in a fountain, leading me right to her.
