DS is out of commission today, so I’m taking over her blog. I would be that crazy girl over at The Lisa Show . Anyway, DS is amazing and I love her, but you already know that. I’ve already told DS that if I were to go completely lesbian, we’d ditch the boys and run away together. I’m not sure how this is going to work out though, being that we’re so much alike, we’d probably explode if we were in the same timezone.
Her recent guest post on my blog not only saved me from having to pull stuff out of my ass to write about the other day, it also made me cry. Because I am such a weenie like that. But it also made me think about how my blog might be a bit misleading to people who are new to it. I write about my marriage because it’s funny, and I’m having the time of my life now.
The thing is J and I have known each other for over ten years now. We’ve been together since April 1998. What we have now that you get to see is not only because we were meant to be together, but also because of every single thing we’ve been through together. Yes, there’s been tears, pain, rage (mine), and screaming matches. Sometimes it hurt so much I could feel my heart literally breaking. Sometimes it hurt so much I couldn’t breathe. It was a rollercoaster, and I found myself wanting off it often. In the ten years, we’ve had our fair share of breaks. In fact, I was off it enough to have two relationships during our intermissions.
One thing that has never changed though is how we mean more to each other than everything else in the world combined. We started out as the best of friends, and even through the breaks, we remained the best of friends. When it got really bad, we’d talk to each other as best friends and sort each other’s individual messes before attempting to sort us out. We met when we were adolescents, and we were fucked up ones at that, so you can just imagine how hellish our relationship was for the first few years. I wrote something on my blog before that sums it up best: “He is my best friend. He is my gravity. He is my home. When my entire world is falling apart, he pulls me out of the wreckage. And I love that I’m strong enough to do the same for him.” I may cry a lot, but fuck, I’m strong.
We still fight, but they’re not the debilitating kind anymore. I don’t think we’ll ever stop fighting, because we’re so completely invested in this that emotions easily run high. For the most part though, there’s just calm and peace. For someone who’s as scared of love as DS is, she was spot on when she called it “the rippling pool of care and affection that surprises you with how much deeper it seems to be with every passing day”.
Before we became a couple, we talked about how one would know whether the other was The One. This was a purely hypothetical conversation, of course, because we were both adolescent twerps who couldn’t handle anything real. He said you’d know it when you hold hands. I did. Ten years later, we’re still holding hands. When my fingers are intertwined with his, it feels like everything is right with the world, and everything is exactly how it should be.
So to end this fabulously longass post on a much lighter but equally true note, what I’m really trying to say is that it’s never easy, it doesn’t happen overnight, and that men are toads. They’re insensitive, offensive, and gross. The fairy tale was wrong - the frog didn’t magically transform with a single kiss. And he wasn’t a frog, he was a toad. The easiest part is finding the right toad, the tricky part is the patience and the strength to keep kissing him until he turns into something more like a prince. Every last tear (and wart) will be worth it.
I heart you, DS. Enjoy your day off.
Edit 6:20 PM Friday night: Thanks for the day off. My brain broke. But I’m gathering it up in pieces. Whoooo!
I still hold true to my stance. If in the end of all this, I find what you and J have, through the ups and downs, through the ins and outs, then I don’t think I could ever ask for anything more. I’m glad you wrote about the dark side of relationships - it’s something I need to know about so I can deal with them when they come my way. (Happy? I admit that I’m in a relationship. There. *sticks tongue out*)
