One early spring day in the late 1990's, a series of bizarre coincidences led me to a lunch date with a nice boy I'd deemed "too safe" in high school and hadn't seen in over a decade.
I had just started a promising career. I went to an office every day, decked out in suits, heels, makeup. I earned a respectable income, ate lunch in restaurants, attended happy hours and networked. I paid my own bills and kept a packed color-coded calendar and spent 20 minutes each morning just doing my hair.
We clicked. Not in a fireworks, karmic, passionate way. But in a comfortable, easy, relaxed way. After years in the dating trenches, comfortable was a welcome change. Easy was a relief. We wanted the same things in life. It didn't matter to me that there were no fireworks going off. Babies and animals loved him and he made me laugh. We got married and had babies.
We grew into the family we both wanted. Gorgeous, healthy children. Suburban house with a beautiful wooded backyard. And on paper it was perfect. But then it wasn't, and of course it never was. The inevitable stressors of parenthood and employment and life in general drove us to very different places and we couldn't fathom each others reactions.
More and more it seems like we settled. Like we met each other's minimum criteria for a spouse and just went with it. Resentments have grown alongside our children. Anxiety has distorted our personalities. Sometimes I look in the mirror and am surprised that I am still flesh and blood. In my eyes, I can see it. I'm still in there.
