#mygirl marriage muchmissinghappening harddays

[filianoctis]

Thoughts on a Marriage.

My partner (of nearly a decade now. WOOHOO!) and I got engaged on a fiery hot day in March. Necessary Disclaimers: The lock down has been on the whole deeply kind to me and my family. There is enough food, water, cold air, and medication. We are doing a LOT better than a lot of people. And I haven't felt cabin fever in the nearly six weeks of knowing nothing except the walls of my tiny house in a quiet lane of a small city in India. In fact, this is the only way in which my much abused, slightly disabled body has managed a break--an actual break-- in more than four years. But even as my illnesses ebb a little with all the naps I have been taking, and my family finds itself in a good place, I continue to be in a long-distance relationship with her for the fourth year in a row. Just because we are good at it (and are deeply relieved by that) doesn't mean we like it. And of late, probably because I am beginning to resurface from the dark pit of a combination of diseases, it keeps getting harder. So, I am glad she is well, and we talk on WhatsApp and share stories and books and talk into the night, giggling sometimes like we are 15 instead of nearly 30; I am glad that we know to work around bad days, and familial crises and illnesses by the score. But, if I had an uninterrupted house arrest with her by my side for even a week, I would go to hell and back to get it. The yearning is a howling pit today, and no matter what books I read or writing I do, I seem to have no defense to it. Worse? I am glad it is happening. As that sci-fi TV show's Cop-Dad said, "The hurt is good." But all my defenses are low, and any romance I read, write, or create a soundtrack about echoes with how much I miss being married. So, even as I reel cackling from fanfic of people getting together. I want to talk about the DELIGHT and disaster that was us getting engaged. Hyderabad is a lovely city to live in for eight months of the year, in terms of the weather. But for the remaining four, it is a furnace of heatwaves and a rocky pit of dehydration. One afternoon, it was too hot to eat or do anything vaguely resembling productivity, so we lay on a reed mat on the floor of our hostel room after a lunch of (probably) watermelon juice and buttermilk. I was 24, she was 24 and four months, just beginning to settle down in our doctoral degrees. We had already been together for four years by then (yes, we met as baby undergraduate and barely postgraduate). We talked lightly of plans for the future, the hows and whats and whens of possibilities. I mentioned that I always thought I'd date someone I knew I could be close friends with, and then, in a few years, if it managed to work out, I'd like a commitment ceremony. It didn't matter that we were/are in a homophobic country with homosexuality still deeply decriminalized. It was just something I wanted. It wasn't about the size of the banquet or the hundreds of relatives who could fuss over me for days. I wanted to make the commitment, and I wanted to do it in a small, intimate way. If we were legal we would sign on a paper and declare it to each other. Since we couldn't do that, we'd have to turn to our religion and find the smallest, simplest ceremony that could be meaningful to both of us. It wouldn't change anything, practically speaking, (Did I mention I was/am the most horrifically resourceful Slytherin when I commit myself to a cause? In our relationship, she got the toaster, and I wanted us to get a decent chance. Homophobic country meant closeting except in front of a few close friends, so I decided we needed to move in together so that we could get 'one' lone space to figure out what we could be to each other). So, we were already sharing a life, a room, a kitchen (IN the room, both of us lived off our stipends). It was just important for me to be able to say it, make that promise. (It was a wedding fever like no other, and the moment we were done with the ceremony, I emerged, happy and secure that-- patriarchal homophobes or not--I too had a wedding in the exact way I wanted. Neither of us or our best friends could wipe the smile off our faces that day. BUT. That's a story for a different time.) She nodded along, and we moved on to talking about something else (about how both of us planned to support our baby sisters' education or something similar). Five minutes into it, she suddenly pauses, turns around, and says, "WAIT, DID WE JUST GET ENGAGED?!" I remember how badly my ribs hurt after I was done laughing. She DID get a kiss, but a chaste one, it was awfully hot to kiss for too long anyway. I miss being able to hold her hand or watch her smile whenever I feel like. I won't back from my responsibilities as a sudden materfamilias of a family of orphans. But every step I have taken in the last four years has been a step towards being able to share our lives and grow old together like we instinctively wanted, despite assurances of how we didn't want it to become too much or coming on too strong for either of us. Who were we kidding? We were and are that exact boring couple I have always known us to be, the kind that never gets bored with each other's voice (or silence) and drinks four types of tea. She is still a bitch to buy things for. I am still a bitch to feed. Here's thinking of her, and about sharing a household, once this is behind us. I will NOT real Atwood's Habitation and weep. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian's child-rearing skills make a happier reading. That way, I get to tease her later about her sad penchant for grumpy gay boys full of manpain. I wish @walburgablack'd treat this post as flowers.