erika | how can I stand here by you and not be moved by you? (Reply)

I is for Impulse.

Let's get married, I told him.

We were, as I recall, lying on the blue sofa in his flat in London. Not his, precisely, not his except in the sense that there was no one else there, but only because his roommates were both off visiting their families, and his in the sense that he was paying rent but not his in the sense that he was paying council tax. So, yes, his and not his.

Much in the same confusing way as that labyrinthine explanation of possession of domicile was the way in which I had gathered the scraps of time we were spending together. A month—hard to believe that my mother had finally said yes, hard to believe that my father had driven me to the airport—past the traffic jams and the ennui of summer heat, past the sullen metal detectors, I had jogged with my luggage and that sudden departure still stayed with me, somehow, it felt like a break.

It felt like a break from my world. Because when I'd gotten on that plane, all the confusion had faded. I conversed politely with my seatmate, with the flight attendants, telling them with a smile that even I could tell was radiant that I was going to see my boyfriend. And yes, there he was, there. And he had taken me home, taken me into his bed, brought me tea and ordered me pizza despite his hatred of cheese. Taken me to meet his family, and we had come back to the place I was already thinking of as home, and we were wrestling, playfully, as I recall, on the sofa in the living room.

Let's get married, I said, and this was where we came in. He was lying on top of me, grinning at me, after just having successfully subdued me and tickled me the slightest bit, and I was overcome with this sudden rush of ... infinite rightness. It was as if all of my life was a broken bone, and it had just suddenly been set; this impulse was that painful and that necessary.

Let's get married, I said.

We didn't, obviously, not then and not yet. But when I hear of weddings after a whirlwind two week courtship, or engagements after one date and a glass of wine, I smile secretly to myself.