365 Nights (20 page)

My mother, on the other hand, can fix most anything. Her uncanny way with most things mechanical and all things common sense earned her the nickname "MacGyver.” If ever stranded on a deserted island with a fishhook, some rubber bands, and a plunger, you want her there. In fact, once when my parents were in town visiting, I came home from work and collapsed on the couch. “I'm exhausted,” I sighed. “What did you two do today?” “Well,” my mom replied, “I caulked your shower, fixed your toaster oven, sanded and painted that spot on your front door, and did four loads of laundry. I have a little punch list of things I didn't get to, but I want to review them with you so you can knock them out.” I hoped and prayed that I'd inherited just a teeny bit of her MacGyver gene and could find a solution to a problem that at one time I didn't know existed—achieving meaningful intimacy with my spouse.

Brad cannot fix anything around the house. Nothing. He can change lightbulbs, batteries, and trash bags, but that's about it. He can't fix things, tinker with things, or figure out how things work. But with a nudge and a shove and a to-do list, he can get a few things done. He's actually pretty self-motivated when it comes to the kids, and picking up stuff because clutter bugs him far more than it does me. While I am very appreciative that he does it all—don't get me wrong—his puttering around the house is not an automatic turn-on for me as it is for some. For instance, my girlfriend says that she tells her husband that it makes her knees weak when she sees him being all manly with his toolbox fixing things around the house. Upon hearing this, her man is now motoring around the yard in overtime mowing the lawn, repairing leaky faucets, or lifting something heavy and unwieldy. And his little reward at the end of a hard day's housework? A deliciously frisky frolic.

Some friends tell me they get turned on when they see their spouse being a good dad—bonding with the kids, reading them a bedtime story, giving them a bath. They get gaga when their men are being a contributing party to the family unit. But this doesn't do it for me. Brad is an exceedingly attentive dad and kind of gets on my case when
I
don't want to shoot baskets outside or play touch football. But mooning over him playing pickup basketball with the kids? For me, it's part of his D-A-D job description, you know.

What really turns me on these days, and brings back those days of sweaty palms, is when we are in our grown-up lives as married folks, seeing Brad engaged with other
adults
. I like seeing that other people are attracted to him—and
not
in a lusty kind of way but rather that they find him appealing and interesting. This could happen at a dinner party and I see other folks intently listening to him wax on about politics. Or when he tells me about his big presentation to senior management and how much they loved it. Or when he's at a block party throwing his head back and belly laughing at a neighbor's joke.

Those are the times when I am really awestruck by Brad, and it takes the attraction of others to remember why he's so great. Because sometimes I forget—yes, it's awful, but I do forget—that I did, indeed, marry a vibrant, intelligent, handsome, and kind man, and people respond to him as such. What's wonderful and horrible is when you know someone so well that you fail to remember what made him so fabulous to begin with. So often, the gift of familiarity is both a comfort, and a curse.

If Brad knew this, he might not complain as much about our overscheduled social life. I love to see him in the company of others, as the company of me isn't always that fascinating and remarkable—not because I'm not fascinating or unremarkable (because really, I am)—it's just that we know each other
so well
. . . Better, when you have a pulsating social life, you can find out things about your spouse that you might not have known otherwise. For example, it wasn't until a lively game night with friends that I found out Brad had played Jesus in the high school production of
Godspell.
I nearly fell over laughing. I mean, Jesus in
Godspell
—that's not a bit part, might I remind everyone. That was amazing to me. After all, there was a time when I wondered if he believed in Jesus at all.

I was bursting with questions—my husband, the singer! Who knew? And yes, I was looking forward to some great theater that night, if you know what I mean. And it took not house-cleaning, not parenting, but game night to get me there.

Back in the La-La Days of Dating, I used to believe there were two kinds of people, people who could marry anyone and be fairly happy, and people like me who were complicated, thorny, and dark, and could marry only one or two people on the planet who “understood” me, and appreciated me for all my tortured complexity. Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Isn't that rich? Boy, did I have a case of taking myself too seriously or what?

Well, now I believe that there is not one perfect person out there for any given person. Brad is offended by this notion, as we're married and he would like to think that he married the only person for him. But since he was engaged to another before we married, he clearly thought there were two people who would be perfect for him. So he's living proof of my theory.

Me? I am kind of liberated by the notion. You've seen all those old French movies of depressed people aimlessly scouring the streets of Paris looking for the one person in the world who would complete them. Please. The drama! The sadness! The ridiculousness! I now take comfort in the idea that there are lots of people I could have happily married. Because I realize that “love,” “true love,” “falling in love,” and “being in love” are only part of the equation. Am I happy I married Brad? Absolutely. Is he a great fit for me and all my neuroses? Yep. Do I love him? You have no idea how much. Am I in love with him day in and day out of every day? Well . . . it depends. Because here's the deal in Big Boy and Big Girl World: You grow up, you get a job, you pay your bills (on time, mostly). You meet someone who shares common interests and who is attractive to you (and hopefully you are to him). You get along and make sure that you have the same level and kind of dysfunction and want the same things (kids, a houseboat, farm animals). And then you might get married—which means you spend the rest of your lives together. And if you get married, then you have to decide if you want to stay married, because it doesn't just happen. You're choosing a course of action—which is to be and to stay married. And it's easier said than done.

I had a friend who told me that she knew she had married the wrong guy, well, right after she married him. She dated/ lived with/was engaged to this man for ten years—that's right,
ten years
—before she finally married him. This epiphany came in Year Eleven and only
after
she had closed the deal. What had changed? What could possibly have been different in Year Eleven that wasn't evident in Years One through Ten? Who knows?

And of course, we all have stories—about our friends or about ourselves—about trying to desperately change a spouse, thinking a relationship would get better, fixing a broken person, or being in love enough to make a romance last. And it still doesn't work. I understand that, too.

So is there such a thing as that Valentine's Day, swoony “true love”—being able to find and love the one person who is absolutely right and perfect for you to the exclusion of all others, who are absolutely wrong and imperfect for you? I don't know. I think people who think they found true love really found a great life partner and built a life that was mutually satisfying and full of wonderful and fond memories. They committed and they compromised and the life they built became their story and
in the end it felt like true love, perhaps.
We're revisionists—it's human nature for the memory to amend history a bit. And in the process, we create love stories, I think. I am thankful to have met Brad, to love him, and to have married him. There is no one else to whom I would want to be married. But is this a love story of historic proportions? Well, time has a role in that. As do I.

So as we celebrate
the most romantic holiday of the year
in the midst of
the most important year of our marriage
(yet), I realize that I am writing a love story with Brad daily. That our story actually started on June 20, 1998. That our life today, tomorrow, and next week is contributing to the story. I can't wait until the kids are older, my work schedule is different, or I lose weight to restart my love story with Brad. Love stories don't happen to you. You create them, you write them, you discover them. And I am responsible for creating one with Brad.

MARCH

Spring Forward, Falling Back

Brad could score a concerto in the time it sometimes takes me to get ready for bed . . . and ready for him. Since we're scheduling sex these days, I've simply incorporated him into my daily nighttime ritual (or morning ritual, when necessary). And I feel confident that my habitual ritual is driving him nuts. And rightly so, as there was a time when he didn't know all that went on behind the closed doors of personal grooming . . . habits that seem to grow like a Chia Pet as I age. Marriage is many things, but sometimes it's just the naked truth about the real person you've walked down the aisle with.

When Brad and I were dating, he claimed to have a burning desire to learn ballroom dancing. Hey, just like me! And then, poof, after the honeymoon, ballroom dancing was dead to him. Hmmm . . . Eventually Brad learned that my lovely highlights and shiny hair come from a specially calibrated mixture of secret ingredients known only to my hair stylist. And when those courtship foot massages ended, Brad admitted he is grossed out by my feet (I swear there was a time when he told me they were “cute”). And then I finally confessed that I don't care who wins the national football championship . . . horror of horrors.

We've been revealing our true selves bit by bit over the years—from hair dye to two left feet. But a few years ago I did the mother of all baiting and switching—I went from outgoing, fun-loving career gal, to crying, angry, nervous mother-of-two, battling depression. I mean ugly feet are one thing . . .

“Battling depression” sounds overly valiant to me, as I didn't know for a while that I was waging any kind of war on anything. My cheese just slid ever so slowly off my cracker, so that it was barely perceptible at first. “Contracting depression” sounds about right—as I did feel like I was contracting, growing smaller, shrinking, and shriveling up.

I do call it Little D, though, versus Big D, because while Little D was certainly hazardous and a
huge
distraction, it didn't require massive amounts of medication, or hospitalization, and it didn't last years and years, for which I am forever thankful. The weird thing about Little D, though, is her sneakiness. It's like a girl who wants to be friends, sidles up to you, courts you for years and years, and then proceeds to suck all the life out of you until there is nothing left. To quote my dad, “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”

When Little D showed up at the party, it took me by surprise. Little D had been hanging around in the shadows awhile—after the births of both of my children, for example. Of course, hindsight is really “how did you not recognize postpartum when it was knocking you upside the head, girl?” And the winter doldrums (otherwise known as SAD—seasonal affective disorder) had always been a part of my landscape over the years, but it wasn't anything that a sunny trip to Florida or some time in front of those weird sun lamps couldn't conquer.

I thought I had managed to rebuff Little D's overtures—and although my husband would find that statement laughable, I believed it. But one fall, she pursued me with abandon. And in retrospect, I can see how Little D took up residence with me. One of my dearest friends died and was buried on her thirty-seventh birthday.

We knew Christy was going to die. Or rather she had declined to live, in the nicest way possible, of course. That was her way and that is how ALS works. You reach a point where your body has so completely betrayed you that you have to decide: yes or no. Yes, I am okay with how this disease has progressed and I will see it to the end, which means that after my body is unable to move, my lungs will no longer be able to inflate and I will suffocate. Or no, I want more time. And though I still can't move, I will go on a ventilator that inflates my lungs and breathes for me so I won't suffocate and I will buy some days, months, and even years. Christy said yes to the natural course of ALS.