Browsing through the New York Times, I ran across this article on two young gay men who have been married (dare I use this word without igniting an offensive political debate?) for over three years. Joshua dresses Ben to go out partying, and the latter settles the former into married life. The can finish each other’s sentences and share similar decorating interests. I would imagine choosing silverware and bedding were an ordeal, but they hire someone to mow the lawn. The scariest fact is that one is 24 and the other is barely 25. Now, I may not be a math major, but I've taken enough calculus to know that means they got married when they were hardly 21.
Kara and I were at Target yesterday when she started pseudo-joking. She hollered, "My biological clock is ticking!" down the aisle adorned with baby rattles and $70 infant car seats. Again with the complex math (times three, take the derivate, carry the one…) I replied, “Yeah, you’ve only got 20 years of fertility left.”
I stopped in my tracks. Here we are, on the brink of legal insobriety, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just sitting around in some overstuffed Coffman Union chair until my youth walks out on me. There are thousands of people engaged and marrying and “settling down” all around me, some are younger. I can’t decide if choosing a mate is a sign of maturity or an aching need to grow up. The manifestation of either is all too eerie to face.
What’s maybe worse is finding someone now, fearing commitment and hunkering down until I feel old enough to marry or settle down. It's too much like placing feelings in boxes until I’m old enough to understand or accept them. All I can think about lately is how much I just want to marry and adopt a sweet little girl so Kara and I can dress her in Burberry onesies and feed her from a Dior bottle and literally place sterling silver spoons in her mouth.
Wait, no, about face. I’m twenty and I’ve got something like ten years of singularity and self-searching and selfishness and education left to experience. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to wake up next to someone. I can’t sleep in the same bed, and it’s not been too long since it happened almost every night. Now, I get uncomfortable and hot and would rather just sleep alone with another cold pillow and wake up by myself to the sound of the rain on the rocks, my eyes a little dry and pink.
How can I want something I’m not nearly ready to incite? Forever is far too long of a time and not quite tangible for someone like me, who feels 16 and can’t remember further back than 6th grade. I need future blinders like a horse in the Kentucky Derby. I only want to see a week. I want this hour to be perfect. I only want to know this second, because dividing my life into some indefinite period when I have finally grown up is too significant and abstract. I’m selfish and think about Gucci and not tuition, Burberry and americanos and tequila and not rent. I can’t afford myself and I just can’t seem to give a damn, which is worse than the lack of self-control.
Stop, stop, stop. I’ve been reading this poem by ee cummings a lot lately. Once a day, it would seem. Though it’s not anything, it’s something.
==== ==== ==== ====
in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how
in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)
in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes
in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)
and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me
==== ==== ==== ====
I’m just trying to say that I’m not looking to make a home with anyone else, but I would like to feel there every now and then.
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