Jen Kearney

“No.  No, no, no.  I know better now.”  It’s my mantra.

Rain falls in buckets on the windshield.  The wipers beg for mercy.  He rolls his eyes, rolls down the window and spits.  It’s what he does, like a nervous tick.  Some of it blows back in with a gusty gale from the Downtown wind tunnel.  Spit-splat, right on his designer eye glasses.

He does the polishing on the corner of his monogrammed, custom tailored shirt tail and stuffs it back into his trousers as he dodges pedestrians with his knobby knee.  He pretends not to be annoyed.  It makes me smile.

Marriage.  He’s now arguing the merits of it.  I now know better.

“But I’m a hopeless romantic!” he declares with a sweeping arm and an effeminate flourish.

That he is.  He loves being in love.  Mostly, he loves himself.  Me?  I hate to say I’m bitter with baggage, but.  BUT.

“But how do you make love STAY?” I ask.  It’s a rhetorical question we’ve come to volley back and forth over the tangled net between us.  (The score?  Love-Love.  In case you’re keeping track.)

I think the answer is: you don’t.  Or more precisely, I don’t.   When it’s gone, it’s gone.  No use grasping.

And it’s this guy, the Game Changer, who led me straight to the alter of Our Lady of Perpetual Non-Attachment.  And now this guy thinks marriage is such a good idea that he must have invented it and declared it an institution himself.

The start of every promising new relationship is like this hot and heavy breath on the back of my neck that just doesn’t go away.  At first it’s sexy.  Seductive.  And it spawns the kind of insanity that makes me spend entire days lolling in bed with New Guy, followed by the effortless production of a seven course Sunday brunch while I ponder bearing another child in my middle age.  Because I’m In Love!  And I Can Do Anything!

Then that same sweet breath becomes sticky and icky and just endlessly annoying.  Out of nowhere, there It is.  And all I want to do is take a cold shower and nestle right back into that valley in the middle of my bed, the one perfectly embossed by the weight of my body.  In the divine stillness of my quiet little condo, the stillness that only occurs on Sunday mornings when The Boy is at his dad’s,  I can breathe again.  And I can drink my Sunday coffee and read my New York Times in any order I want.  All. By. Myself.

I used to go into heavy denial when It came.  This happens in all relationships, right?  The honeymoon ends, the work begins.  Right?  It’s normal to struggle, to be unhappy, to feel exhausted by the mere presence of the other.  Everyone goes through this.

Long-term relationships are cyclical - sometimes up, sometimes down.  But there’s a payoff.  Right?  A payoff that makes the whirling like a dervish on a never ending emotional Scrambler worth it?  Isn’t there?

I’ve justified it every which way but loose.  Trust me.

But wait.

There’s so much more to this story…

Nearly every time I walk to my favorite coffee shop, I pass this guy on the street. It’s just a thing. But a thing I can count on. He’s always there.

He smiles. I smile. He doesn’t look away.

His hair, the kind that takes considerable effort to look impossibly effortless, tumbles around his ears and neck in soft brown waves. His eyes reach out from Elvis Costello frames, with the kind of mild trenches at the corners only acquired after years of really looking at people. You know, really seeing them.

Faded vintage concert tees peek out from beloved thrift store blazers. The denim below always fits, always flatters. And the shoes are always right.

He carries a paper coffee cup, attending to it with long, exaggerated, sultry strokes, taking it to lips that often wear a sweet sideways smirk.

His walk is distinctive and earthy. Lately he’s been doing this playful, faux Fred Astaire shuffle when we pass, just in case I had any doubt he could actually move to my best indie playlist the way a desirable man should.

I imagine he’s the kind of character to whom Elliott Smith and Jack Kerouac would have been particularly important during Freshman Year.

God. It breaks my rapidly pounding heart.

We passed again this morning.

In lockstep was one of the most brilliantly beautiful women I’ve ever seen. French, no doubt. The kind of woman whose birthright is a full cup. The kind of woman who gracefully saunters from one lover to the next with no spaces in between. The kind of woman whose vast array of options simply bewilder mere mortals.

When our eyes met, his gaze held. Really held. He didn’t hesitate. His eyebrows lowered. His lips parted. He steadily, deliberately and silently mouthed these words:

I’m sorry.

Floor to ceiling windows make up the west wall of my new living room, facing The Big Yellow House with the Two Perky Dogs in the Meticulously Manicured Yard, holding the Five All-American Kids shuffled about town by their Effortlessly Hip Parents clutching their home-brewed Starbucks in their Secret Santa Shop mugs that trumpet: World’s Best Mom! World’s Best Dad! It’s right there in print, right on their mugs, just in case you missed it.

*Tap*Tap*Tap* the scene goes, rapping at the glass. My glass. All. Day. Long.

Deep Relief and Desperate Regret, in equal measure, are constantly in the viewfinder. Sometimes they press their little noses right up against the cold, crisp glass; then they get bored with me and move on to bother someone else. But unschooled in social graces those pesky twins, they frequently just barge right in, whether my house is in order or not.

I’m not sure how to entertain them both at once. See, Relief likes to kick it with something light and sparkly, something that Pops! Something that says Let’s Celebrate! But Regret prefers to swill something dark and sharp and smoky while she broods over William Fitzsimmons or The Smiths, pondering the ruins of her life.

Unfortunately, Champagne and Scotch don’t like to share a shelf.