A love that can just be

A friend whom I love very much has found something beautiful.

She and her new love are moving in together. They are setting up house, sharing pups and meals and passion and whispered nighttime conversations and shy and soon-less-shy then not-shy-at-all breakfasts and what ifs? and a part of the world they both love.

My friend had asked the universe to sit up and pay attention. She had said, Okay, I’m ready, send me a love that can just BE.

A love that can just be. Yes. I knew what she meant.

A love that feels right in all the right places, no pinching or binding. A love that settles in for a good spell. A love that releases both parties from the looking, the searching, the asking: Is it you?

It’s beautiful when it’s right and you both know it for sure. The easy give-and-take, the mutual sense of I’m not going anywhere.

I don’t know that unconditional love exists, but I miss being part of a love that can just be. A love that can stand up straight, won’t bump its head on conditions, run into glass walls. A love that won’t drown in miscommunication, in things left unsaid. A love that can handle a good fight, a love that realizes fighting for each other is the best kind of fighting, even if things get messy now or then, even if it seems too late in the game.

*****

Tonight, Sophie sat on my back in the dark as one of us was attempting to put the other to bed. It is unclear who was on what end of the arrangement.

She took one of my hands by wrenching my arm up behind me.

“UGH,” I said.

“I can read fortunes,” she said. “I learned how.”

“Okay. Shoot. What’s my fortune?”

“Your kids will be well-behaved when they are 9.”

“Okay, what else?”

“You will gain control of your children.”

“Terrific. Is there anything on my hand NOT about you guys?” I asked. “Like, say, about my career? Or my love life someday?”

“Oh, yeah. Let me check,” she said.

She studied my hand for a long time behind my back. I felt her trace my palm with her ragged fingernail.

“It says…your kids will keep going to the same school. And, oh, you will become a nurse and work at the local hospital. So your kids can stay at the same school,” she reiterated, pointedly.

I sighed. “Nothing about my love life? Like, will I ever marry again? That kind of stuff.”

“Nope. Sorry. You will never have a true love and you will never marry again.”

“That’s not right. I’ve had some true loves,” I argued.

“NOPE,” she said. “No more. Ever.”

“Jeez,” I said. “I want my money back.”

“Too bad you didn’t GIVE ME ANY.”

“Yeah, well, I got what I paid for.”

She laughed. “I can tell you when you’ll die.”

“Bring it on.”

“In…13.”

“THIRTEEN YEARS?? NO WAY! I WANT TO SEE YOU GROW UP!”

“Oh,” she studied my hand again. “Fifteeeeeee-TWO.”

“Fifty-two more years?”

“Yes. You’ll be 90 when you die.”

“Well, at least I’ve got something to look forward to,” I said.

*****

Funny how it takes years and years to see your parents as people (myself included), to see them as people who might ask a fortune teller (pro or amateur) about love. Right now, I am Mommy and MOMMY ONLY. I try to remind S and H that I’m allowed to be a person too, but the truth is, I don’t know what to show them as proof anyway. I mother; therefore, I am, period. End of story.

I am stuck in the middle of my terrain of fortune. Turns out there is a valley low enough. Can’t seem to go back, can’t seem to move ahead. My heart says, Uh-uh, not budging, staying put, thankyouverymuch. Heart is operating with fists clenched and eyes closed right now. It doesn’t believe it can have what it wants, so it’s trying not to want much of anything.

And yet. Hearing of my friend’s happiness—this love that can just BE—there was a flash of terrible wanting beyond all description.

There is breath in the kind of love she’s found.

I’m holding my breath. I choke sometimes, like tonight. But I’d like to breathe again someday. I’d like to believe that I’ll catch my breath again.