Occasionally I come across a blog post saying something like this “So all my friends are having babies and I just really don’t understand why they’ve all lost themselves. I mean does having a baby mean the end of life? Of adulthood? Why do they put their kids first all the time? Why can’t they hang out with friends like they used to, drink some cocktails, GET A LIFE?”

I read a blog recently by some childless bag – wait, I didn’t mean that – I meant “blogger” who was simply appalled, aghast, offended, by the way her friends had just morphed into these pathetic adult imposters, consumed by their children, simply lifeless. I would link to it but I’m afraid you all would slaughter her with your wit and intelligence. That was not a sarcastic statement.

I’ll be honest, the first thing I wanted to do was rant like a psycho, but I’m not going to. Because I’m above that. Right?

Oh of course I’m not. I think I’ve proven that enough times.

However, in an entirely uncustomary gesture, I’m going to give people like her the benefit of the doubt and assume they aren’t simply pricks, but instead really just don’t get it.

Yeah, I know. Mother Theresa and whatnot.

So, as a sort of public service announcement to people who write things like the aforementioned, I’m going to provide some info on the topic, hoping to help them understand how their new-parent friends morphed into such despicably boring, haggard versions of their former selves.

First of all, childless people who can’t understand the degradation of your friends (NOT ALL CHILDLESS PEOPLE, OBVIOUSLY), I need to clear something up, right out of the gate: Most of the time you’re hanging out with us, WE’RE FUCKING FAKING IT. We only LOOK normal. We’re not normal. We’re losing our shit. But we don’t want you to see that because you haven’t ruined your life yet (didn’t mean that either) and probably won’t understand. You’re still living in a place where things like “dinner dates” are enjoyable, or at least have the potential to be enjoyable.

Allow me to illustrate:

You want us to “hang out with friends” more often, presumably without kids, right? Did I get that right? Okay, check this out.

We’re meeting you and your significant other for dinner. Dinner on a Friday evening at a restaurant 45-minutes away, at 7pm. That sounds, easy, RIGHT? Well yes it is.

For you.

Here’s, perhaps, your experience: Come home from work, screw around on the internet, have a glass of wine, a snack, hop in the shower, bathe yourself, get out, towel off, peruse the closet, get dressed. Have your partner get ready. Pour another class of wine, maybe chat with a friend on speakerphone while you put on make-up, do your hair, put on shoes, get in the car at 6pm so you don’t have to rush…order a cocktail when you get there. Have dinner with friends, go out for a drink after, dance a little to work off dinner. Come home around 1am, have sex, sleep til 9am or 10am. Wake up to some coffee, chat about how sad it is that your friends have all “lost themselves” after they have kids.

That, above, is pretty much the way every evening of mine looked before I had kids (and was going out with friends).

Do you know what this little soiree looks like for us?

Here you go.

Dinner date with another couple at 7pm on a Friday at a restaurant 45 minutes away for a couple with a toddler and a baby…

Begin worrying about it approximately 5 minutes after the date is made because:

Who the fuck is going to watch the kids?

1. Grandparents? Best option, but they live 30 minutes away, which will make getting to the restaurant in time impossible because there’s Friday traffic. You could leave work early but not really because you already did it twice this month for baby doctor appointments. Plus, after dinner you’ll have to drive super far and Childless Friends are probably going to want drinks after…
2. Hire a babysitter? Well, at $20.00/hour, from 6pm until at least 11pm, that’s $100, which will make this evening (not including gas) at least $200. Holy SHIT!
3. One of us goes and the other stays home? No, then our Childless Friends will think we’ve lost ourselves and can’t “date” anymore, and all those stupid online forums say you simply MUST “date” your husband if you want the marriage to last. DAMNITALLTOHELL.

Guess we’ll go with babysitter. Hire the babysitter.

Spend the next two weeks going about your life, completely forgetting about the dinner date because life is insane and chaotic and never stops, until that afternoon when the reminder pops up on your iPhone and you almost wet your pants in fear (shoulda done those kegels!).

Race from work to daycare, call husband fifty times to remind him of the damn dinner date because you KNOW he’s forgotten. Plus, he was up all night with the baby who’s teething so he’ll definitely not be into this. Holy shit he’s teething! OMG I’m leaving my baby when he’s teething!

I can’t do it.

Call husband to announce teething and discuss how the hell you’re going to leave an insane infant with a non-family-member. Realize your husband has no opinion on the subject. DEMAND A DIVORCE IMMEDIATELY (in your head).

Figure out on your own what to do (as always, I mean seriously): baby Tylenol. Remember you used the last of it. Remember husband was supposed to buy some yesterday.

Ask husband. Hear “I forgot.”

KICK HIM IN THE BALLS. (in your head). Tell him to get Tylenol on the way home and you can’t live under these conditions anymore. Answer approximately 750 questions from your toddler girl as you drive home trying to figure out the maelstrom ahead of you. Pull in the driveway. Leave all the kids’ daycare stuff (bags bottles, nap mat sheet, 12 pounds of paperwork, art work, etc.) in the car because you can’t handle it.

Walk in the door, realize you left one of the dogs in the house so there’s piss on the kitchen floor. The toddler just walked in it. It’s 5:35. Freak out because it’s 5:35.

Try to plug toddler into television. Nurse pissed off infant. Make sure there’s pumped milk in the freezer. O thank god, two bags. Hear the husband come home. Want to punch him in the face.

Give baby to husband and get in the shower. Remember you haven’t shaved in three weeks and the only dress you have that fits your post-partum body is knee-length, which requires shaving but THERE’S NO TIME. Consider other clothes. None. Tights? Yeah right.

Shave. Wonder how to do your hair. Wonder how long it’s been. Wonder if you even have a blow-dryer.

Hear your baby screaming. Try to block it out.

Babysitter arrives. Get out of the shower while yelling instructions to the babysitter through the door. Wonder why the hell your husband isn’t getting ready. Yell at him too. Wonder if you have any clean underwear.

Put on Spanx, nursing pads and the dress. Look for shoes. Realize there’s only one shoe. Remember toddler playing in the closet this morning so you could take care of the baby. Holy fuck the toddler has REMOVED THE SHOE.

The only dress shoes I have!

Mayday! Mayday! I’m missing a shoe. It’s been deposited somewhere by a TODDLER, which means it’s in the ONLY PLACE IN THE WORLD you’d NEVER think it will be, possibly in the toilet.

Run around the house like a madwoman looking for the godforsaken shoe, find it in the dog crate, chewed by the other bastard canine.

Put on shoes that don’t go with the dress at all, realize Childless Friends will think you’ve lost all fashion sense. Realize you have.

See that it’s 6:10. Squeal.

Freak out at your husband. Notice he’s dressed, but wearing a shirt that needs about 20-minutes of ironing. Also observe he hasn’t showered even though he’s an ironworker. (Wait. Maybe that’s just me.)

Bolt out the door anyway, leaving behind a forlorn toddler and a baby who’s teething and OMG the dog piss on the floor and shit I forgot to tell the babysitter about the Tylenol and potty-training and not to put the breast milk in the microwave – wait, I told her that, right? – I mean she’s done it before. Look down and see baby vomit.

On the only dress you have that fits.

Wipe it off. Tell yourself breast milk puke doesn’t smell that bad.

Get in the car, start driving, spend the whole trip on the phone with the baby sitter, giving her details you forgot and trying to apply make-up.

Arrive at the restaurant at 7:10, smiling calmly with your hand in your husband’s, ready to “enjoy a relaxing, adult evening.” Act pulled-together, happy to be there, adult, social.

“How are you guys? How are the kids?”

“We’re great! It’s so great to see you! It’s just so great to be OUT, having a LIFE!”

Want to vomit as you realize your baby is at home, teething, without you.

Go through dinner…enjoying yourself, sort of, but also kind of faking it, because honesty will scare these people away and possibly result in the discontinuation of humanity. I mean who’s going to have kids when they realize The Truth?

Wait, was that my outside voice? Totally didn’t mean that.

So there, people sans kids wondering why we’re such losers, does this clear anything up?

Maybe you see two adults who’ve added this baby to their lives, like an accessory, like a pet, like this new cute thing you carry around when you want it and drop when you don’t.

That’s what you see.

We, however, are living something different.

We are having fundamentally different experiences of reality.

At every moment. In every interaction. We may look normal, we may look right there with ya, but you have NO IDEA HOW MUCH WORK it took to get ourselves to where we sit right now, in this restaurant, dressed, without kids…

So please, don’t hate, when after a bottle or two of wine you and your Childless Cohort suggest a cocktail at this great place down the road and we look at you with a smile, trying to muster the energy, remembering the babysitter money rolling down the bowl of the toilet, and the toddler snoozing in her big-girl bed, and the baby…who could be crying…wait, do I have a text from the babysitter? – and the exhaustion, of the new life, the priorities that have shifted.

Don’t hate, just see, that you aren’t the most important thing in our lives anymore, and frankly, neither is that damn cocktail.

Also, we’re really fucking tired. Like really, really really tired. Like a tired that rests on our bones, all the time.

And there’s no sleeping in for those “adult imposters.”

You know, those people with “no life,” raising life, providing life, trying to adjust to a new life, remembering their old life, with people like you in it, kind of wishing we could go back there, when things were simpler and easier and more glamorous, and there was leisure and after-dinner cocktails, and…

then again, maybe not.

Nope, no life. No life at all.

I could have waited and lied to you, faked it, written something interesting or more amusing like I had my act together and haven’t been struggling, but I have been struggling, and that’s why it’s been a week of no writing.

No inspiration. What’s a girl to do?

There’s a temptation to pretend, you know, force myself to do something inauthentic. But I can’t seem to do that to you. Or me.

And the truth is there are times in my life when I’m done. Just done. I don’t know why or how it happens, but it seems like I turn some corner and boom.

Pain.

Not quick and sharp or stabbing pain, but more like a low hum in the back of my mind. A burning deep down.

A quiet simmer of vague discontentment, drifting, rudderless. A sneaking suspicion my life is not being lived, though it may appear so on the outside, and I’m alone. There’s a lot of fear though it can’t be nailed down.

I just feel so LOST.

I’m paralyzed by it all. The house, the mess, the stuff. The kids, the work, the years.

I lose interest in all the things. My temper grows short. Nothing feels enlightening or, to tell you the truth, even vaguely interesting. I feel like I’m faking it. All the time. With my smiles.

Joy passes in moments like a car racing by. I hear it, but by the time I look for it it’s gone. The sound resonates in my ears as my eyes turn back to nothing.

When the pain first descends, I start looking outside for the problem. Outside of me.

It must be that I gained that weight back. I’m fat. That’s what’s wrong.

It’s our money problems. I can’t stand being broke anymore.

I need a job. Obviously!

I need to write. My problem is I haven’t written that book.

It’s my town! I hate this shithole town!

It’s my house. This house is so trashed; nobody could live in this maelstrom of crap.

I used to blame my marriage, but that got too exhausting.

I used to blame everything, anything.

But eventually, I stopped looking, because I’ve already gone down those roads. I know they’ve got nothing for me. I used to read a bunch of existential literature. Sartre gets it. Nietzsche knows. What I need is a little Kierkegaard.

I used to drink, take drugs, get all dressed up and go out partying. Get some attention from some boys. That’ll cheer me up.

But I don’t do any of that anymore.

I know there’s only one way to escape from this, and that’s to move right into it.

Makes no sense, but it’s true.

My greatest fear, I guess, is that existence is meaningless, and that my life will be spent in a shithole town doing absolutely nothing of interest, and the words in my soul will be left unspoken, and my kids will grow as I grow and die, the end. Life will pass me by as I’m running on some plastic wheel made in China manufactured for Walmart, working for something that I can’t even see, for people I don’t even know, and when I’m 80 I’ll wonder what the fuck I was doing all that time.

Why didn’t I live when I could, I’ll ask. Who was I meant to be?

A wasted life. I’ve seen it so many times.

Eventually, with a mix of fury and terror I move headlong into my pain. Because at some point, there’s nowhere else to go. And I want to get to the truth.

If my depression were a room I’d walk into the center of it, where all its energy converges into a glowing face of my own agony, and I’d look it square in the eyes and wait.

“What you got, bitch?”

And I see she’s got nothing. Just the same old shit she’s been feeding me since I was a young girl, lying awake at night contemplating infinity, the crushing weight of it all on a tiny girl’s heart, wishing I could believe the stories I heard in church.

If I look hard enough into that fear, if I’m brave enough to really look, I see she’s full of shit.

I see everything I need is already here.

I see fear exists in the past and the future but never right now, in the center, in this spot, where my feet are, safely.

Where I live, NOW.

Now.

And I feel a little compassion for her, that burning ball of desperation, that sad little whiner deep inside, terrified beyond recall, poor little thing is just sure she’s going down.

I tell her “Honey, you’ve already gone down. And you’re still here.”

What are you afraid of?

And I’m grateful, because that pain comes along sometimes to jolt me alive, reminding me that this is really all I’ve got. And I see the ways I’ve been wasting my hours.

On my phone, screwing around when people are talking to me. Absent.

In anger. Surfing the internet. Escaping.

Worrying. Talking shit. Complaining. Putting off until tomorrow. Always.

Fearing. Fighting what is. Asleep.

Snoring.

Until I get so desperate I pack two of my three kids up (one was at a slumber party), and grab my husband and take a whole day off, of everything, and go to the beach, to surrender to my lack of ideas, hear waves and smell salt air and feel it too, the rocks and white cold water and the burn of the sun on my hungry skin – to feel connected to something again, old friend, the ocean.

And when I’m there I see this…

I leave laughing.

It’s still humming, the fear, prattling on in the back of my mind, but I don’t care, she’s just running the same old story.

And frankly, I’m no longer interested. You’d think she’d come up with some new shit after all these years. But she doesn’t.

I smile at her antics and drive home, realize I’ve got too much life to live now, you know. The kids want to listen to “Say Yes” by Langhorne Slim. We do.

There’s no time for anything else.

So I just hang out with her for awhile longer, let her do her thing, ride it out as best I can, until one morning I hear the ocean waves in my boy’s breath as he sleeps next to me, alive in perfect rhythm with the universe I’m terrified of.

And I realize I’m doing the same. And always have been.

Later I sit down and write to you all, telling the truth one more day.

Hello…FTM Friday! Remember me?

Yeah, I don’t either. Whatever.

So this week we’re going to A.) Move away from body products (but only temporarily! I have way more recipes people.) and B.) Pretend like it hasn’t been three weeks since I did one of these posts.

Mmmkay?

And now you must get really, really freaking excited, cause I’m going to share with you a recipe for laundry detergent. Now, most of the recipes here on FTM Friday are of the chemical-free variety. This one is more of the cheap-as-hell variety. Check it out: Since January, I’ve spent approximately $8.00 on laundry detergent. Put that in your pipe and fucking smoke it.

(the concept, not necessarily the laundry detergent.)

Anyway I haven’t done a bunch of research on Fels Naptha or Zote soap, borax or washing soda, so I really don’t know how many chemicals are in them. I do know, however, that I cannot afford the organic chemical-free kind (can anybody?) and I’m SURE there are fewer chemicals in this stuff than the cheapest brand at Costco (which is the alternative for me).

So this stuff is super cheap, works well (my husband is an ironworker. The man is dirty.), and does not destroy HE washers. I did research this stuff in advance to make sure it works for HE washers, and everybody said “yes,” but I wanted to give it a few months so I could report back to you.

Anyway here’s the recipe. DO IT.

Stop being a lazy ass and fucking TRY IT.

(I got the recipe from this website, which is rad by the way, but I double the recipe and added a bit of essential oil, cause I’m wild like that.)

Homemade Laundry Detergent

–          2 Bars (14 oz) Fels-Naptha or Zote Soap

–          4 C Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (not baking soda people)

–          4 C Borax

–          Some lavender essential oil (I dunno, 40 drops?)

So the first thing you do is get your food processor out. Apparently you can grate the soap by hand but SCREW THAT NOISE. I’d rather pay the extra $20. Anyway I’ve tried both Fels-Naptha and Zote soap. I prefer the Fels-Naptha because it grates easier in the food processor. However, the Zote is pink. So honestly, it’s a bit of a toss-up.

Also, this recipe makes enough detergent for a few months. I’m not interested in getting my food processor out every 2 months, so that’s that. Cut it in half if you just want to try it.

Anyway cut the soap into three of four pieces and use the “pulse” setting to grate them. Make them small (see photo). I don’t know, like steel-cut oat size? Whatever. Then stir it up with the borax and washing soda. Then use it. I use 2 tablespoons for standard nastiness and up to 4 for “What the fuck happened here” loads.

Also, I also used a recipe that was 1 to 1 to 1 (1 bar soap, 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda). That worked just as well, but I thought I’d share this one with you since it’s the one I’m currently using. Try both of them, use your favorite.

The point here is that we become more self-sufficient, more chemical-free, and more economically sound.

So quit your goddamned whining and make some laundry soap.

Where the hell do I find this crap? Well, if you don’t mind burning eternally in HELL, you can get it all at Walmart. If you’re in California, CVS drug stores sell it. Maybe Target? Haven’t looked there. Do not buy it off Amazon. The bastards charge obscene amounts. If you know where to buy this other than Walmart or CVS, please comment and share your knowledge.

And you know I love you. I only talk like this because I care.

Now fucking do it.

It’s a family affair! Bonding! Time together!

(No seriously the stirring sucks. Make somebody else do it.)

1. Sometimes camping trips are fun. Sometimes your eldest daughter vomits in the tent, at 4am, somehow managing to not only hit THREE sleeping bags, but also your purse, but not the outside of the purse, THE INSIDE. Right inside.
2. I can’t make this shit up.
3. At times like that, one must recognize the need to fold. There’s no hand to play. Not the time to fight, pull through, power forward. That’s the time to throw in the vomit-stained towel, pack your shit, and leave.
4. That was this morning at 4am. I should not be writing this. I should be hanging with my beloved friends on a lake in the Tahoe National Forest. At least I should be just rolling into my driveway, after spending the day lakeside, among the pines and the mountain air, crystal water and California sunshine. But alas, being a gracious and loving mother, I came home for my poor sick daughter.
5. Half that sentence was a lie. I came home, but I didn’t do it graciously. Or lovingly.
6. In fact, I was a royal bitch about it. I acted like a horrible little kid not getting her way. You see, I had been looking forward to this trip as the light at the end of a long, dark miserable tunnel, and when it was cut short, I fell into a most impressive state of self-pity. Seriously, I felt like stomping my feet and refusing to participate (but what about meeeee!!!?). Instead, I just scowled and stomped around and assumed the martyr position.
7. Anyway I’m over it. Once again I learn old Will was right: “Expectation is the root of all heartache.” Shakespeare and the Buddhists – obviously they figured out something. I expected too much out of that trip. After months of no break, of excruciating exhaustion and almost ceaseless pressure, I staked it ALL on this trip. It was going to be The Thing that set me right again. Ah, fuck.
8. Hopefully you all are still somewhere cool for the long weekend…enjoying yourselves. WAH POOR ME. On your way home tomorrow, to tune out the sound of children asking 12,000 unanswerable questions, perhaps you can check out the podcast “One Bad Mother” with Biz Ellis & Theresa Thorn. They are funny, down-to-earth women who aren’t afraid of the occasional f-bomb. I was super honored (and terrified) to be on their show. You can listen here. Please do, and tell me what you think. {You can find their Facebook page here.}
9. Speaking of thinking, I did some of that Friday afternoon as I was driving from Sacramento up to the mountains. I was thinking that I graduated with an M.A. in English, on Friday, at 3pm. Wore the robe and everything. It’s done. Off and on for 7 years I worked for that fucker. And finally, I finished it.
10. Specifically, I was thinking about how five years ago I was sleeping in my car, but on Friday I graduated with an M.A. And this isn’t earth-shattering and it isn’t amazing and it’s barely even interesting in some circles, but it’s enough to blow me right out of the water, because it’s proof. Proof that nobody can tell me lives don’t turn around, people don’t change, or that some are just born losers, to die unchanged.

You see this picture? It says one thing. It says “there is hope in every lost cause.”

There’s hope in every single one of your lost causes, in human form or any form, I can promise you that.

And that’s a damn nice thing to know.

Thanks for traveling this road with me, you keep me rollin’ on.

with love,

Janelle

There’s that line from When Harry Met Sally: “You look like a normal person, but actually, you are the angel of death.”

We should rewrite that about Meg: “You look like the epitome of marital felicity, but actually, you are the destroyer of marriages.”

Oh come on. I know Meg Ryan doesn’t write the scripts for those romantic comedies. Duh. I realize there’s a good chance she thinks that stuff is inane drivel, but you have to admit, Ms. Ryan and her perky blonde curls, the unbelievably heartfelt love stories she tells, the “true love,” the best friendship, the soul mate stuff…she’s like the quintessential depiction of “all that a marriage should be.”

Or, as I like to call it “The Shit that Ruins Marriages.”

Let me explain: We watch movies like that from the time we’re young and it gives us ideas. Expectations. Beliefs.

And then we meet that special someone and we’re all “OMG I’ve found my soul mate, just like in the movies!”

And we’re just SURE he’s the one and the love story is coming true and OMG it’s all so good.

But then we get married, and one or two or three years later we’re like “Who is this douchebag and why is he in my house?”

And every day feels like work and work and MORE WORK. You hate your husband and he pretty much hates you.

There’s no romance. There’s only confusion and miscommunication and yelling and silence. There are tears and reflection of the “old days” when you were new to the relationship and actually liked each other. And you’re sure you’ve made a tragic mistake. Something’s happened to your marriage; the love has died. The friendship has flickered. Something is terribly wrong.

And all you can do when nobody’s around is think: But it’s not supposed to be like this! Marriage is supposed to be fulfilling! It’s supposed to be fun and interesting and enlightening! We’re supposed to laugh and flirt and have sex on the kitchen floor. Witty banter, coy smiles, dancing!

No, that’s not it. And since nobody else seems to be saying it, I guess I’ll take the plunge and just throw this out: “Marriage is the hardest fucking work in the world and the only thing that makes it last is bulldog-like tenacity and full acceptance of the fact that your partner is not supposed to give your life meaning.”

I can’t believe I just said that out loud.

But it’s true.

I’m no authority on marriage. OBVIOUSLY.

But sometimes, my friends get married. Then, about a year later, I get a phone call or fifty, generally announcing something along the lines of “I made a mistake. I hate being married. Screw this shit.”

And I’m like, “Yes, well. Welcome to the club.”

Them: “This is nothing like what I expected.”

Me: “Yeah. I know.”

Them: “I’m not fulfilled. This is totally not fulfilling. In fact, I hate the motherfucker.”

Me: “Yeah. I know.”

Them: “How did you and Mac make it so long?”

Me: “We didn’t divorce.”

And then there’s a weird silence while they try to think of a friend to call who’s actually helpful.

Having gotten married too young on a cold December day with a baby in a sling across my body, under a tree in front of a courthouse of a hideous town, dressed in all black, I started my marriage in a highly unromantic way.

We were insanely in love when we first met. You can read about it here. But after that, for a variety of reasons (mostly involving immaturity and Captain Morgan), we spent years and years doing everything in our power to obliterate our little love story. We often loathed one another.

Like seriously hated each other. We separated a couple times, but always came back together. I just never left for good. Why?

You want the truth?

Because I couldn’t stomach the thought of another woman being around my children.

Yeah, I know. It’s profound. Super romantic. Real Sleepless in Seattle shit.

But it’s the truth. I’m telling you this so you understand that THAT is how little “love” I felt. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t feel it. All I knew is that I didn’t want a broken family. So I held on and held on and so did he and I’ll be damned if eleven years later, we’re still here, and we’re doing alright.

Most of the time. The rest of the time it’s yelling and screaming and wishing I could whack him with blunt objects. But that’s rare these days. Much to my astonishment, it’s pretty rare. And I’ll even say, we’re happy.

But nobody talks about the price you have to pay to get that “happy.” The longed-for “happy marriage.” Nobody talks about the screaming and the agony and the silent nights – after night, after night, of the same. The cruel insults and utter dismissal. The depression. The counseling. The soul-crushing inability to connect with a person you used to feel inextricably connected to.

The moment you realize “Whatever. Fuck it. I guess this is as good as it gets.”

And you surrender.

Because there’s nowhere  else to go and the thought of starting over with a NEW MAN is about as appealing as stabbing yourself in the eye with a razor blade, so you just give up. You “resign” yourself, even though you swore you’d never do such a thing…I mean how SAD! How pathetic!

You’ve sold out. It’s over. You’ve never been so down.

And in that moment of total desperation, in the deepest sorrow you’ve ever felt, the insane thought enters your mind… “Maybe marriage isn’t supposed to ‘fulfill’ me.”

Maybe I’m meant to live my life fully and completely and let him live his, and independently we build this thing together, but separately, and I let him be and he lets me be, because the “change each other” plan isn’t working, and I can’t live with him and I can’t live without him.

Maybe those movies were wrong, you think to yourself. Maybe Meg fucking Ryan lied.

Maybe I had it all wrong.

And with your heart in your gut and the surety your life is over, you stop fighting and accept the douchebag for who he is, and you make peace with the fact that he’ll never fully meet your expectations, he’ll never be your perfect “soul mate,” the one who makes your life whole and full and meaningful like the italicized poetry in those Hallmark cards.

[Alright maybe some people have Hallmark marriages from day one. Yeah, well, some people also experience “orgasms” during childbirth. The only thing to do with those people is assume they’re fucking lying and move on.]

For the rest of us, staying married often feels like stepping into an abyss and falling, forever, into the unknown.

Until two or three or four years go by, and one day you’re sitting on the couch with that same man and you break into laughter about something only you two understand, or you tell a friend about 10 years ago, when you first met, or you see him sleeping with your son curled against his chest, and in a flash you realize you’re desperately, terribly in love. That something has happened when you weren’t looking, that some new man stands before you and you hold him in respect with all your heart and there’s admiration and true, lasting friendship. He’s there, still, through history and hell and somehow, a life built itself while you were busy arguing, tearing each other apart, sure this couldn’t possibly be life.

And like war survivors you think back and know you’ve got each other only, a dark crazy history, and a family so gorgeous it makes your head spin.

My god, you think, I’ve got a goddamned love story.

And with everything you’ve got you want to thank your younger self and the universe for not giving up, for staying there, for this, even though you never knew it possible, to have this, with the man you were sure you “didn’t love anymore.”

You sit back, watching your friends get married, still a little amazed they look at you and him as a picture of a “happy marriage.” But mostly you can’t believe you really are happy, usually, and in love, mostly, and okay with all of it, the way it’s turned out, in the big picture, the only picture that really matters.

A Meg Ryan love story.

Fused perfectly with Apocalypse Now.

In the greatest love story ever told.

Or this, which is good enough for me.