love and partnership, and my journey to it through 2022.
December. December! This last month of 2022. This December.
[written before the new year.]
Twenty twenty two... I had so many plans for you. Plans I journaled in October 2021. Plans I made a silent vow to carry with me into the new year. Plans I held close. Then released. I told my friends. I told my family. I wrote my hopes and sketches of plans in the margins. I didn’t know what the path to achieving them would look like, just that I needed to achieve them at [almost] any cost.
I was thirty-one last year on December 31st, and I didn’t have any hallmark birthday or anniversary staring me in the face for 2022, one that would spur me into action. Turning thirty-two sounded just as solid as turning thirty-one; I liked the shape thus far of my thirties, and felt the wisdom of a few more years sinking into my bones.
And yet, the ghosts of paths not yet traveled haunted me. For 2022, my restlessness was triggered by some fundamental questions, such as Why didn’t I leave my firm? Why didn’t I take that trip I had long dreamed of? These are privileged things to consider, god forbid they are very *millennial* things to wonder, but I wondered them and I felt them deep, nonetheless. I needed to go forward, or... somewhere.
Also, love. I needed love. 2021 had been a year of record celibacy. Living with my parents and then otherwise living with no known address meant that I lived a largely - oh, I’ll just say it - *completely* sexless life. This does many interesting things to your psyche. Suffice to say that on NYE this time last year I was hoping and wishing on a near-cellular level for... love.
I also wished for love most acutely on our family’s annual summer trip to Chatham. I think that can happen when you are confronted with familiar places, in this case a saltwater and wind-worn clapboard Cape Cod bungalow. Eight years of staying in the same place with the same family, and eight years of no significant male visitor with whom I could imagine a future. Eight years of tangible examples of where my siblings’ lives had moved forward vis-a-vis love and partnership -- and eight years in which my life seemed to remain the same.
Lying in bed in that creaky bungalow, or on a solo walk to the boardwalk, I would stack the years up in my mind. Year 1, year 2, year 3... year 4... etcetera, etcetera. It had been that many years since meeting someone I really connected with, how could it be? When thinking about the individual days themselves, they never felt long. But added up to weeks and months and then years.... it was a long line of dominoes and it scared me. Time went on. Nothing changed. Sometimes I would feel quiet panic in my tummy at night when I tried to go to sleep; sometimes the panic manifested in misplaced anger or jealousy at my friends. I wouldn’t always cry, but a couple nights in February of 2022, I did sob.... oh, that boy, he hit me where I was weak.
There was someone out there, I hoped... but there were also stories and examples of women who never found it and maybe that would be me. And thinking this way, it drove me nuts. Here I was more financially secure, professionally successful, and personally confident than I had ever been. Meanwhile, the pool of available men shrunk in inverse proportion; as a woman, I felt my stock price declining every month.
Maybe I would find someone and settle, was the enduring, last light/last hope thought. Maybe after enough Bumble dates I would check some dream at the door and “just enough” would be enough. Maybe I should go back to my ex?? was the apex of such thoughts -- brewing desperation seeping through the fissures.
But then my ex did come back one night, unprompted, in March of 2022, and he asked me to reconsider our breakup. He proposed a future together, in sincere and convincing terms.
It was in that moment that I realized I couldn’t not have love.
My answer to him - this well-intentioned, misguided boy - was that no, we would not be getting back together.
And my answer to myself was that I wouldn’t give up on myself and my hopes for something real. I would still be forty and single if I hadn’t found the love I wanted.
Because fifteen year old Lizzy wanted a white farmhouse with four or five kids, but fifteen year old Lizzy also wanted Love. The kind you see in movies, that could be experienced in your heart.
Twenty twenty two. How could I have guessed?
Today, I have a partner who wraps me up in his extra-long, veiny arms.
He has broad shoulders and strong hands.
He has sandy blonde hair. He has this smile and when he uses it, which he does a lot, his eyes disappear into his head and the corners drive these deep, curving grooves alongside his face.
He has a broad rib cage - he is built like a barrel.
When he cooks, he moves with intensity and purpose - broccoli chopped, buttered and sautéed in a frenzy.
His friends respect him and they love him.
He is close with his sister, and his dad. They love him as much as he loves them.
He thinks first -- reacts second.
He looks for the best in people -- without expecting the worst.
He is kind to everyone he meets -- from the cashier at the deli, to the managing director of my fancy investment firm... he treats everyone with the same degree of courtesy and attention. He never stops doing this. It is wild and I learn from it every day.
He is an engineer by education but also in behavior -- patient, methodical, considered by nature. He has an even temper. Deeply analytical; enduringly curious.
He gets snapped by the bite of adventure-- and has the discipline and focus to indulge it. Whether it be driving cross-country to live out of his truck and chase big ski lines, kayaking off a cliff, mountain biking 200 miles, or rafting class IV Montana rapids. He can’t say that he has done everything you might name... but chances are, he has considered it.
We were introduced by a mutual friend.
And when I think about our meeting, I am struck by how easily it might not have happened.
I was one week back from my adventures -- the ones I had promised myself I would complete. I had traveled to Italy, Nepal, London and Amsterdam, through April and May. I arrived home ten pounds heavier than when I had left and one week away from starting my new job. I was excited to be home, energized to see the South in full Spring, but admittedly equal parts skittish to be back in Atlanta. Was this the city that would be my true home?
We met at a party, and that first night, I thought he was too intense. I was mystified by and even dismissive of his focused attention on me. Even though he came home with me that night, my first thought was not that we would have a future.... my working assumption was that he was a flirt, and he would go back to his life (out of town) and I would go back to mine.
But he gave me his number, and something propelled me to keep in touch. Maybe it was my gut, that wiser thing we have in us that knows when it’s in our best interests to call someone. Or maybe it was just luck, that I decided to save his number and dial him up. I honestly couldn’t say.
July... our first shot at real time together, but also a turning point in our relationship. Curious, that.
When David said I should fly up and spend a week with him in the woods, I said I would think about it but I knew I would say yes. I wasn’t fully at ease with him yet -- I remember sneaking out of bed in the morning to put mascara on in the bathroom. But I had early signals of something existing between us that I now recognize as safety. Safety to talk about my failures, in a way that didn’t dress them up... allowance to put truth to words in a way that only my journal or Blair or my Mom would have heard. It was scary as hell, my ease with him, but also bemusing. And then, in a funny act of coincidence (or providence, depending on how you like to look at these things,) he met my family. Like, thirty members of my family. That week. And everything that I struggled to put words became clear to me with how I felt. We stood on a dance floor among my cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings, parents, and we walked around the lake where my grandparents’ ashes are scattered. As I held his hand on that path I was thinking just, “Oh... Oh! This is what they talk about when they said I would ‘just know.’”
We went to Europe for Thanksgiving - we visited my brother in London, and Blair in Amsterdam. Four months into dating, and traveling across the pond for an adventure with my people... I was so excited!
There is one day in particular that stands out as a highlight. Steven, Meghan, David and I had a long country adventure through Henley-on-Thames, our second day in England. We packed day bags and wore our running tights: up at 7am, out the door and en route to Paddington Station by 7:30. It was rainy in London but stunning in Berkshire: blue skies against wind-swept trees. We hiked 7 miles and ran 7 miles across cross rolling, sheep-spackled hills and through rust-colored forest. We ran by ponies grazing in the fields, and over locks and dams spitting whitewater. We ended our journey with ruddy cheeks and runny noses in a pub on the city square, on an absolute adrenaline high. None of us could stop smiling, especially as the stouts and wine flowed freely. We managed our time poorly, and ended our visit in this charming village with a half mile, all-out SPRINT to catch the last train, making it on as the doors closed behind us.
We laughed uproariously that whole ride back to London.
We played Catan that night.
As we lay in bed, I told him... it’s like you’ve always been here.
There is more to write... I have written more than I thought I would, and I could fill in the pieces of every bit of our 2022 love story. But much of that, I will leave to the paper pages. And in any case, it is now January 2nd, and David is making dinner in the kitchen. I fly out at 6am tomorrow to go back to work... our hours together in his woods are growing scarce.
Thus, I will finish by reflecting on something I wrote in the Spring, archived in my Tumblr drafts folder. I was on the tail end of my international, jobless travel adventure, and spending a few days back in Amsterdam with Blair and Daniel.
Tonight I sat across from Blair and Daniel over dinner at a small restaurant outside the city - one of their favorites, although I can’t remember the name. The restaurant had perfect lighting - soft yellow light further enhanced by the intoxicating smell of the dozens of small plates of Indonesian food on our table.
We had biked to dinner, about 30 minutes outside the city, and the surrounding countryside was picturesque. Amsterdam is fascinating with its bald flatness, a flatness so flat that streets turned to countryside pathways and canal buildings to water-drenched marsh in what feels like the blink of an eye. My eye got caught left and right on the farmhouse manors that lined the road, their lawns a near-fluorescent green and dotted with the open, sunbaked faces of tulips and dahlias.
I love Blair and Daniel. They feel like family; they are family. I like watching the two of them together - it makes me think about all the time they have spent with each other that I have of course neither seen nor experienced. It is a funny thing, watching someone you love grow so close to another. It feels a bit like watching your friend on a separate ice drift, parallel to you but distinct.
We are back in their Amstel-perched apartment after a refreshing bike ride back home. Noises are drifting up from the Amsteldijk - an occasional bike bell ringing here, the humming of a motor there. The guest room never gets fully dark and I like it that way, silver streaks of moonlight and streetlights slicing through the blinds.
I am stuck thinking about that empty chair sitting next to me at dinner, and I am wondering who will sit in its place.
One person, one day, will get to share in this friendship... get to share in this life... and they will be a lucky one.
But admittedly, right now, they couldn’t feel farther away.
And I’ll end with a snapshot from November 2022, Amsterdam.
Two of the Van Dalen’s close friends had come for dinner. Once the pork was eaten and the wine drunk, David and I had washed up the kitchen and then turned to kiss and hug our goodbyes. The baby was already in bed; his new parents tired; all of us were rosy from the wine.
David and I were sleepy but our legs were restless so before heading across the bridge to our apartment, we took ourselves on a stroll down the Amstel.
We walked past houseboats with their sod-laden roofs and rats racing across the rope moorings. The Amstel looked dark and cold, and the wind cut through our caps; what is it about that Northern European winter wind?
When we turned to walk back after about ten minutes, I saw Blair’s white turret, proudly attached to her apartment, poking into the night sky. I thought about the girl who had laid in that apartment on a late Saturday evening back in May. Daydreaming about who she might meet. Exasperatedly wondering when he would come.
I squeezed David’s hand tighter, and moved in lockstep with his long stride.
Thank you, 2022, for this gift
A gift that was both entirely unexpected, but perpetually hoped for
And sweet... oh, so sweet...
Oh so very sweet, to open.
