A Girl...

Revelations

Yes, ladies and gents, this is Simon, my boyfriend, the man in my life, the person with whom I would like to propel my genetic code into the next generation.

Round about 1994 or 5, he was a "tranny" (Transylvanian, duh) in a local cast of Rocky Horror. He catwalked in fishnets and platform shoes, did his own makeup, and that hair--dark and wavy and long down to his nipples--is all real. His girlfriend at the time was in the show too and apparently pranced around on stage wearing nothing on top but sparkly pasties. All this while I was far away in Utah studying for my driver's permit and crushing on Jason Priestly's sideburns.

For a while Simon carried in his wallet a picture of himself and his friend Mike at prom (or was it homecoming?) the year after they graduated. If memory serves me right, Mike was wearing camoflage cargo pants and an orange and yellow plaid suit jacket, and Simon had on black tails over a long black skirt and big industrial lace-up motorcycle boots. I think I stayed home that night to study for my Geometry II test and write expressive poetry in memoriam of River Phoenix.

Although our age difference is relatively small and we're both still plenty young, we do come from complicated enough pasts that we have on occasion talked about what it might have been like if we'd have met when we were teenagers and only ever been in love with each other. What would we be like today if we'd spent our formative years together and essentially grown to adulthood within this one relationship? What would be gained and what would be lost?

Although it's interesting to think about, this kind of speculating is mostly only a roundabout way of dropping a scrim in front of all those boyfriends and girlfriends in the past, thereby making our lives all ever and only about the two of us. In reality, we know things have a way of working themselves out just right, and we ended up finding each other in good time--even though that means we fell in love with other people along the way.

Still, as much as we sometimes like to pretend there is only and ever was only Simon&Leah, we have both been greatly served by our individual and separate pasts. The things we learned by dating other people, by living with other people, by loving other people, and by breaking up with other people have so far been instrumental in our learning how this whole love thing works when it's right. We both come to the table already knowing what it is to be committed, to be taken for granted, to be childish and intolerable, to know compromise. And it's from these starting points that we're able to utilize the good we learned and to improve on the bad (see: Leah is much less of a childish and intolerable brat than she was two years ago and the world is a better place for it).

While making bets on who would be cut from last night's Bachelor, we were both sure it would be 23-year-old Mumbly Sarah from Canada with the Boobs. "I bet you a dollar he'll say she's too young and she 'has so much life to live before being ready for a long-term relationship,' blah blah blah," I said. My assessment of that line: bullshit. Hopefully Sarah with the Boobs and everyone else watching realizes that the line was just a convenient and gentle brush-off and NOT a life strategy by which to orchestrate a successful and happy future. Because sometimes the best things in life don't come when you expect them or even want them, and you must--I repeat MUST--learn to roll with the punches. Sometimes you meet the love of your life at nineteen and are forced to choose between The One and the wild-oats years (all the while keeping in mind that yes, you did have a choice and therefore don't have much in the way of grounds on which to make complaints and lists of regrets as long as your arm. Lesson: even the best choices come with consequences and compromises). And sometimes what you want is to be married at twenty-five and pregnant at twenty-seven and signing your first book deal at thirty, but what you NEED is to take a deep breath and a big step back.

Stuff happens. Bad stuff and good stuff. Sometimes you get engaged to the wrong girl; sometimes you marry the wrong guy. Sometimes your ovaries are telling you in very insistent voices that you are ready to make a baby, and sometimes you need to tell them to simmer down and be quite while you consider other, rational factors as well. Sometimes you desperately want to be in a relationship, but the right opportunity just isn't there, and sometimes you're in the worst possible place in your life to fall newly in love and, yet, there she is and you only have one chance or before you know it she'll be gone, so you better close your eyes and take a leap, or if you want to talk about regret, let's talk about regret.

Sometimes listening to your gut will lead you home, and sometimes it will just get you lost. This is why there is no catch-all instruction manual. This is why Dear Abby and your mom and the Internets can give you the soundest advice in the world and still end up being wrong. This is why the whole damn thing is interesting and worth the effort.

Because timing? It is everything and it is nothing. And life? Is perfectly imperfect.