Three years ago, I was writing about one boyfriend’s ring-around-the-collar. About a year-and-a-half after that, I was invited to move into a lovely suburban home by another boyfriend. We hosted dinner parties and made plans for the garden. I printed out recipes for us to try.
Now I have no boyfriend to dote on through collars or cuisine.
I like doting on boyfriends. Sometimes, after the relationship is over, I feel dumb about doing it, but I enjoy it in the moment. There are all these things I know how to do, was trained how to do, that I don’t get to do when I’m just me. I can make new recipes for myself, but I really like sharing the experience.
I went to high school with the collar guy. One time, when we were in math class, I looked over at him and our eyes met and I had this intense vision. I was standing at the sink in a yellow kitchen and he came up behind me and put his arms around me. I have never in my life had a vision like that before or since. I would see him in later years and be baffled that I’d ever had that vision about him. The idea of us as a couple seemed so absurd.
Then we were a couple and it was definitely absurd, but it also sometimes worked. Somewhere in our core, and at our best moments, we were that couple at the sink, but that vision was some alternate reality or past life.
What’s interesting to me now is that I held on to that vision for so long. I tried to achieve it with other men over the years. It speaks to my deepest desire, to have a home and be cherished for being in it. It’s why I moved into that house in the suburbs.
I don’t live my life like I’m looking for that. When I was with the collar boyfriend, I said over that I didn’t want to be a girlfriend, I didn't want to be a wife. Really, I was scared of ever being a girlfriend or wife again. Being a wife, in particular, had been humiliating and depressing for me, and ultimately incredibly painful. I never wanted to be that vulnerable again.
But then I was again. And again. Maybe I’m just vulnerable.
The thing about that vision is it was just a glimpse of a moment, not a whole relationship. It was a hint that I could have moments of tenderness with this person, which I did. We had a lot of tender moments, possibly in equal number to the really painful ones.
There were a thousand tender moments with my husband and with the guy in the suburbs and with all the men I’ve been in relationships with. I’ve even been embraced while standing at a kitchen sink once or twice.
At the moment, I don’t think I ever want a man in my life again. I have felt that way before, then found myself with another one, vulnerable again, still searching for that deepest desire.
CAT VIDEO BELOW
