To Love

I’m such a romantic, a dreamer after smiles and embraces, after a dream of perfect human consummation. But I told myself that no one’s perfect. Perfection, I told myself, was cruel. I told myself it didn’t matter that the woman whom I loved had to live a different life. It didn’t matter that my girlfriend was untrue in her fashion. Only one person, I thought, was like my mother, and I didn’t want to marry my mother. I would decide whom to be with, and when to trust, and how to give, and I wouldn’t fall on my nose in love. I would speak boldly of intimacy and sex: I would say “Do you want to fuck” without embarrassment or shame. The mating of male and female wasn’t sacred to me; I chose this. I told myself that some desires are, by their nature, unobtainable. Like heaven, they couldn’t be had in this life. I told myself that I wasn’t a romantic, that I didn’t want the ideal tyranny of desire, but I was lying to myself. I always have wanted to live happily ever after. I just didn’t give myself the chance, until sometime after meeting you.

I’m Such a Romantic

19 January 1985