At first I was angry at his ingratitude, then hurt at his insensitivity, but then just as quickly and more permanently bemused that I had made the list. We met months before I graduated from BYU, and even though I had always sworn I wasn't there for the old joke of an MRS degree that everyone always poked at, I am sure that subconsciously I was not so coolly detached from my culture as I wanted to claim. How else can I explain why I clung to a relationship with a boy who was in many ways immature and uncommitted despite the excitement I should have been feeling for getting accepted into the master's program at the University of Virginia? Of course, when my older brother committed suicide weeks after I left the fledgling romance behind, I sought solace desperately, writing him regularly while traveling in Spain with my family and convincing my parents to fly him out to California upon our return. Making matters worse, my parents really HAD hoped I had gotten my MRS degree at BYU, so they were far too accommodating in their support of a relationship with such bleak promise.
That summer was miserable. As I sought escape from the emotions I really needed to confront, mourning for the death of my brother, I poured myself into trying to make Mr. Thankless fall in love with the bounty of Southern California culture, freeway flying from San Diego and Coronado Island to the south, to afternoons at art museums and evening orchestral concerts to the north. Instead, as thanks, I got to listen to rants about traffic and conspicuous consumerism and the downfall of female modesty because he couldn't control himself when he came face to face with sunbathing beauties when I tried to show him the beauty of the coastline in Laguna Beach. And now this latest entry in his list of his life's "Bad Decisions": "Accepting that one-way ticket to Los Angeles."
Despite the misery he found this to be, I made his list two more times. He also counts selling his drum set to buy a one-way ticket to DC to join me where I was attending graduate school as items 5 and 6 on said list. I won't even begin to recount the nightmare of those six months, but suffice it to say that if I were to make a list of regrets, telling him that I didn't mind if he followed through on plans he made before I broke up with him, letting him mooch off of me and make out with me in private while maintaining in public that we weren't together so he could make out with other friends in my circle would definitely be near the top.
Instead, what struck me most forcefully this morning was a gust of gratitude. Because I didn't marry Dr. Doldrums, the path of my life, albeit rocky and filled with subsequent heartache, finally led me to marry my true soulmate, if there is such a thing. Someone who has been the best roadtrip companion up and down the coast, throughout the west, from San Diego to Seattle to Santa Fe, and, knowing that _Grapes of Wrath_ is my favorite novel, cheerfully driving three hours off our path home from San Francisco to visit the Steinbeck Center in Salinas. Someone who debates interpretations of Hamlet over dinner and recites Shakespeare using hand puppets in a children's museum. Someone who never tires of telling me he loves me, of hugging and kissing me. Someone whose patience is ceaseless, so much that I often remark, "How is it that you NEVER get angry?" Someone who dedicated his published novel to me and convinced his poet friends to write poems to be read at our wedding. Someone who held me through the anger and sorrow of my father's recent passing. Someone who has invested time, energy, and finances to help make our dream of buying a house this month come true.
In other words, Sir Sourpuss won't be making a list of regrets in my book. If he makes any lists, it will only be an entry in a list of good decisions I have made, that being "Breaking up with myself when Lord Lily-liver didn't have the guts to do it himself." Because my dream isn't just a nice dream anymore: it's becoming a reality.
