Oct. 20, 2005 – Originally published by CNC, Inc.

What to Do When Disaster (a.k.a. Marriage) Strikes

I had pretty much one standard when I was in my late teens, when it came to thinking about my future adult life: no marriage, not under any circumstances. (Well, I allowed, maybe when I was 40 or so, because I didn't want to be alone in my old age. Who knows? I could live to be as old as 60!) This standard served me well, as I loved being single, and felt a sad pity for those who were settling down in their early 20s, as I watched their dreams evaporate; Margaret would never be a world-famous photographer now that she was expecting a baby, Manny would never have the time to play soccer in Rome, Theresa would never be a marine biologist now that her husband's job was somewhere in Canada. Their wild, passionate drum beats were growing fainter, it seemed, with each year they gained. They were giving up, I thought, on the important things - the things that made them - well, them.

As I bumped along happily in my ship made of singleness and time spent exactly as I pleased, a few made an impact, and almost sidelined my boat. But I always floated away just in the nick of time, still happily alone, still working on dreams that were all about my favorite person: me! Houses lined up in a row were like tiny little jail cells, I thought, as I sped home in the darkened streets, and pushing a stroller seemed akin to a hamster wheel - never ending, not even the scenery changing. And the tiny people inside those strollers were the strangest, scariest sort of person I ever met - they seemed to suck the very life out of their exhausted parents, and then, like batteries, just keep charging up for more. The one baby I held - briefly - at an office work party, stared at me in such unmitigated horror that she was whisked out of my arms and the new mother eventually had to bundle her up and take her home. Smart baby, I thought to myself, standing with the other hipsters at the punchbowl, at least she can spot a phony. (Not a phony, I assured myself. An adventurer! An artist! A true individual! Pass the punch on that note!)

Then, from somewhere out of the sky, disaster struck. At a pub on St. Patrick's Day, I met a guy. He wasn't flashy, he wasn't slick, and he wasn't even in a rock band of any sort - in fact, he just seemed to talk a lot about sports, and had a lot of T-shirts with a somewhat freaky Celtics leprechaun emblazoned on them. What he was, was - and I could hardly believe it - an instant best friend. A day didn't go so well when I didn't talk to him about it, and everything good and bad he had interest in, when it came to me. He raked mushy apples in my parents' lawn when I was too tired to ("like raking applesauce" was his only comment) and picked me up when my car broke down. He loved his family, his sports teams, and his precious New England, wherever that was, and, I realized, he seemed to like me.
"I just don't know what's happening," I sulked to my mom, adjusting my shoulder pads and fluffing out my Stevie Nicks perm. "What about what I want in life?" My mom grinned, a challenge. "What exactly was it you wanted?" she asked, herself someone who had been struck by lightening. And darned if I could even remember anymore. I could only seem to remember his phone number.

And so, we jumped in, holding our breath and taking a chance. It was his eyes I looked into the moment our first baby was born, and then the next, and the next, and they were full of tears each time, like mine. It was he who jumped out of a car five hours into a long trip when we were arguing to run through a field along the highway to get the flowers I liked. It's he who knows how I like my coffee, and what my bad dreams are made of. Every look, every glance, every word between us have really just been different ways of saying, you are my best friend, and I can't get along in life without you.

So, it turns out that I got a life full of adventure, and risks, and bravery. And I don't want to wait until we are old or sick to say it - I want to say it while our backs are straight, our eyes bright, and there's as much road ahead as there is behind - the best, most meaningful, the truest part of my life is you. If I don't get this part right, nothing else matters. That's all. Oh, and happy anniversary.