This Is How It Always Is

by Laurie Frankel

There was no way to fall in love with a woman just for her body in Wisconsin in January.

It was one of those hot, humid, buggy Wisconsin summers where it went from snow to sauna in a week and a half and stayed there.

“You’re too old to be open-minded and tolerant,” said Rosie. “I’m too old not to be.” She sucked coolly on her cigarette again, then waved it at Rosie to punctuate her point. Not for the first time, Rosie envied smokers their rhetorical device. “I’ve lived life. I know what’s important. I’ve seen it all by now. You think he’s the first boy I ever saw in a bikini? He’s not. You think your generation invented kids who are different?”

You never know. You only guess. This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decisions on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands, who trusts you to know what’s good and right and then to be able to make that happen.

But Dryden’s poem was about what a great year it was because it could have been worse.