Posting about the main man in my life on our 30th anniversary, on his birthday, on his art openings, & design triumphs, has elicited lovely comments from readers about how lucky I am, & notes such as: “I would love to have a husband someday”, “I think I will always be alone”, “It’s just me & my little parakeet”. I feel twinges of guilt about how other people perceive my relationship. It has not been all hearts & flowers. A year ago, I was not actually certain that we would be celebrating a 31st anniversary of being a couple. The roughest of times in our relationship have been in the past 3 years & it is mostly, but not exclusively, my fault. The issues & events that drove us apart were not mundane, but rather sensational & very dramatic. I am not certain what brought us closer together in the past 6 months, except that maybe our love is incontrovertible, indubitable, infallible, & irrefutable after all. When our alliance was at its weakest, I had suggested that we go back & attempt to revive the friendship component of relationship & fuck the romance section. We have always been excellent friends to each other.
In the past 6 months we have each grappled with mortality, me with Deep Vein Thrombosis, & he with Crohn’s disease & Dupuytren's Contracture. Our medicine cabinet quadrupled in contents. We found comfort in each other’s strength & concern. In my mid-50s, I am still in tune with my perpetual party boy persona, which can manifest itself as truly loutish behavior. This part of my personality can surly test a spouse or a lover. It gives me a bit of unexpected start to discover over the summer that we adjusted, accommodated, & adapted into a more substantial, sweeter, strong, solid & satisfying partnership. Falling in love all over again can be quite the electrifying & enchanting experience.
We circled around each other for a couple of years. We were in the same group of friends & we did a lot of theatre projects together. The first time he saw me, ironically his wife pointed me out while I was crossing near them in a restaurant. The Husband claims that he knew at that moment that I was the ONE. I didn’t much care for him at first, actually. He was devastatingly handsome & jaw droppingly talented. He possessed a painful shyness that manifested itself as being cold & aloof. We very slowly started to become friends. I remember once being in the parking lot of a theatre where we both were employed, & my saying- “it is too hard to reach you. It is not worth it. You are too much trouble to try & be friends!" I was trying to reach him. It was not easy... but we slowly started to connect.
He had come by my apartment on the pretense of working on some theatre stuff. I was so in love with him at this point that I couldn’t breathe in his presence. For about 6 months, there had been some little signs. Our fingers would linger while passing a joint. We would catch each other in a sustained glance. I was thinking of moving to another city because I could not stop thinking about him, Day & Night, Night & Day. He was all I could think about.
On October 9th, 1979, in the late afternoon of a beautiful autumn day, we told each other that we were in love with each other. With uncustomary restraint, we waited 24 hours to be intimate.
Oh, those crazy 1980s! With the Husband's daughter- Nimy & our mannequin- Jack.
Again, I am going to admit that it has not always been smooth sailing, often because of my boorish behavior. But the fact remains, the best times & the happiest times, the most magical times & the times I have been most content, have been made more so, because I shared them with my Husband. I have spent half my life with this man. 4 cities, 5 dogs, 3 near breakups, & yet today we start our 32nd year as a couple.
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