We'd argued before and had lengthy "discussions," but this was different. A tad more precarious.
He was hurt.
I had said something along the lines of "Nothing can be perfect" in reference to love and relationships.
In tears, I stared hard at him — his good mouth declaring so many impossible words:
If love is God-given — if it's destiny — it has to be perfect. Everything else in life can and will fall apart. Love is the safe haven. It's where you go when you need to refuel. Love can't be the distraction. You should never waste your energy trying to "fix" love. Love has to be perfect.
A month prior, I had blogged something about people having to compromise to survive their relationships. "Compromise." Another word he disliked. You shouldn't have to change for love, he said. If two people are designed to love each other, they will fit perfectly. In every way. No assembly required.
Nothing is impossible, he said.
And he believed it. Like a man plucked from a fairy tale, he really believed it.
I watched his foreign words fire like bullets from his mouth. And one by one, they shattered everything I'd trained my jaded self to believe about the "reality" of relationships.
In Blue Valentine, Dean, the male protagonist, says:
I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl 'cause we're resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I'd be an idiot if I didn't marry this girl, she's so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kind of pick the best option. 'Oh he's got a good job.' I mean, they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who's got a good job and is gonna stick around.
When I was twelve (or was I younger than that? —nine? —seven?), I had a dream, which I've never told anyone about.
I'm in an orange grove. An excruciatingly sunny, brilliant orange grove. Hundreds of small orange trees in every direction. I'm wearing a dress. I'm holding the hand of a blurry someone I'm madly in love with. We're running through the orange grove and we're laughing the entire time.
I was a young girl, and I woke up both elated and devastated.
I was suddenly aware that pure, untainted love was possible. But it was just a dream. So I etched the dream into my memory just in case.
By the time I was twenty-five (or maybe much earlier than that), I'd locked away that dream. I'd had relationships of all shapes and sizes and degrees of intensity, but nothing that ever duplicated that elated feeling.
Then a little over eight months ago, I found him.
When I say I recognize him from another life, I don't mean this figuratively. I mean I remember him from the dream. I recognize his laugh. His unfaltering smile — the smile that makes me feel safe. And found.
Before I met him, even while I was dating other guys, I dreamt often about that blurry man (always holding my hand, mostly in the context of him leading a pack of survivors with me during the apocalypse).
I used to grow frustrated because I would go to bed hoping I would dream about my then-boyfriend(s), but would wake up with another vivid memory of this stranger.
I've tracked my dreams for the last eight months, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that since he's entered my life, that blurry man has disappeared. Instead, I dream about this man almost every night. The literal man of my dreams.
The first week I met him — long before I had relinquished my cynicism and before I got my meteor shower of signs — I called my best friends, my sisters and my mother. Ecstatic and in a frenzy, I told each of them: "I found him. I swear on everything I know, I found him."
Nobody believed me at the time. I was an unreliable narrator. I sounded crazy.
Even now, I downplay the perfection of our relationship because I'm afraid of coming off as being delusional or blind.
But the truth is, I love him more now than I did during the "honeymoon period." We've come to understand each other in the most intimate, spiritual ways. We've developed a gorgeous rhythm. And our love deepens every day.
I was afraid that watching Blue Valentine would destroy me a little. I understood the wretchedness of the characters so viscerally. But the only reason I felt sad afterward was this thought: "That was almost me."
My past self identified with the characters very much. But my present self wanted to hop into the movie screen and shout, "Take heart! The right person is out there dreaming about you!"
That strange, unfamiliar romanticism jarred me.
I cried last night. Not because I was sad, but because I was grateful. And surprised. I missed him. But I also didn't. Three thousand miles away, he feels infinitely closer to me than any other human has ever been, whether physically next to me or not.
Yes, I know. I sound like a fool.
