“So what have you been doing?”
“What?”
“With all the time you have now that you’re not regularly . . .”
“Oh.” I try to decide if I want to have this conversation, if I have any interest in what’s being offered on the other side of it. I don’t. We’ve been down this road together so many times. After years, I’m finally okay turning it down.
I believe that there's something better, that I'm worth something better.
“Oh, you know, Lost a lot of weight. Cut two minutes off my tri time. I’m kicking ass at work and taking care of myself.”
“I can’t even imagine going that long . . .”
I indulge myself in one long eyeroll before writing back. “Yeah. I know.”
* * *
I’m riding the bus when the first poem comes to mind. I’m tired, my muscles are sore, and it’s been a long day. The bus is crowded and hot and I usually I would be carsick and annoyed. Today, I open an app on my cell phone and listen to my favorite reading of a Jane Kenyon poem.
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
I’m a little afraid to say it out loud. I don’t want to jinx it, but 2019 has started well. I don’t know if it was the straight up witch cleansing ritual I did on December 31st or (more likely) the fact that a new year just feels like a chance to start over, but I’ve been doing really well for the past few months. Anxiety and depression are still always in the background, but they’re easier to mute than they’ve been in years.
I feel content. Grounded. Happy.
The happiness catches me by surprise, because it doesn’t come as the result of anything tangible. The guy I thought I met ended up being a dud. I’m doing well at work, but that’s certainly never been the root cause of my happiness. I haven’t seen any shattering art or spent time in state parks or even seen my nieces lately.
Regardless, here it is, back at my feet.
Hello, happiness. I remember you.
* * *
“What’s most important to you in a relationship?”“What?”
“What do you value? What are your goals? What are characteristics you’d like to find in another person?”
These may not standard first date questions, but I’m not really into baffing around these days. I’m trying this new thing where I’m being the person I am and fuck whatever happens.
In shorthand that means that I text when I feel like it, I dress and do my makeup for myself, and I am generally every bit as intense as I am in my work and personal relationships up front.
I go on a lot of first dates.
* * *
I’m half-asleep when the second poem wakes me up. I’m tired, my muscles are sore, and it’s been a long day. My brain constantly wakes me up with trivia, so it’s not entirely surprising. Usually I’d be annoyed and would pull the covers over my head. Tonight, I let the guy next to me pull me in closer and think about the poem.
What you called that yearning. What you finally gave up.
I’m a little afraid to move, to breathe, to acknowledge my existence or his. This moment feels impossibly fragile. In a few minutes he will get up to leave. In a few days, I will decide that I don’t need this to be anything more than what it was, a moment of kindness and genuine warmth between two people. In a few months, we will have likely forgotten about it and each other. But for now, all that’s in the background. This, perhaps, was my something better.
I feel satisfied. Tranquil. Grateful.
The gratitude is the most striking. When it comes to intimacy I usually, um, give as good as I get. It’s something deeper that makes me think of the poem. It has been so easy to unreflectively give things up over the past years. Standards. Happiness. Independence and satisfaction and tranquility. Warmth and kindness. But more than any of those things, it’s been so easy to give up yearning for them.
Here, in this impossibly fragile moment, I feel it again. And with that feeling comes deep gratitude for the person next to me.
Hello, yearning. I remember you.
