When I wrote on the "I was living in a forest" writing prompt, there were a few things that came out that really stuck with me (emphasis added here on the crucial parts that jumped out at me when I read it after finishing):
- I was living in a forest, lush and green. It was a forest that grew with us and around us; it was a forest that we created with our love.
- Our love created an entire world, and we lived in it together. We tended it, and we tended each other.
- Maybe our forest was never lush and green and beautiful. Maybe the birds never sang. Maybe the wildflowers were always weeds, and the clearings always toxic. Maybe the beauty of our forest was something that never existed in reality, but was instead a virtual reality we could experience only when we were together?
That last one, man... that's the one that really got me. That's the one that makes me cry buckets every time I read it or think about it. That's the one that tells me that I've been lying to myself since February 20.
It's also the one that could bring me back to the world of the living, if I'm brave enough to let it. Spoiler alert: I'm not, and I'm never going to be.
When I read what I'd written, I realized that I've been looking at this all wrong - and in looking at it all wrong, I wasn't giving Doug OR me the credit we deserved. I've been using words like "soulmates" and "destiny" and "made for each other" when I talk about our relationship, as though we were brought together through some cosmic design. And that's just crazy talk: do you really think God/dess is sitting around with a list of all the people on earth, assigning one and only one mate to each of them? Back in 1953, when Doug was born, did that God/dess say, "OK, here's the deal: I'm gonna give you a great love, but just for a really short time. You won't meet her until you're 62. Oh, and she won't be born for another 12 years. AND she'll be a Damn Yankee. FROM NEW JERSEY (😳). Have fun with your shitty love life until then!"? I think not.
No; I do believe that Doug and I were soulmates (to the extent that we were not perfect, but perfect for each other). But here's the thing: soulmate relationships are not born; they're built together. If Doug and I were made for each other, it's because we chose to be. I remember, at one point, telling Doug how sad I was that we didn't meet back in 2007/2008 when we were both single and both living in the same town: I could've spared myself the godawful experience that was my MistakeMarriage to Thing Two, and he could've spared himself the godawful experience that was his MistakeMarriage to She Who Will Not Be Named. But he had an insight that was absolutely correct: if we had met back then, we would've screwed it up, because we weren't ready for each other yet. And I believe that's true: I had just nearly died of pneumonia and was grappling with the "if I don't get back out there and get remarried I'm gonna die alone!" mentality. He was super involved with the Church of Christ (which, fine, but that would NOT have been a good fit), and had his own emotional baggage to unpack. And neither of us had done the work on ourselves that would have made us ready for a healthy relationship.
So what made Dougleen (our friend Zach's couple name for us) so special? We decided to be special. We were intentional every step of the way; we thought, and we talked, and we debated, and we negotiated, and we planted that forest - one tree, one flower, one peaceful clearing at a time. We did the work. It's really that simple. And it was work, even though I don't think either of us would've characterized it as such, because it was "work" that wasn't draining; quite the opposite, in fact. It was work that energized us and brought us closer together every day. There were any number of moments in those four years when the whole thing could've crashed and burned - and probably would have, if not for decisions we made together really early on. But we didn't crash and burn; we just kept tending that forest until it became our ultimate safe place. Our forest became our sanctuary from the rest of the world; I became home to him, and he became home to me. The universe didn't do that; some cosmic deity didn't do that; WE did it. We EARNED it.
"But Kathleen," I hear you cry, "what does 'we did the work' mean"? I'm so glad you asked. When we had been dating for about three weeks, we had The Talk. You know The Talk; it's the one wherein a new couple sets the rules of engagement, so to speak. Our version of The Talk went something like this:
Me: "I know this is still really new, but honestly, I don't want to date anyone else. I really like you, and I want to focus on seeing where this goes. I want to date you and only you."
Doug: "I feel exactly the same way; I'm all in." From there, we rolled up our sleeves.
We talked. We discussed. We negotiated. We clearly and directly expressed what we needed from each other. We used our words when something bothered us, instead of acting out of raw emotion (we didn't always succeed, but we succeeded far more often than we failed). We walked away to cool off for a few minutes on the rare occasions when emotions got too heated and we couldn't use our words effectively. We put US ahead of him and me.
And we didn't date; not the way we contemporary Americans usually do dating. We didn't go out on the town one night a week, and then several months later progress to two nights a week, and then several months after that go away for a weekend, etc. No: we didn't go out often at all, even when we'd just started dating.
You see, contemporary American dating is a TERRIBLE way to evaluate a potential mate, because there's little that resembles the real life of a married/cohabiting couple in getting dolled up and going out on the town once or twice a week. ANY couple can get along well when their time together is primarily spent going out, always looking their best. It's ALWAYS easy to turn on your partner when everybody's beautifully made up/shaved, wearing their sexiest underwear, with his face and her legs and armpits as smooth as glass.
The real trick to what Doug and I built is that we immediately started spending entire weekends together, just living our lives. That meant dealing with housework, and grocery shopping, and cars that break down, and sick pets, and bills to pay, and lines to learn. It meant we didn't get dolled up unless we were going out. In a nutshell, we started living with each other in weekend-long bursts pretty much as soon as we decided we were going to give us a real shot. So I knew exactly how he behaved when the internet went out; he knew exactly how I behave when I'm on the road and I get a flat tire.
We didn't try to put on our best faces for each other; we didn't try to pretend that we were perfectly well adjusted and that all our emotional baggage would fit nicely in the overhead compartment. No, we talked about our issues at great length. Not only did we talk about them, but we planned for how we'd deal with them - so Doug knew that if he, for example, said or did something that sent me into OverThinker Mode, he could count on me to TELL him that, and we'd deal with it together. We promised each other that, whatever the problem between us, it would always be us against the problem rather than us against each other.
We saw each other at our best, sure. But we made sure we also saw each other at our worst, because you absolutely cannot love someone until you've seen them at their worst. And I think we chose that we were going to love each other long before we actually did love each other.
Even when we took our first week-long vacation together, we didn't hit the town nonstop: we ate breakfast and lunch most days in our room. We hung out on the beach. We took a few days to go sightseeing, and had dinner out most nights, but even so, we spent most of our time just being together: talking, reading on the beach, doing not much of anything. We didn't NEED to go out for entertainment, because we entertained each other.
Our love was magical, but it was magic we made together.
Stay tuned for Part II tonight.
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