don't let us get sick

don't let us get old
don't let us get stupid, all right?
just make us be brave
and make us play nice

and let us be together tonight


Once upon a time I was married. Twice upon a time, actually, but I'm taking a mulligan on the first one. The second time I married a man that was just...so...perfect. As it turned out he was perfect at many things I didn't even realize people could develop skills toward, but that is neither here nor there. And we used to say to one another Tell me something you like about me. This was alternated with Tell me something nice about myself. They sound the same, but they aren't. This was not something we did in order to diffuse tension, but rather as a random Volkswagen-sighting style of drive-by conversation. It was one of my favorite things. It made it very easy to be kind to each other with what might otherwise have been unnoticed or unsaid. I like the way you check your shoes for kittens before you put them on. I like the face you make when you check the ice trays. You have the best stretch-and-stare I've ever seen. Something, anything. Of course you know how this ends, which is in a dark room post-conversation with him lying on his back and me sitting on the side of the bed, and me saying quietly into the mirror Tell me something nice. And him responding There's nothing to tell. Up until that point, I appreciated the paths that were laid out for us through what seemed to be very little effort on our part. Ways to be generous, ways to be considerate, methods of ensuring the security and stability, satisfaction and general well-being of one other. It was easy. It was so easy you'd have to fuck it up on purpose.

I am realizing more and more that maybe kindnesses aren't so simple, and maybe nothing comes that easy. I am tired of feeling like I'm asking for too much when I ask for consideration, courtesy. Sometimes it occurs to me that the fact that I have to ask should send up smoke from somewhere, but I'm not going to judge the way any mother raised her son. Maybe they just don't know. Maybe it really just does not occur to them. Maybe the last girl left in a huff without bothering to do me the solid of telling him exactly why. But I feel like, at this point in our lives, short of some kind of sociological malfunction or off-the-grid upbringing, you should know how this works. And the truth is, I think that you do know how this works, and you're just lazy. I'm not sure which I'd prefer, that I don't inspire the kind of slavish devotion that it would require for you to send one fucking message in a thirty hour period, or that I'm so far off your radar when I'm not right in front of you that we are, in effect, having two different relationships based on geographic positioning. This is a thing that you can do, and this is easy. You could wait for me to get in my car before you go inside. This also is easy, and is a significant indicator. It's really, it really is not that hard.

It really isn't that hard. I know that relationships are complicated and messy and are often vast empty fields of landmines that we traverse with the full knowledge that at any moment, something we don't even see is going to explode in our face and kill us to bits. I know that. But it also is really not that hard. Be kind. Be thoughtful. Be proactively good and so will I, and then when the minefields come I'll trust that it will be all right, because why would I think anything less, if you've only ever demonstrated that I am not making a giant fucking mistake walking into a minefield with you? Every day is an opportunity to take care of something that may not be wrong yet. And it's not work. Making sure the people you love know they're loved is not work. Ensuring that the people whose well-being you've tethered yours to are secure and healthy is not a job. It really is just that easy. I wish someone had told you before.