Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

Abstract

ny rooms and $25 per week. What initially seemed like an interesting romantic notion was just awful. Animals had free reign of the place. The kids were quite troubled, and the staff was worse.We’d crashed a group of hippies who were “free” with each other but horrifying to us. One afternoon, some of the women were sitting around estimating the number of people they’d slept with.The average was 40.When I thought I would just die, one of the women asked if she could “borrow” my vibrator. First of all, I didn’t own a vibrator and second, I didn’t think vibrators were objects you shared. Who knew?The plumbing was fed by Sulphur springs, which meant that your breath smelled worse after you brushed your teeth than before. My husband was satisfied. He was busy building the “Lenny Bruce Memorial Stadium” for our baseball games.I knew one thing. We needed more education. We had to leave. It was one of our early showdowns. “Remember when we said we would be married till death do us part? Well, stay here, and death is going to strike you before your 24th birthday,” I warned.Their parents asked each other, “What are our children thinking?”<h2 id="7cde">1976</h2>Decent one-bedroom apartment, Washington DCWe were accepted into graduate school and stretched student loans, work-study jobs, and the occasional gift from the parents. After a visit to my parents, my father would always shove a$ 50 bill in my pocket with the same direction, “Get yourself some ice cream…don't tell your mother.”The furniture was still suspect, but we didn't care. We worked our asses off and partied hard.“If this was adulthood, then sign us up.”Three years later, Brian had his first social work job, and I was progressing in a Ph.D. program. So, we decided to get pregnant. There was no discussion, no mixing our situation up with reality. Ten minutes later I was pregnant.When my concerned, deliberate, organized mother asked, ‘What about school?’ I just shrugged and said, “Well, I’ll have passed my comprehensives and I’ll work on my dissertation while the baby sleeps.”She tried to mask her horror, combined with her conviction that I had been switched with her real child at birth.“Oh, dear Lord,” she would lament. “What is that girl thinking?”After a rabid, contagious infection in which my newborn and I were isolated from everyone but each other, our daughter crossed the t

Options

hreshold of our meager home. We sat on the daybed as still as a painting.“What are we supposed to do now?” my husband asked.I had no idea. We just sat there until our butts brushed the floor, she started screaming, and we knew we had four feet in adulthood. There was no turning back.<h2 id="8236">1980</h2>A variety of houses, fancy offices, universities, “good schools,” beach vacations, and too-long residences in mental hospitals for severe depression.We always thought things out. Our lives were good enough. But it seemed that the better things looked on the outside, they were marked “Fragile” on the inside. We lost parents and sisters and babies and knees. I lost my mind. Adulthood was more a burden than an aspiration.<h2 id="f36b">2015</h2>And then he walked out — to a different bed, a different house. He left me with everything fragile. Everything we were so careful to protect. He took the happiness, the sweet whispers, the hot sex, the comforting arms, the exchange of encouragement, the crazy laughter. I needed that stuff. It was part of the deal.It made sense to get divorced.Different places. When we stopped thinking, we slowly came together. Not in the same way. He moved into my daughter’s old room, and we fell into the best of us. I can’t map it out or explain it.Being together was so much better than being apart. We are the best of friends. Who knows if we will marry again? It almost doesn’t matter.<h2 id="2514">2024</h2>Now we are in our 70s and it occurred to us that sometimes you don’t wait to figure things out before you make a move. You see what the move does to you as you are making it. We still got divorced, but we also dreamed the same things. For as long as we’ve known each other, we have shared a fantasy of living by sea, of being able to smell the surf and walk along the tides.So that’s what we’re doing.I say to myself, “What are these people thinking?” I remember our first apartment and recognize that this will probably be our last. So, who cares what we are thinking?He backs the car into the driveway. We grab a table. Inhale, bend, and groan, ready to begin.“Oh, Ooh!” “Ah, farther down.” “Yeah, that’s it.” “Push harder.” “That’s good.” “That’s right.” “Oh yes.” “God, you’re red!” “You’re sweaty.” “We should wait for the kids.” “I can't go on like this,” I protest.“Oh yes, you can, baby.”“We both can.”</article></body>

THE NARRATIVE ARC

Move With Me Baby…but Where Are We Going?

Marriage is one long relocation of furniture and feelings

1973

“Push. Don’t stop.” “Yes, there, right there.” I cover him with kisses. Noisy, sloppy kisses. “No more, Martha. I’ve got work.” “But it’s our anniversary. Two weeks.” “Are you going to keep counting?” “Yeah,” I kick the covers off, “I’ll stop counting once we know where we’re going.”

The apartment is littered with unpacked boxes. They are all marked “Fragile.” Everything is fragile. Wedding gifts, beautiful, expensive, but utterly unappreciated by 21-year-olds who felt ready to learn about what it takes to step up into adulthood.

Our studio apartment let in so little light that new growths of mold flirted with every corner. Looking back, I would characterize our style as “bifurcation decoration,” encompassing two distinctly different design approaches. Silver everything, and a collection of furniture that was lower than “shabby chic.”

We claimed a daybed/couch that we covered with wildly hallucinogenic fabric that we thought was pretty cool, until we realized that several of the springs had retired from service. More than five minutes of sitting and our assess hit the floor.

We found an old tray table I could use as a “desk” for the highly unlikely probability that I would finish my senior year of college. There was nothing appealing about the place.

The wedding and reception are still the best I’ve ever enjoyed. But it began to occur to me that we hadn’t given a thought to our individual development and our life together past that point.

If a documentary was made of our marriage, the narrator would comment, “What were these people thinking?”

1974

Sprawling, run-down hotel from George Washington’s day. Shenendoah Valley, Virgina

We fall into jobs as residential counselors. When the director introduces us to the staff, he adds that I just graduated with High Honors. “Yeah,” answered one guy, “that and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee.”

Welcome to adulthood

We got two tiny rooms and $25 per week. What initially seemed like an interesting romantic notion was just awful. Animals had free reign of the place. The kids were quite troubled, and the staff was worse.

We’d crashed a group of hippies who were “free” with each other but horrifying to us. One afternoon, some of the women were sitting around estimating the number of people they’d slept with.

The average was 40.

When I thought I would just die, one of the women asked if she could “borrow” my vibrator. First of all, I didn’t own a vibrator and second, I didn’t think vibrators were objects you shared. Who knew?

The plumbing was fed by Sulphur springs, which meant that your breath smelled worse after you brushed your teeth than before. My husband was satisfied. He was busy building the “Lenny Bruce Memorial Stadium” for our baseball games.

I knew one thing. We needed more education. We had to leave. It was one of our early showdowns. “Remember when we said we would be married till death do us part? Well, stay here, and death is going to strike you before your 24th birthday,” I warned.

Their parents asked each other, “What are our children thinking?”

1976

Decent one-bedroom apartment, Washington DC

We were accepted into graduate school and stretched student loans, work-study jobs, and the occasional gift from the parents. After a visit to my parents, my father would always shove a $50 bill in my pocket with the same direction, “Get yourself some ice cream…don't tell your mother.”

The furniture was still suspect, but we didn't care. We worked our asses off and partied hard.

“If this was adulthood, then sign us up.”

Three years later, Brian had his first social work job, and I was progressing in a Ph.D. program. So, we decided to get pregnant. There was no discussion, no mixing our situation up with reality. Ten minutes later I was pregnant.

When my concerned, deliberate, organized mother asked, ‘What about school?’ I just shrugged and said, “Well, I’ll have passed my comprehensives and I’ll work on my dissertation while the baby sleeps.”

She tried to mask her horror, combined with her conviction that I had been switched with her real child at birth.

“Oh, dear Lord,” she would lament. “What is that girl thinking?”

After a rabid, contagious infection in which my newborn and I were isolated from everyone but each other, our daughter crossed the threshold of our meager home. We sat on the daybed as still as a painting.

“What are we supposed to do now?” my husband asked.

I had no idea. We just sat there until our butts brushed the floor, she started screaming, and we knew we had four feet in adulthood. There was no turning back.

1980

A variety of houses, fancy offices, universities, “good schools,” beach vacations, and too-long residences in mental hospitals for severe depression.

We always thought things out. Our lives were good enough. But it seemed that the better things looked on the outside, they were marked “Fragile” on the inside. We lost parents and sisters and babies and knees. I lost my mind. Adulthood was more a burden than an aspiration.

2015

And then he walked out — to a different bed, a different house. He left me with everything fragile. Everything we were so careful to protect. He took the happiness, the sweet whispers, the hot sex, the comforting arms, the exchange of encouragement, the crazy laughter. I needed that stuff. It was part of the deal.

It made sense to get divorced.

Different places. When we stopped thinking, we slowly came together. Not in the same way. He moved into my daughter’s old room, and we fell into the best of us. I can’t map it out or explain it.

Being together was so much better than being apart. We are the best of friends. Who knows if we will marry again? It almost doesn’t matter.

2024

Now we are in our 70s and it occurred to us that sometimes you don’t wait to figure things out before you make a move. You see what the move does to you as you are making it. We still got divorced, but we also dreamed the same things. For as long as we’ve known each other, we have shared a fantasy of living by sea, of being able to smell the surf and walk along the tides.

So that’s what we’re doing.

I say to myself, “What are these people thinking?” I remember our first apartment and recognize that this will probably be our last. So, who cares what we are thinking?

He backs the car into the driveway. We grab a table. Inhale, bend, and groan, ready to begin.

“Oh, Ooh!” “Ah, farther down.” “Yeah, that’s it.” “Push harder.” “That’s good.” “That’s right.” “Oh yes.” “God, you’re red!” “You’re sweaty.” “We should wait for the kids.” “I can't go on like this,” I protest.

“Oh yes, you can, baby.”

“We both can.”