The Authentic Life: July 2015

Paul’s definition of a good time is driving like a bat out of hell from Boston to Maine, which is funny, because that’s my definition of no sex tonight. You could say that he is an aggressive driver, but that would be an understatement. Maybe he is an obstreperous driver. The meaning of that word, which no one could define any differently, is to boldly resist an authority or opposing force. If that opposing force is impending death—car over cliff style—then yes, this is the word.

“Look Sweetie, no hands,” Paul says steering with his knees while changing lanes.

It’s this type of thing that people find charming in one another during the first several years of a relationship. They choose pet names for each other. They intentionally sing the wrong words to well-known songs together. They invent cute descriptions for each other’s body parts, juhostehagen, for example. They listen to REO Speedwagon. And because your love is so new and all encompassing, it washes a glowing rose colored haze over these things. You not only forgive him for listening to REO Speedwagon, you actually adore him for it.

But one night, many years into a relationship, when you come back from the gym and you’re tired and hungry and you’re pinching that roll of fat around your middle and you’re hurtling down the Maine turnpike at warp speed, guided only by someone’s knee caps, you remember that you not only dislike REO Speedwagon, you detest them, always have. You imagine REO’s speed wagon careening over a cliff and exploding in a terrific blaze amid the whiff of singed, over-permed eighties hair.

“Come on sweetie, do a little dance,” Paul says glancing sideways at me. He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

“Not feeling it,” I say and look through the car window.

It’s no secret that I’m the moody one, the thinking one. I’m writing a scene in my head as it takes place in front of me. Thirty seconds after Paul asks “What are you thinking about?,” I say “nothing.” Because how do I explain that I was just wondering about how in a parallel universe, there must be the two of us driving down another highway exactly like this one, asking and answering the same question? And if you were to keep looking, you would see that same scene over and over again like a repeating fun-house mirror? I could attempt to weave together the thoughts that got me to this point, but when someone asks you what you’re thinking about, they expect simple answers like “dinner” or “how pretty the sky looks,” not quantum physics.

I wish that I could wake up in the morning, throw my arms up over my head and start whistling the way Paul does, but I’m not wired that way. For years, I waited to see his bad side, but it never came. He’s eternally optimistic. And then it dawns on me, like the blush of orange spread across the evening sky that perhaps Paul’s definition of a good time is simply to have the wind in his hair and the open road before him. Maybe he’s thinking that somewhere along the line, in a parallel universe, he found the moody and overthinking guy sitting to his right sexy and charming, but now he’s just a buzzkill.

As if he’s reading my thoughts, Paul reaches over and pats my face.

“Is it a good thing that after all of these years, I want to kiss your face and not bash it in?” he asks.

Yes, that’s a very good thing and I decide to define it as charming.