Dear Claire,
There’s a funny thing about Your Mother (YM) and I, there truly is. As we probably told you already, YM and I met at a party. When I was sitting next to her there was another girl sitting on my other side. I was waxing it pretty well that night about true love and how it’s a journey. I was waxing it so well I wasn’t talking, my mouth was moving, but it felt like magic was making me talk because what I was saying was pretty musical and it resonated. Anyway, I made a disparaging remark about myself, a pathetic joke to make the girls feel sorry for me. The one girl tapped me on the leg, “it’ll be okay” she said, and then YM rubbed my leg even higher up my thigh to really assure me that everyone is going to be fine, I wont be lonely forever.
Later at this party I went to the washroom and she came in after me. We nervously passed by each other by the doorway party, overly smiling at each other. She told me later that she was thrilled to see that the toilet seat was put down and that my hands were wet from washing them. She’s funny that way.
Then at the way home, time for everyone to say goodbye, we took a long time to say goodbye to each other. I shook her hand to say how nice it was to meet her. YM hinted that I should walk her home, that she lived right around the corner – to be honest at the time I had no idea what she was going on about in regards to where she lived, I’m not the sharpest knife in the cupboard when it comes to women making passes at me. So, when we shook hands to say goodbye and I had that overly goofy smile on my face, she shook my hand and held it a really long time, gave it a couple nice squeezes before letting go. It’s like a complete role reversal, it’s true, I just had no idea how to proceed with things other than keep that big dumb-ass smile on my face as my heart raced and she took a lot of the lead on this “hey, dipstick, I’m digging you, take the hint.”
Later we went on our first date, then another date within a couple days, and then soon were sleeping over at each others houses and within two weeks we had decided to move in with each other. Quickly after that, 2 months since the party we were engaged. I bought her a ring and shook the box in front of her for a week before giving it to her, telling her “you’ll never guess what’s in here.” I had a plan to give it to her over breakfast on the veranda, all romantic as the sun rose up. Instead I cracked at all the pressure of waiting for my perfect moment to give it to her. So, as we paused an Oliver Stone movie (Any Given Sunday) and she was eating yogurt from the container in her pajamas, I went to my home office, took the ring in the box still in the paper bag the store put it in and tossed it down to her sitting on the floor. She opened it and said yes. It was very anti-romantic, strange, and weird, but somehow it’s how we work together.
Later after the engagement to be married, within two months of knowing each other, we started to really get to know each other and we fought from time to time. We started to uncover some things that we weren’t too keen on. One time after a movie and which I got a jealous and said something stupid we walked a few paces apart from each other. YM screamed ahead to slow me down, “you’re going to be my husband!” hoping it would slow me down and bring me to clarity once more. I can me such an idiot its incredible. In general, there are these feelings of inadequacy and when that demon creeps up it makes me do dumb things like call YM a slut for having boyfriends before me despite the fact that I had girlfriends before her. When you don’t believe in yourself, such is life. Somehow she always forgave me and let me come back to her, apologize, and win her over again by making her laugh. This is our new routine without the big antics and mistakes.
I remember the time of YM and I’s first kiss. Yeah, after the first big date she invited me back to her place. She gave me a drink of orange juice, the concentrated kind that she watered down and I let her know that she’s being cheap by watering it down and she told me that she liked it less strong and I told she was lying to herself, that she was just being cheap. Then I proceeded to insult all her little ceramic lambs – as you know she has three hundred of these things. She was getting tired and she lay back down on the couch as I paced in front of her in a nervous fit insulting all her things. She see came into her living room with the glass of orange juice and sat beside me and that meant in some way that maybe I’d have to kiss her or something, so I freaked out, stood up from the couch, and started pacing around her apartment insulting everything within it. Later YM told me that she was growing tired of it, but also saw right through my antics as a nervous little child that she was beginning to find unsexy … and she was also starting to fall asleep on the sofa as it was a date on a work night. Anyway, she eventually interrupted me with “look, are you going to kiss me goodnight or what?” I then, in an instant, got my mojo back. I turned to her said, “Brace yourself darlin’, I’m coming in.” Then I went and kissed her. Then she got to her feet and showed me to her door. I kissed her again. She giggled a bit. It was on, we both knew it, she was done for and so was I, and we both knew it. I smiled the entire way home like a blithering idiot, but such is the way it is with me and YM.
In the (get this Claire) 8 years we’ve been together, that’s a long time, we’ve had our serious ups and downs. Well, to be honest we had a lot of downs after the wedding. A lot of it had to do with getting to know each other and ourselves AS a married couple. Not to mention we had a CRAP load of personal career and self-worth things to sort out and we tended to take the ups and downs of that journey out on each other. Well, at least I did. I’ve said many stupid things to YM and somehow she’s accepted my apology and I made her laugh and then we got it back together again somehow, such is the way with me and YM.
I must confess, at one point YM and I almost got divorced. It was a very serious talk that was headed that way until YM said to me “I have thoughts in my head that you don’t know about.” I know I’ve written about this event before, it’s now a punch line between us, but it reminds us that even when we’re at our lowest with each other we make each other laugh and we laugh hard together and then we can’t help put utterly disarm each other and then soon following we’re holding each other in love again. Such is the way with YM and I.
Why am I going on about all of this now? Well, we’re coming up on your one-year birthday party in a few weeks and I guess I’m thinking that we’re not only reaching your first milestone, but we’re also reaching our first family milestone together. See, here’s the deal, there was a time when it was just me, life was me. Then there was a time when there was a life as me and YM, together, but also separate. And now it’s dawned on me that there is no longer those kind of separations. There is, I mean we all have to do our own thing, but I can’t be a me without a we. Me has become we. There is a family unit, a me, a you, and a her, and together that makes a we, this insanely powerful heart crunching, dancing in the kitchen together, we. You, dear Claire, made a WE. And a WE means I have a purpose in life, a reason for being, a grounding from which to truly build the best and most profound parts of my humanity, my true deepest selfless self – the soul of me, the soul of WE.
There is one more key moment I want to recall to you about life with YM before you. I was heading to our fourth date or something. YM was my girl, my new girl, only a week in, but still, she was my girl and I was her boy. Anyway, I was playing a gig and she was going to meet me there outside. I walked down Queen Street carrying my guitar and I was excited to see her. Then from about three blocks away as the street traffic separated a bit, I saw her in a dress, and that old jean jacket of hers and her hair flowing down her back. I smiled so big and stupid then, just seeing that, like a dumb dog seeing its owner drive up in front of the house. And as people keep crossing in front of me as I made my way down those three blocks away I was just smiling and smiling so excited to get the glimpses, so ecstatic to be within reach of her. I saw her there from three blocks away and everything within me just lit up, there she was, there she was … that’s the way it is with me and YM.
And now, as I’m flying home from Edmonton way up in the night sky, I’m starting to feel that kind of buzz, and I know I’ll feel it all the more when I first wake up tomorrow morning. See, when I get home I wont be able to see you, you’ll be in bed, but I will climb into bed with YM and hold her tight so thankful to be home. And then in the morning YM will go grab you at 6:30 and you’ll come to bed with us for a bit of a sleep in together, and in my very sleepy head I’ll see you in YM’s arms and we’ll see each other and you’ll smile ….
From three blocks away … from three miles away … from three hundred thousand feet up in the night sky … it’s easy to know that life is about you, her, me, we. And we’re about three weeks from celebrating our first year together. Who cares what the weather is outside, any will do from here.
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