All you need is...

Had a day of beautiful clarity yesterday. I must have been glowing because so many people noticed it. I am in love, what can I say?

I have never been in a relationship for so long, so a lot of these waters are unchartered. My idealistic goals of what it must be like to be in a relationship were partly wrong, I have to admit. But, from having played amateur counselor for so long for so many of my friends, I have, believe it or not, gained some knowledge of how relationships work. For example, it is an impossibility to think that you will be completely enamored by your partner, to the degree that you were from your first days together, your entire life long. (People really do think that this is possible, though, and when things begin to change they assess it as a problem and then begin placing blame, either on themselves, or on their partners.) But love, folks, waxes and wanes. I never really feel like I am out of love with Chris, that I would rather not be with him anymore. I do have times, though, when it is hard for me to love anyone at all.

One of my biggest criticisms of artistic people like those with whom I work in the theatre, is that they are so fucking fickle. You never really know whether your top dog or the doormat—most of this depends only on the wind direction and the overall mood. I have always hated that any friendship with someone from the theatre is a friendship of convenience. Can you scratch my back? Then, friend, scratch away.

Perhaps even more disconcerting than this lesson in the dregs of humanity is that I, indeed, am among them. I am just as fickle as the rest of them, and, perhaps, even moodier. Grrrr. I hate having to admit this to myself. This quality of flowing where the wind takes you and being attracted to the sweetest smelling flowers is an aspect of Chris that I have always hated. One must be steadfast, true, I thought.

But I don’t always like anyone. I am not in love with Chris with equal intensity at all times. And, yes, I am sometimes carried away by fantasies that do not involve him. The truth is a hard thing. (When you start admitting it to yourself, you often find yourself going all the way with it, even when you think you could only stand a little dose.) I said ‘love waxes and it wanes.’ Sometimes I feel like a little kid again, and sometimes I am as cold as a stone.

Imagine, then, after having been a stone, to instantly be a flower or a dandelion seed floating away on the wind, laughing into a fade out. I am light and not bound to the earth. Just when I was thinking that I may be the fallen tree in the wood about to be eaten by the elements, I remember that I am still alive and that life must be lived. And, when discussing Chris’ grandmother who, next week will turn 90, I turned to him and said “I wonder what we’ll be doing when we’re 90?” and he looks at me with that deep, loving smile, happy that I believe we will be together till the end just as much as he believes it, I know that, still, it is love for us.