I can’t believe it. This is my life. I keep looking around with the ridiculous urge to watch out for a cosmic jester to snatch it back and say, “Just kidding!” But he won’t and this is all mine.
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This house, in all these trees and running paths, is mine. I wake up every morning, full of the day’s activities, and begin cleaning and polishing my life. This is my job, and I revel in it, glory in it. A modern-day Donna Reed, and in those moments when I pause and wonder about all those other aspects of my personality that all the Comet in the world can’t satisfy, I think how in today’s world – the world I was born and bred to even though there are parts of me that don’t fit – I have many options open to me. There are so many options open to me that didn’t exist – weren’t even imagined – for centuries of women.
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And one of those choices that surely no woman ever had open to her was to love this man. This perfect man no woman ever had the privilege of loving because he was made for me. My mate. All this time, though all those lonely years and nagging doubts and unasked questions, he was there. What made the moment we met and he swept me off my feet the right moment, I don’t know. What was it about that instant, that ordinary day, that was so specially made to be the beginning of my life? I don’t know. I can’t say I care much. Something about his face nullifies the question. It simply was the moment. I had wondered for so long how it would happen and then how it could happen, the further I delved into my own life. I had plagued the air with so many concerns and questions that turned out to be nothing but more air, clashing cymbals because they were not spoken out of love, for love hadn’t found me yet.
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I can smell him before I even open my eyes in the morning, scent him out like the most delectable prey. Though it’s all around me all the time, I don’t grow inured to it. I pray I never will. I can feel his heat next to me in bed, somehow aware of it on a subconscious level even in sleep. And all those little looks and incidental – and not-so-incidental – touches and mundane conversations about picking up the cleaning and unexpected phone calls in the day just to hear the other’s voice – all of that which I had witnessed throughout my life as an untouched outsider – they are all mine! It is my time now, and his time, too, because – wonder of wonders – he waited for me as eagerly and impatiently. Finally it is our turn and we drink each other in with the wonder that comes with the attainment of a desire held so long it grafts into you like a second set of fingerprints.
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What makes me tremble is how perfect he is to me. My life has become surreal with happiness and awe that it all worked out so finely and harmoniously. I’m struck by all of the little parts of him that I had wanted but struggled so hard to admit I wanted, that all snap together like puzzle pieces that never quite came together until he met me because I had the final picture of how the pieces fit.
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And the way he loves me! I can say with freedom, with boldness, with winging joy that I am someone’s idea of perfection. This is no off-kilter love with me doing all the work, all the loving. No, he can’t get enough of me. When I’m off alone, concentrating on some task or reading or cooking or some inconsequential thing, he seeks me out. Imagine that. He never seems to tire of pursuing me, as if he never got the message that I’m already his. It makes me dizzy. I’ll talk and he is intensely interested, just because it’s my brain creating the thoughts coming out of my mouth.
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How easy it all was. The stories and poems and songs and advice were all correct. He saw me and wanted me. He saw the woman countless men have seen and passed over and didn’t think me undesirable because of it. He tells me it was as if God had put scales on all men’s eyes so I would be preserved for him. Preserved! He makes me laugh with the way he sees life, and me, but I make him laugh so I guess we’re even. I’m unabashedly pleased with his tender view of me. It’s strange – I can still be the strong woman that is such an indispensable part of me – tough and capable – but it doesn’t turn him off or cause him to take me for granted or grow passive or arrogant; rather, his view of me is so tender, so cherishing, so protective and gentlemanly, that that side of my personality only increases his admiration. He can laugh at me without devaluing me, rely on me without taking me for granted, protect me without stifling me, claim me without possessing me, love me without intimidating me, guide me without tugging me along. He is a wonder, and I’ve lost count of the times I’ve told him that he, and only he, was worth the wait.
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And now his eyes follow me with a deeper, subtler fever, a passion edged with awe, a protectiveness shot through with intensity. And I relish it. I know why he looks at me like this. Every movement I make strikes him as a new grace, an untold story. I can feel the flutter in my belly and feel his power within me at every movement. My heart throbs with heat and energy as I watch him watch me, as he seems almost to curve the air around me to protect his wife and unborn child. I feel in a way nestled in cotton wool, as if I’m the one in the womb. I spend time with our family and friends, go out into my world to live my life and care for our home, and all along, no matter where we go, or what I’m doing or how ordinary my day is, exposed to the world at large, nothing can puncture this deep, hidden sense of our little home. I carry it inside me, alongside my baby, and it goes with me wherever I go. I give it to the father of my child whenever he’s with me – this preserved connection to our little house and the life we’re creating and the undeniable love we give each other. I pretend to be concentrating on or distracted by the conversations and activities of my daily life but truly, I am always aware like a struck tuning fork of every touch of him, of every word he speaks to me, of every sign that he was designed just for me.
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I knew. I knew. I knew it would be different for me than it is for my friends and family. I would never say this to them, but their marriages which are acceptable for them, which are enough and make them happy, are pale reflections of the glories I find in mine. They all tried to tell me of the frustrations of marriage and men, would look at me tolerantly while I stumbled in my explanation of what I pictured for my life. And I think with blazing clarity and conviction that what I have is so much more than they could have ever envisioned for their life. I had almost wasteful imagination and the inexplicable instinct to wait, to hold out, and here! It is mine. I find I have to hold back when we’re together with others or we would put them to shame, make them feel on some indistinct, indefinable level that they can’t compare. But sometimes, I think it shines through anyway.
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It’s just that he is so passionate about me, he matches my own conflagration – how can we not soar above the others as eagles over swallows? Oh, I knew. Even when I lost hope and stopped cocking an ear to his approach and let the belief in his existence slide off my fingers, I knew that I could only be happy with everything. Only that which had never been imagined or discovered would satisfy me. It really is no wonder it took so long to find each other. But oh! To have finally done so. I was half a song, a poem written with no ink, a future I couldn’t reach with my own two hands. I had grown accustomed to moving through my life, accepting how different I was like a chameleon in a nest of lizards. I could blend in but my own unmatched nature inevitably glimmered out and could not be understood by others. Inarticulate avenues of my brain, the way I arrived at the destination we all aimed for in a different way. It made for such a lonely life, to always be a little different, unique in ways that caused distance not interest, to always have to smooth myself or angle myself so that I fit in and belonged. But while that can be enough for a while and for a few of the many purposes of life, it was never a true belonging. Only my parents understood me and there was still a way here and there they couldn’t follow me down. What wonder is here, now, to have found that which I always wanted and yet never have known – a true belonging. So many people nowadays are so leery of that word, like it’s a chain, a millstone, but how can you fear such a thing as belonging to someone who wants you so completely, in all your imperfections? Who can resist such a siren call?
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He’s watching me now, thinking I don’t notice. I am conscious of the line of my jaw, the hair swept over my shoulder, my hands writing so fast, the soft glow of the lamp on my skin. God, he makes me so aware! I was so drugged, so sleepy through my life, as awake as I tried to be. But I was never totally awake, missing bits of information and data from the world until he came. Sleeping Beauty is not just a fairy tale. I was awakened with a kiss and suddenly objects were limned with new light, colors saturated themselves as with a spilled pot of paint. My lungs whooshed with breaths they could never take before, my brain lit up in dusty corners that had never been used, my skin sizzled with electricity that was suddenly switched on. I came alive to his kiss, to his touch. Thirty years of being preserved – like a fossil, I tease him – made for an awakening I couldn’t have anticipated. Waiting can be good. And thirty years of it surely yielded some benefit. Maybe I had to wait so long and so utterly – so untouched – to ensure I would never tire of him, never grow jaded. The very thought is laughable. Time flows on but I don’t fear it anymore. I am no longer alone. And I never have to be again. I have found my life. And he’s touching me now.
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