Let’s Skip Ahead To The Good Part

Sometimes I want to skip to the part where we’ve been together a really long time. I don’t need the passion of the beginning — the urgency, the unfamiliarity, the shaky ground. I am stressed out and I am on edge. I want to be where we’ve been mentally, during this quick courtship and how fast we both fell, I want to be in a place where that kind of emotion and attachment seems appropriate. I want us to be comfortable and I want us to be cozy. I want us to be a seamless unit. Partners.

My ex always said this to me and I never understood it. He liked to start relationships about seven years in, emotionally. He didn’t hesitate to know your family, to start tracking your menstrual cycle so he could buy you Snickers bars day of, to sleep over every night. I thought it was flattering, that probably he just really liked me a lot. But it wasn’t that. It had nothing to do with me. He just liked being in a super serious, committed relationship regardless of whether we actually, you know, were. But I’m starting to think he wasn’t wrong to want that. There’s no real “good” part but I find myself fantasizing about our future.

You, you like to earn things. You keep track of exactly how long we’ve been together so we’re not moving too fast or too slow. But sometimes when I am with you, I want to skip ahead to the “good” part. I want to get to the place where we move as a pair. Where you know to put my glasses on the nightstand and I know you’ll want a Cherry Coke when you get home from work. Where we finish each other’s sentences or better still, convey everything at parties across the room with one tilt of the eyebrow. Where we always know we will sleep beside each other and whose house we’re spending the holidays at. Where we’re talked about like one person, rather than like two. (Even though I know this can be annoying and you’ll certainly maintain your interests, as I hope to mine.)

I want to curl into your back and fit between your hips where I always do. I want to watch you take your medications in the morning and you watch me wash my make up off at night. I make you dinners I know you like, you DVR all my favorite shows so we can watch them together. When I am sick, you spend hours by my bedside feeding me soup and rubbing my temples. When you are sad, you bury your face in my neck and I let you cry as long as you need to. I want to know the tempo of your breathing and I want to feel like I will never lose you.

Don’t you want that? Warm under the covers. No worries. No pain. No anxiety. No urgency. Just our arms around each other and the quiet of the house. Our eyes closed in certainty.