A Little History, a Little Romance

Next weekend will mark the second anniversary of the weekend I insinuated myself upon James in his Tulsa apartment. I'd been trying to get him to visit me for weeks, and could tell that he was depressed. I'd asked if I could come see him, but he'd been reluctant. Then, as I was finishing up a two-day seminar for work and looking at the prospect of returning home for a weekend alone and with no plans, I just insisted. I told him (online; he had no phone at the time) that I was coming to see him, and that if he didn't tell me where he lived, I'd just let him know where I was staying once I got there.

On my drive up, he did message me back and even offered to meet me half way. Looking back, I think he didn't want me to see how he was living... but I had my suspicions. And I wanted to stock his refrigerator with homemade food. And I really wanted to catch up with my friend.

After we'd chatted Friday night away and before we went to buy groceries on Saturday, we spent the morning touring the Philbrook Museum of Art. We hadn't exhausted our conversation, and one of the things James told me as we walked around the museum was the reason he'd never had any kids. He said that lots of his friends had either been married, had kids, and split up, or decided to make babies with someone and share the responsibilities of rearing them. He said that he felt like it was a two-person job (imagine that) and he'd never met anyone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

As we discussed that, I told him of my experience and how, 20 minutes after Daphne was born, I knew she'd be my only one. I was done.

I guess things have changed for both of us since then.

When I got home from that weekend, I was surprised to learn that James wanted to pursue something like a relationship with me. We seemed so different, in terms of what we wanted in our personal lives. Over the next few months, we struggled mightily to come to some sort of agreement. Sometimes, it seemed like it was just doomed because of how dissimilar we were.

Looking back, I can see that what our hearts actually wanted was the exact same thing; we just had vastly divergent expectations based on our experiences and our baggage. Actually living together and making things work has been a lot easier than talking about living together and making things work. I'm tempted to say "virtually effortless," but it has been work on both of our parts (and, honestly, probably more so on his, because I tend toward domesticity, anyway). It's just so beyond worth it, the effort doesn't feel extreme.

Daphne asked me once why I was having a baby, since I've always "known" she was going to be it. I told her that sometimes, when you really love someone, what you know to be true about yourself changes. Back in the fall, I was disappointed about the miscarriage because it represented something I was going to have given James that no one else had ever given him. I wanted to do that. I wanted to experience being a parent with him. He stepped in with Daphne at a time when she is probably at her most perplexing, and he's been amazing. He loves her. He accepts her. He wants the best for her. And I wanted to get to see him do that from the start of a life.

Additionally, it turns out, I might be a bit competitive.

When James and I got together, I asked him what his longest relationship had been. As an adult, he said, he'd dated someone six months. That was an easy beat. But in high school, he dated someone three years. We still have a year and 3 weeks to go on that one, but I'm confident. Why did I need to know up front? I'm not sure.

But apparently, I'm consistent.

See, recently, I mentioned to James that part up there about wanting to have a baby with him because no one else had ever done it. He laughed and said I'd already boldly gone where none other has dared to tread, and then he told me something of which I have absolutely no recollection.

When we were about a year and a half out of high school and James was getting ready to join the Navy, we'd set aside one day to do something together as a "goodbye" of sorts. James said I wrote him a note and asked him to list everything he'd ever done, because I wanted to take him to do something he'd never done before. He jokingly told me that the list of things he hadn't done would probably be shorter.

We ended up driving down to Hot Springs to go to the Mid America Science Museum and a wax museum there. I remember being offended because James slept so much of the time in the car (hello?!) and he remembers being terrified of my driving.

Some things don't change too much.