This Is a Love Story

by Jessica Soffer

I’d never noticed till you.

How it felt. Wild in the head, calm in the body.

You were a beacon, a gut check, a litmus test, even then.

It was our fundamental rift, wasn’t it? Where we came from, and therefore where we felt compelled to end up.

think about how, in the beginning, you get to be seen. You get to show how brave, how complex, how uniquely yourself you are constantly. You want him to say, Oh my gosh, you’re so. Show your empathy. Show the way you hold your heart when you laugh.

You can’t force him to do anything, but sometimes you wonder if he would have sought you out. If he’d make any effort to find you if you disappeared. The thought makes you equal parts embarrassed and sad.

Her father wanted to keep her like a bird in a cage. Instead, because of her strength of spirit, he kept her like a cat.

Disappointment is doubled by the fact that everyone is rooting for her.

And then I want to say something about how marriage is a relay race. Or long loops around the track. One gets ahead. Then the other. Then the other. Or maybe like the ocean. A wave crashes in two places at different times.

The difference between stopping and ending is that one is intentional. Anything can be a beginning if you say it right. Any moment can be the end.