Need to catch up?
Moving on, the rest of our love story...
After that magical first New Year's Eve together, Doug and I continued growing closer. Within a couple of months, we were cast in our first show together, All My Sons. Rehearsals were stressful, and the show was stressful, and Doug trying to get off book was stressful. Doug was a perfectionist, both in terms of learning lines and in terms of building a character, and getting off book was a time when - I quickly realized - he was prone to moodiness. And "moodiness" is diplomatic. 😉
But being on stage with him was wonderful. He was an incredibly generous actor, and his patience with my own anxiety over doing justice to a very challenging role was just another reason to love him.
A few months after the show closed, we hit our first big road bump. It was the weekend my son was graduating high school; Doug was scheduled to meet Andrew and my sister and brother-in-law. Without going into details (because they don't matter), I came to learn that Doug had been misleading me about something significant since we'd first started dating.
I confronted him, and very nearly ended it. And when I say "very nearly," I mean I picked up my purse and was headed out the door. But he asked me to stay and talk. So I did. And he asked what he could do to fix it , and I told him what I thought we needed to do (because maybe he hadn't been completely open and honest with me, but maybe I didn't create an environment where he felt safe to be open and honest). And then we did it.
That was a hard time for us; it was a hard time for me, because I'd finally let myself trust a man, and I felt as though I'd been bamboozled again. But that's not what it was at all. He was as scared as I was, and (I soon came to learn) that Doug REALLY hated conflict, and would do damn near anything to avoid it. But we came out of this time closer than ever, and he came out of it with the understanding that I could handle whatever he had to say, even if he wasn't comfortable saying it.
By the end of that first year together, I knew we were going to last forever. I was still dead set against getting married, but I knew that Doug was IT. And he felt the same way about me.
We celebrated the anniversary of our first not-a-date by going back to the place it all began: Flip Flops. We had a nice dinner of bar food, and then went back to Doug's and sat and talked, just like we did that first night.
But being on stage with him was wonderful. He was an incredibly generous actor, and his patience with my own anxiety over doing justice to a very challenging role was just another reason to love him.
A few months after the show closed, we hit our first big road bump. It was the weekend my son was graduating high school; Doug was scheduled to meet Andrew and my sister and brother-in-law. Without going into details (because they don't matter), I came to learn that Doug had been misleading me about something significant since we'd first started dating.
I confronted him, and very nearly ended it. And when I say "very nearly," I mean I picked up my purse and was headed out the door. But he asked me to stay and talk. So I did. And he asked what he could do to fix it , and I told him what I thought we needed to do (because maybe he hadn't been completely open and honest with me, but maybe I didn't create an environment where he felt safe to be open and honest). And then we did it.
That was a hard time for us; it was a hard time for me, because I'd finally let myself trust a man, and I felt as though I'd been bamboozled again. But that's not what it was at all. He was as scared as I was, and (I soon came to learn) that Doug REALLY hated conflict, and would do damn near anything to avoid it. But we came out of this time closer than ever, and he came out of it with the understanding that I could handle whatever he had to say, even if he wasn't comfortable saying it.
By the end of that first year together, I knew we were going to last forever. I was still dead set against getting married, but I knew that Doug was IT. And he felt the same way about me.
We celebrated the anniversary of our first not-a-date by going back to the place it all began: Flip Flops. We had a nice dinner of bar food, and then went back to Doug's and sat and talked, just like we did that first night.
We continued to settle into our routine, and fell more deeply in love nearly every day. And I'm not viewing our time together with rose-colored glasses: Doug wasn't perfect, and neither am I. But somehow, his crazy meshed well with my crazy, and we made each other better together than either of us was apart. And we truly did appreciate how lucky we were, after all the terrible relationships we'd each had, to find each other and love each other as much as we did.
We rarely argued. We sometimes disagreed, but it was very unusual for us to actually become angry at each other. And on the rare times when we did, both of us did our best to remember that the problem was the enemy, and we needed to work together to deal with the problem. We never saw each other as the enemy, even in the worst of moments. We were a team. It was us against the world.
Moving in together
We started talking about moving in together about a year before it happened. Doug wasn't going to do so until my son moved out. It wasn't that he didn't want to live in the house with Andrew and me; it was more that he didn't want Andrew to feel as though anyone was encroaching on his turf. And I understood that, and really, I kinda loved him even more for it. Of course, in hindsight, I wish we'd been under the same roof for longer than we were, but...
Doug moved in during June of 2018. I'm not going to go into the stress of trying to fit so much of his stuff into our tiny house, but I will say that there are still countless boxes in the garage that he never got around to unpacking. Yes, four-letter words are involved every time I think about that.
Living together was even better than we'd hoped. There is nothing like waking up every day in the arms of the person you love most. There's nothing like being able to get a kiss from your love any time you want. There's nothing like the joy of simply sharing the little moments of your life with someone who appreciates you as much as you appreciate him.
And if there's anything that made our love so special, it was that: we were both fully aware of how lucky we were, and we never took it for granted - not for one minute. I was unaccustomed to being loved, and to this day it astonishes me that I could be wearing sweats and a t-shirt, with no bra, no makeup on and my hair in a ponytail on top of my head, and that man would look at me and tell me that I was beautiful. And he really meant it.
I can't describe how much I love him, or how much he loved me. It was the kind of love that everyone dreams about, but few people find. No matter what he did or I did, no matter what he said or I said, no matter how angry either of us ever got at the other... we were together, period. Complete acceptance and genuinely unconditional love. Doug's love was all encompassing. Doug's hugs were life-affirming. And even after four years, my heart skipped a beat when he kissed me. And when he smiled at me - that dimple in his left cheek turned me to mush every single time. To think that I'll never get to earn that smile from him again is more painful than I think I can stand.
Doug moved in during June of 2018. I'm not going to go into the stress of trying to fit so much of his stuff into our tiny house, but I will say that there are still countless boxes in the garage that he never got around to unpacking. Yes, four-letter words are involved every time I think about that.
Living together was even better than we'd hoped. There is nothing like waking up every day in the arms of the person you love most. There's nothing like being able to get a kiss from your love any time you want. There's nothing like the joy of simply sharing the little moments of your life with someone who appreciates you as much as you appreciate him.
And if there's anything that made our love so special, it was that: we were both fully aware of how lucky we were, and we never took it for granted - not for one minute. I was unaccustomed to being loved, and to this day it astonishes me that I could be wearing sweats and a t-shirt, with no bra, no makeup on and my hair in a ponytail on top of my head, and that man would look at me and tell me that I was beautiful. And he really meant it.
I can't describe how much I love him, or how much he loved me. It was the kind of love that everyone dreams about, but few people find. No matter what he did or I did, no matter what he said or I said, no matter how angry either of us ever got at the other... we were together, period. Complete acceptance and genuinely unconditional love. Doug's love was all encompassing. Doug's hugs were life-affirming. And even after four years, my heart skipped a beat when he kissed me. And when he smiled at me - that dimple in his left cheek turned me to mush every single time. To think that I'll never get to earn that smile from him again is more painful than I think I can stand.
Proposal, wedding, married life
When Doug and I started seeing each other, one of the reasons we did so was because we were both absolutely opposed to ever getting married again. Companionship was great, dating was great, maybe even living together would be great, but marriage was out of the question.
But somewhere along the line, something changed. Just being together wasn't enough; we didn't want simply to be a couple, we wanted to formally, legally, officially belong to each other. I don't know when Doug came to that conclusion, but for me it was in March of 2017, and I told him as much: "I know I said I never wanted to be married again, and I don't - in the abstract. I have zero desire to be married in general. But I absolutely want to be married to you." And lucky me, he felt the same way. But notice that we didn't get engaged until a year and a half later. No, I don't know why. I never asked, because it didn't matter all that much. We were together, and that was good enough.
It turns out that Doug had bought the engagement ring before he even moved in, and the delay was because he wanted to propose at the beach house. Which he did, in beautiful fashion. And then we got super busy with shows and the holidays and more shows, and before we knew it, half a year had gone by and we still hadn't set a date.
So we decided to make a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Hawaii and marry there, just the two of us.
Not one regret. That trip was the most fun, romantic two weeks ever. We stayed off social media almost completely, and the only television we watched was a bit of one Titans game. Otherwise, we were just... together. Enjoying the beautiful islands, and enjoying the beautiful weather, and enjoying our beautiful love. We quickly realized that one trip wouldn't be enough, and before we left we were already discussing going back in two years. Now, that can't ever happen. Nothing for us can ever happen again, because he's gone. And somehow, I'm supposed to keep living without all that love. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how I can ever learn how to do that.
We'd chosen to get matching wedding rings, because we couldn't find a band that worked well with my engagement ring. The bonus of the matching rings was that they were wide enough that we could each have them engraved. We also wrote our own vows. We shared neither the vows nor the inscriptions with each other until our wedding day.
I loved our vows; they were funny, and poignant, and... look, I cried a lot that day. I cried a lot with Doug in general, mostly because I was so damn happy that my eyes would leak. It was a problem, okay? But Doug... he wasn't as overtly emotional as I am, and when he cried reading his vows to me, it was indescribable. I knew he loved me, but he'd never expressed it in such detail and with so much emotion.
To be loved like that, by a man like him? That was a fucking MIRACLE. And I hope he felt the same way about being loved by me.
In his vows, Doug referred to me as a "precious, fragile gift." But there was nothing fragile about my love for Doug. When I said I would love him until the day I die, I meant it. There is nothing that man could have said or done that would have made me stop loving him. Even dying can't do it: I am his, forever.
We returned home, eager to start our lives together, but with the cloud of concern hanging over our heads, because we knew something was up: Doug had a really hard time getting around in Hawaii. In truth, he'd probably been having a hard time getting around for a long time, but... remember that whole conflict avoidance thing? It seems Doug had the same problem when it came to anything medically related.
So we settled into married life. Funny enough, it looked pretty much like our life before, except that we'd call each other "husband" and "wife". It's a sharp pain in my heart every time I realize that he'll never call me "wife" or "sweetheart" or "baby" ever again. I loved our little endearments. I loved that we mercilessly made fun of each other's foibles. I loved that every day was either his fault or mine. I loved that we never took advantage of that "fault" thing to start a fight.
Everything was happier with Doug. Even mundane things like grocery shopping, or packing for a trip, or dealing with a nasty cold, was better because we had each other. Every moment was full of appreciation for what we had. And every moment now is empty, because that's gone.
In my eulogy, I relayed something I said to a friend a few days after Doug died: no one gets a happy ending. Either you break up and one of you is miserable, or you have a love for the ages, and then one of you dies, leaving the other destroyed.
But I guess that's not entirely true: Doug got his happy ending. Doug had my love until the day he died. Doug knew, up until the moment he didn't know anything anymore, that I loved him and wanted him to come home with me so we could have our twenty years together. Doug died with my love holding his hand and echoing in his ears. Doug got his happy ending.
And if I could just go and be with him, maybe I would get mine. Instead, I'm here, without his love, without his eyes and his smile and his voice and his touch. And I hate every minute of it. This isn't how it was supposed to be. It isn't how it IS supposed to be. I'm not supposed to be alone; I'm supposed to be hanging out with Doug, with one cat on his lap and one sitting between us, drinking a beer and watching Survivor (even though I HATE that show, I'm watching it for him).
I miss him. I don't know how to live without him. I don't want to. Life without Doug's love is a pale imitation of a life. And I cannot bring myself to believe that I'll ever feel any other way.
But somewhere along the line, something changed. Just being together wasn't enough; we didn't want simply to be a couple, we wanted to formally, legally, officially belong to each other. I don't know when Doug came to that conclusion, but for me it was in March of 2017, and I told him as much: "I know I said I never wanted to be married again, and I don't - in the abstract. I have zero desire to be married in general. But I absolutely want to be married to you." And lucky me, he felt the same way. But notice that we didn't get engaged until a year and a half later. No, I don't know why. I never asked, because it didn't matter all that much. We were together, and that was good enough.
It turns out that Doug had bought the engagement ring before he even moved in, and the delay was because he wanted to propose at the beach house. Which he did, in beautiful fashion. And then we got super busy with shows and the holidays and more shows, and before we knew it, half a year had gone by and we still hadn't set a date.
So we decided to make a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Hawaii and marry there, just the two of us.
Not one regret. That trip was the most fun, romantic two weeks ever. We stayed off social media almost completely, and the only television we watched was a bit of one Titans game. Otherwise, we were just... together. Enjoying the beautiful islands, and enjoying the beautiful weather, and enjoying our beautiful love. We quickly realized that one trip wouldn't be enough, and before we left we were already discussing going back in two years. Now, that can't ever happen. Nothing for us can ever happen again, because he's gone. And somehow, I'm supposed to keep living without all that love. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how I can ever learn how to do that.
We'd chosen to get matching wedding rings, because we couldn't find a band that worked well with my engagement ring. The bonus of the matching rings was that they were wide enough that we could each have them engraved. We also wrote our own vows. We shared neither the vows nor the inscriptions with each other until our wedding day.
I loved our vows; they were funny, and poignant, and... look, I cried a lot that day. I cried a lot with Doug in general, mostly because I was so damn happy that my eyes would leak. It was a problem, okay? But Doug... he wasn't as overtly emotional as I am, and when he cried reading his vows to me, it was indescribable. I knew he loved me, but he'd never expressed it in such detail and with so much emotion.
To be loved like that, by a man like him? That was a fucking MIRACLE. And I hope he felt the same way about being loved by me.
In his vows, Doug referred to me as a "precious, fragile gift." But there was nothing fragile about my love for Doug. When I said I would love him until the day I die, I meant it. There is nothing that man could have said or done that would have made me stop loving him. Even dying can't do it: I am his, forever.
We returned home, eager to start our lives together, but with the cloud of concern hanging over our heads, because we knew something was up: Doug had a really hard time getting around in Hawaii. In truth, he'd probably been having a hard time getting around for a long time, but... remember that whole conflict avoidance thing? It seems Doug had the same problem when it came to anything medically related.
So we settled into married life. Funny enough, it looked pretty much like our life before, except that we'd call each other "husband" and "wife". It's a sharp pain in my heart every time I realize that he'll never call me "wife" or "sweetheart" or "baby" ever again. I loved our little endearments. I loved that we mercilessly made fun of each other's foibles. I loved that every day was either his fault or mine. I loved that we never took advantage of that "fault" thing to start a fight.
Everything was happier with Doug. Even mundane things like grocery shopping, or packing for a trip, or dealing with a nasty cold, was better because we had each other. Every moment was full of appreciation for what we had. And every moment now is empty, because that's gone.
In my eulogy, I relayed something I said to a friend a few days after Doug died: no one gets a happy ending. Either you break up and one of you is miserable, or you have a love for the ages, and then one of you dies, leaving the other destroyed.
But I guess that's not entirely true: Doug got his happy ending. Doug had my love until the day he died. Doug knew, up until the moment he didn't know anything anymore, that I loved him and wanted him to come home with me so we could have our twenty years together. Doug died with my love holding his hand and echoing in his ears. Doug got his happy ending.
And if I could just go and be with him, maybe I would get mine. Instead, I'm here, without his love, without his eyes and his smile and his voice and his touch. And I hate every minute of it. This isn't how it was supposed to be. It isn't how it IS supposed to be. I'm not supposed to be alone; I'm supposed to be hanging out with Doug, with one cat on his lap and one sitting between us, drinking a beer and watching Survivor (even though I HATE that show, I'm watching it for him).
I miss him. I don't know how to live without him. I don't want to. Life without Doug's love is a pale imitation of a life. And I cannot bring myself to believe that I'll ever feel any other way.
No comments:
Post a Comment