Just Stay

People ask how couples manage to stay together.  Right to their face, on the spot, they want their answer. I think it's a dare. They daring you to tell them what it is they're doing wrong in their relationships. Sometimes I take that dare but most of the time I just tell them;  the answer is simple and its not what anyone wants to hear.

Couples that are together for years are together because…They  just stay.

When it's bad. When it's good. When it works. When it doesn't.

They stay.

That doesn't mean it's a good relationship or a better relationship or that they have magic relationship beans. It just means they stayed.

There was a time when The man and I had a break up fight. It was before we lived together but after we'd been together a while. I've been trying to remember what the fight was about so I could tell this story but it's lost and I realized I don't need to remember. It's enough to tell you it was a deal breaker. It was a time when we were not going to stay.  Things were good and they were bad and it was working and it wasn't working….. just as it always is. The difference is that we stopped the relationship.

Mostly I think it was because we started studying to take our GED tests together. It highlighted the differences between us. It ran a glaring spotlight along each of our faults and perceived inadequacies. The ones we saw in ourselves and the ones we saw in each other. The question reared up; is this the person I want to stand next to, is this the person who will know me and understand me when no one else does?

Because that's something we can choose.  *smirk*

A few weeks went by and I was on my way to the community college to take the GED test. I got off the bus and  I have a vivid picture in my mind of seeing his maroon Cherokee swing around into the parking lot ahead of me and not being all that pleased to see it. I was surprised he showed up for the tests since he had pretty much given up on the studying as far as I knew.

It was an awkward meeting. "You're here!" I said, glad for him anyway.

"I went by your mom's and your sister told me where I could find you."

"You're not here to take the test?" I was confused.

"No. I forgot it was today."

"Oh."

"I miss you. And I'm sorry. I got you something."  He handed me the kind of box jewelry comes in, with the ribbon attached in a way that you don't have to remove it.

"You really shouldn't have…." I held the box out to him.

"Just open it. I'm not going to take it back." So I did. Opening the box, my eyes landed on the sliver outline of a heart. It dangled on the end of a silver chain.

"Oh. It's a necklace!" I'm terrible at receiving gifts I like. It feels guilty and awful and spotlit. It's just as bad receiving a gift I don't like. I have the guilties and the awful and the spotlight on top of being terrible at masking my facial expressions.  "Why thank you."

"Do you want to go get something to eat?" He asked eagerly, seeming to know that if he kept the ball rolling it would get big enough to smash any obstacles in the way.

"I'm supposed to go take that test you know."

"I could wait out here."  and he would have. He would have gone to get something to eat and he would have been sitting there when I got out. Of course I didn't go take the GED test that day. I knew I could pass the test whenever I wanted.

I wanted to try something I hadn't mastered. I wanted to stop looking. I wanted to be found.

 I wanted to stay.