I think we're gonna go for it

Tumbling headlong into an unexpected love affair

We are acquainted for mere hours when he suggests I travel around the world with him. Had the offer come into the life I’d only barely left behind, I would have laughed, blushed, told him that was the best worst pick-up line ever while showing every sign of it having worked its intended magic.

But this day, the moon is full and resolute, the salt air deliberate, and I’ve spent the summer realizing I am altogether done with charming, noncommittal men.

“If you want me to sail away with you,” I say, “you’ll have to marry me first.”

Two months later, he proposes. No, wait. That’s not right. There is no actual proposal. There is no down on one knee, no carefully crafted presentation, no candles, no ring in a little velvet box. We’re driving aimlessly in his red, 1966 Volvo when we arrive at a destination, an affirmation, a giddy, gutsy decision to give ourselves over to what we’ve felt since our earliest hours together.

“I think we’re gonna go for it,” he beams.

We enjoy our simple meal, our unvarnished conversation, and afterwards we consume each other

Soon, we are honeymooners wrapping up a modest excursion in the care and keeping of southern places and people who want to give us a good start. The last couple of days, we tuck into the two-bedroom, beachfront condominium my father would eventually see erode out from under him. For now it stands, a precarious piece of real estate in an as yet underdeveloped coastal town, in the middle of winter. We find that nearby restaurants are closed for the season. We regroup.

From the nearest grocery store, we purchase food, whatever it is two young people who know little about meal-making buy at the end of their first week together as a married couple. We sweep around the small kitchen, getting by on limited cookware and lust. We are newlyweds on day five of forever, riding on the wings of a whirlwind courtship that didn’t take time for dating.

When the cooking is complete and the wine is uncorked, we retreat to separate bedrooms to dress ourselves in finery: merino and leather, dashing, provocative. In time, he knocks on my door and invites me to join him for dinner. I serve plates of food, he pulls out my chair and pours the wine. We enjoy our simple meal, our unvarnished conversation, and afterwards we consume each other, boundless and transcendent.

On a February Saturday more than three decades ago, after a headlong, don’t-try-this-at-home romance, we commit. Ours is a tale worth telling in all its seductive detail. But here and now, it is not our accelerated betrothal that strikes me as remarkable.

Many of us find our way into and out of love with what feels mostly like a game of chance. Do some of us just draw the long straw, hit paydirt in the partnership lottery? Sure, there is an element of luck. Certainly. In our case, we come from parents whose noticeably imperfect marriages remained intact, a model, for better or worse. Neither of us is ravaged by chronic addiction, mental health challenges or abusive behaviors. In the most fundamental ways, we are likeminded and remain true to those ideals as we age.

Still, tucked into the margins of our narrative is something more intentional that just might have made the difference in our ability to go the distance. It has to do with expectations or, more specifically, the lack of them.

We don’t check all the boxes for each other.

I sometimes wonder what might have happened had I been wedded to the idea of the classic proposal or the traditional honeymoon. There was little about our story that met conventional standards, even 30 years ago. What if I’d listened to the voices suggesting that, despite its intrigue, something was missing?

Fast forwarding through our life together, I can easily describe points of friction, grievances that gave way to viable fissures. Gift giving is not his strong suit. He forgets to communicate. He’s not much of a cook. I can’t get out of the house on time. I have control issues. I process verbally, often critically.

I can also readily identify the counterbalances, the give and take, the compromises. His most meaningful gifts come as daily compliments and displays of affection. He’s learned the value of a text message. He’s happy to eat anything at all and never expects me to cook. I let him decide what time we leave for the airport. I acknowledge that things can be done, successfully, more than one way. For all the times I talk, there are also equal periods of splendid silence.

We don’t check all the boxes for each other. In a few areas, we’ve amassed substantial failures. We release ourselves and each other from the burden of that. We let go. We allow.

They say perfection is the enemy of good, and goodness knows we’ve created our share of hurt by holding out for it in different ways. But after every colossal disintegration of civility, we come back to mutual respect and a willingness to move forward as two people who are good enough.

Five days after I met the man who is still putting up with me, and who continues to grant me the privilege of putting up with him, I wrote something prescient in my journal. I was 20 minutes from boarding an airplane that would take me home, away from him, away from the adventure and the headiness of our fervid inclinations, away from what I described, even then, as the experience of a lifetime.

10 September, 8:15 a.m. Monday

Newark. A smallish airport diner which is friendly and full of character for a place like this. At 8:40 I will be on my way back to Greensboro.

I suppose nothing is certain. But judging from what I know here and now, my life will not be the same after this. Is it foolish to think that love could develop in just five days? Jim was different right at the beginning. It felt right. Comfortable. Good. Now, it feels close to perfect. Wonderful. Lasting. I have been swept off my feet by a man whose good looks are only the surface of what attracts me to him.

I expect we’re in it for good.

~Elizabeth

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Cover photo credit: Amazon121, CC BY-SA 4.0