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| Image credit: Photo by Theremina on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons |
This morning when I woke up, my husband was getting dressed. I leaned on one elbow in bed, watching his silhouette against the curtains as he took clothes from the dresser. As I followed the familiar lines of his body, I remembered the first time I saw him naked, the first night we made love.
We were in college. Mark had just turned 21 just a few weeks before. When we first met, we were teenagers. It's hard for me to believe now how young we were then. I thought we were such fully formed adults at the time. We had been friends for the past year or so, growing gradually closer and sharing more and more. We would stay up late into the night, talking and laughing: about our families, our childhoods, our past relationships, our past sexual experiences.
I knew he had a girlfriend he started dating in high school, who had broken up with him (and left him broken hearted) during college, shortly before I got to know him. I believed he was a faithful and loving man who had been celibate for at least the past year, since shortly after they broke up. He had told me about the youthful flings he had here and there -- long ago, before or after this last serious long-term relationship, before I knew him -- and how he had learned from them how much he was a one-woman man.
I had a boyfriend at the time. He had been at my place earlier that same evening. He brought with him a bottle of wine and an understanding that he'd be having an enjoyable night. My roommate was out of town, so the place was all mine for the night, so it went without saying that there would be sex, of course. Yes, the place was all mine, yet it turns out, I didn't feel like sharing it with him. Maybe we fought, maybe I just asked him to leave, but he left angry, disappointed and out some wine. And I got on the phone.
I knew Mark was in love with me. I knew he was attracted to me. I knew I loved him and was attracted to him. I knew I was alone and had the whole night ahead of me. I knew if he came over that night, we'd make love. And I desperately wanted to. I wanted him like I wanted to gasp for air after being tumbled underwater in the ocean. He knew it too, and tried hard to convince himself, to convince me, that he should stay away. After all, I had a boyfriend. But I asked him to come, begged him to come, and he came.
It was a winter night and we took a walk in the snow, our breath hanging in the crisp, clear, moonlit air, as we postponed the inevitable. When we came back to my place, on the sofa, kissing, I whispered, "I'm yours." I got up to get the lights, a condom, and I turned across the darkened room to see his silhouette against the window, dark skin darker than the winter sky. I watched the way his body moved undressing: movements I've seen a hundred times since, movements I watched again this morning as he got ready for work. I was in awe of his beauty. And he of mine.
His eyes opened wide when he saw me for the first time, wider still when he touched me, and I heard his sharp intake of breath. I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. I felt like I was giving him a great gift and that my body, my sexuality, my femininity, my whole self -- not just body, but mind and soul -- were wholly accepted, treasured, cherished and loved. I was special. We were special. This was True Love.
We never made it to the bedroom, but lay twined together on the living room floor until dawn crept in soft through the windows. And for days afterwards, I could smell the deep musky smell of him on my hands and body, lingering with me, no matter how many times I washed, as if he were ingrained in me, still telling me he loved me.
Overlaid on this picture is what I know now: that he had never been faithful to his previous girlfriend; that the flings he was telling me about, casting in the distant past, were happening as he and I were flirting, falling in love, moving toward a sexual relationship; that he didn't struggle to stay away from me that night because of my boyfriend, but because he'd only just completed treatment for a sexual transmitted disease he picked up during a one night stand with a woman whose name he didn't quite remember and he wasn't yet sure he was disease free; that other women since then have seen the same movements and the same silhouette and maybe even thought they were my husband's True Love too.
There was a time when that overlay, that horrible ghost image, was all I could see; it blotted out the original for a time. It's still there now -- giving me a fuller, rougher picture than the soft blurred edges of my early twenties -- but the new lines don't cut anymore; they just are. And my husband -- older, more familiar, less romanticized, more real than that first night -- is still just as beautiful to me silhouetted against our window today as he was nearly twenty years ago.
Many times I have layed in bed watching my husband get dressed. My body has changed and been reinvented so many times due to pregnancy,childbirth and weight gains and losses over the years. His has stayed the same. Sometimes I lay there and marvel at how much the same he looks after 26 years of marriage.
That's what this post made me remember.
Hope, you know, you made me think -- I know my husband has gained weight and bulk since I first met him. I know he has a body that is more a man's and less a skinny kid's and yet could swear he's always looked just the same. I certainly saw the same person this morning as he dressed.
When I read how you feel about Mark, I know in my heart you are truely in love. What a precious gift!
MPJ, what a breathtaking narrative. You so perfectly describe the rings of growth in a marriage between addict and codie that has weathered the discovery of addiction, recovery, anger, love, children, adoration, and the myriad of other feelings and moments and stages of a relationship of nearly 20 years.
Reading this post reminds me of reading the passage of time in a tree's life by counting the rings and seeing what years were colder or warmer, what environment surrounded the tree and the micro-environment the tree provided for all of the living things that scurried up and down and in and out, looking for food, shelter, family. When I look at Bowser after 16 years together, I see the same layers of love and growth, I feel the same pitter-pat in my heart when I see him in stages of undress, and I see the re-commitments after re-commitments we make to one another, to our own selves, and to the continuous process of forging ahead and expanding the ever-widening circles of our marriage. This is the reason I stay. I see him layer upon layer and I love him more today then I did when we first declared our affections. He is simply magnificent.
My heart pitter pats for you, too, that you have such a similar connection with Mark. You are so blessed to have one another. ::::sigh::::
Amazing love in this post.
That was tasty indeed.
Here's what I like about this post: you maintain the love you started out with; I love that you can see him through the lens of knowledge of his addiction and still cherish him and see his beauty. You have an uncanny ability to impart both aspects of him: the innocent love of your youth as well as the mature, and sometimes hurt, love of now.
Thank you for sharing this lovely bit.
Beautiful and strong and real.
Hmmm - well dearest one does wear a jean size 2 inches bigger than when we married 26 years ago and is maybe 10 pounds heavier but that's it. I have often wondered when people are old together who it is that they see when they gaze at one another - is it the real deal old face or is it a younger version.
And on the flip side when I look at my adult children I see the adult them with a wisp of the child they were now and again.
So well written, so full of love, emotion and a couple that communicates and works issues out together, despite the pain.
Thank you for sharing this so honestly.
To have that love...luck and effort.
I'm now unsettled.
This is beautiful. So different from my life, but resonates so strongly. Thanks.
Beautifully written. I don't have any memories of watching my husband get undressed in the moonlight. I'm usually watching to see if he trips on a piece of clothing or knocks/spills something over. Then I laugh. How un-romantic
It's amazing how life's routines can snatch away our ability to glow in these moments.
With children, we've become so practical. In our house, we're all rushing to get our nighttime things done. More often than not, I hardly notice when my husband is putting on his sleep clothes (T - Shirt and shorts). Then, we often fall asleep in our kids' beds and stumble into bed later in the night.
Sometimes I joke that it is all a waste of a good vasectomy.
But on those rare occasions when I do see him disrobe (or heck, just see his gorgeous naked body), that giddy ol' feeling comes right on back again.
A really lovely memory, Mary. Thanks.
I sometimes wonder if you really know your husband at all or if you are determined to cling on to some idealized version of him no matter what the transgressions. Perhaps you're just quite the romantic. If it were me, I'd be much more realistic about the state of my union and probably more wary, angry and hurt (albeit in diminishing amounts as we worked on things together). But I would still be questioning my own judgement and instincts for a very long time. I know I still am smarting from my best friend fiasco.
Only I know the true evil that lurks in the hearts and minds of men. Run. Run far. Run fast. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I have similar overlays over precious memories from a past that I never really had.
Sorting through reality, meaning, truth, what I want, what I have...it's good to know that at least in one person's experience the fragments settle into a whole and complete, albeit new life in which there is room for love and trust. And that one can grow to trust the threads of truth that ran through the fabric of the past - because I'm sure they're there. Most of me has no doubt that Husband loved me, even when he lied, as evidenced by his work and willingness and support for me today.
Thank you for providing me a moment to reflect on that. Those moments are stepping stones toward peace.
This post is so powerful! I can read the love in it.......from beginning to end.
*sigh*
You're amazing.