The 35th Precinct

When I was sixteen, my mother told me that if I were to marry, it wouldn't be until I was older, if at all. It wasn't said to be mean or to cause hurt; I suspect that in her heart, she thought herself pragmatic. But it did hurt, and fiercely. I was sixteen and trying to find out just what in the hell one was supposed to do once you got to this spinning rock of whims, caprices, juxtapositions, and contradictions, and the last thing I wanted to hear was that no one would want to love me.

That's what I heard, you see. That's what I felt. I was young and hopelessly naive, and I was convinced that marriage and long-term relationships were the ultimate testament to love. If someone married you, it meant that you were the one person without whom they could not live, that they would put you before all else, and you would do the same for them, and that when you died, there would be a piece of God's soul incarnate to mourn your passing. I wanted that. I needed that. I needed to know that I wasn't just a defective bit of Divine clay that no one wanted and that God didn't have the heart to take back.

I'm certain that's why I clung to my ex so furiously long after it became clear that he was not suited for me, nor I for him. He was my chance to prove my mother wrong and to be the young, blushing bride I'd hoped to be. I wouldn't be thirty-five or forty or the ancient spinster rocking her years away, the third finger of her left hand unblemished by any claim. I would be twenty-two and beauriful, with white lace and baby's breath in my hair. Or twenty-three. Or twenty-four. Still young enough to beat the clock that was ever ticking, and to marry for love and not fear of pity.

Well, that never happened. The ex left, and with him went most of my self-esteem for a very long time. In hindsight, it was for the best. If we had married, it would have been for all the worst reasons. I would have gone to the altar just to spite my mother and her damned prophecy, and he would have gone because he didn't want to be the ass who broke a cripple's heart, and I'm glad the lesson was learned before I made a promise I couldn't keep and made a liar out of him.

It hurt, though, and it still does. Not just because I lost someone I loved deeply, but because I was sure that he was my last, best hope to find my watcher in the dark.

Staring down the barrel of twenty-eight, I am forced to concede that my mother was right. I will not be a blushing bride with dew on her lashes and the kiss of the sun on rosy cheeks. If I go to the altar, it will be with crows' feet and laugh lines and the ineffable weight of hard learning. I may not go at all, and that's a hard thought to swallow if I think on it too long.

I'd like to say I've made my peace with my lot. I know now that marriage is no guarantee of love, and love needs not the proof of marriage, but I am still entranced by the idea that marriage and a long-term relationship can be an anchor, a light when all other lights go out. A place that, when you go there, they have to take you in.

I don't have that, and I may never, but I am curious and not a little envious of it, and so I'm writing about it in September When It Comes. I wanted to look at marriage, to dissect it, scratch and its foundations, see what makes it work. I want to write a story about anchors and watchers and that clean, well-lighted place all lovers know. Even if it goes badly, and Greg slips a ring of string around his wife's toe, I want it to be a story about being there at the end of all things.

If I never find what I seek here in the real world, at least I can build a fairy castle in the sky and entertain a few souls in the doing.