This love we have-
It frustrates me, it perplexes me, it leaves me wanting more.
But it's just what I need. Perfect in its balance of never and more than enough.
I've been the object of desire, of all-consuming love.
I have pictures and letters to prove it.
Those didn't do for me at all.
You don't look at my pictures, much.
I don't have declarations of your undying love.
You don't always hear me.
Your work, your studies, our children consume you, but--
I don't need to be consumed, as much as it appeals to me...well, maybe occasionally.
I don't want to be memorialized, or memorized, and especially not misunderstood.
It's not my place to exist in someone's dreams.
THIS is my place— with you, stumbling through the day-to-day,
As our kids take first steps, learn to drive, fail classes, throw up, make new friends, skin their knees, open presents, learn to navigate life's nuances..
My place is with you as I age, and you come into your own-as I did, in my thirties.
While I look at new wrinkles, you learn about exhaustion and the weary plodding through the mundane and wondrous rigors of childhood.
Who are we? We are you, me, us, them.
All of us together, each one of us apart.
Big and small, thick and thin--words, bodies, hopes, dreams, meanings.
I wander away from understanding sometimes, in favor of resentment, anger, bitter retribution--all in my mind.
But your love brings me back, sometimes chagrined and ashamed, sometimes justified and convicted of my cause.
It rarely brings me back through force, or even compulsion by you in any sense.
It--you--always bring me back.
