contingency
Last night I read a book cover to cover – the first time I’ve done that in a long time – from 5:30 in the stacks at Powell’s to the coffee shop to the bus, to midnight under a blanket in a chair in my front room. It had started unintentionally wile I was waiting for a child to move away from Junot Diaz. Joan Didion was one shelf over. The Year of Magical Thinking caught my eye because magical thinking is an Operaman phrase.This book is about the year that follows the death of the author’s husband. On the back, boxed in blue, the text says it “will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or a wife or child.”
And in case I haven’t laid on the melodrama thick enough in my blog lately, here exactly is the irrational heaviness that has somehow seeped into my life: that I haven’t, and what if I never do?
It’s not really already so dire. I’m doing pretty good, given the heartbreak. I just feel so done with this dating-and-breakup thing. And I’m angry and sad about Operaman. I wanted us to figure things out that we didn’t know how to do.
Two weeks ago I asked a friend if she planned to have a second baby, and she said yes. I told her I was glad because as an only child I think only children are a terrible idea – both too lonely and too good at being alone. Did you have a dog? she asked. I didn’t.
My parents are practical, and dogs are bad for carpets and vacations. Too much to give up for something outside yourself. But I am no practical person. Settle me somewhere safe and I will gamble it for an unpromising alliance. People I have liked and loved lately are wary of what they might forfeit, but I’m terrified of what I might keep.
No-dog love is not the kind for me. No-dog love is the kind Operaman offered, and I struggled with it start to end. It never seemed to suit either of us. I was sure we were up for something more.
I want the kind that can fill two hundred and twenty seven pages with just the first impressions of its absence, the kind that makes you cry that you might never have something so big to lose.
posted by tortaluga @ 10:08 AM
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