What If?

To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow — this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

The Work Bestie and I are plotters and schemers. The delight in the planning stage, the push to launch something new, the exploration of “what if,” that is something we share. Mostly though, our strengths and weaknesses are very complimentary. He’s an engineer. I’m a poet. He is an absolute charmer in any social situation, where I tend to wither quickly if pushed out of my comfortable role in the background. I am, mostly, good at remembering details, and to-do lists. He forgets things as soon as they are out of sight. Together with one other colleague, we formed an unbeatable dream team at our shared work. 

One of the ideas the Work Bestie and I kept coming back to was taking the show on the road. Our shared work place has a stunning campus, but we wanted to broaden its reach with remote workshops that were closely affiliated with the parent organization. We devised a plan to work with an org in Illinois, who already had strong ties to our nonprofit, and with whom I felt I’d developed strong personal connections. The goal was to come up with a win-win-win arrangement, a win for each org and for our little power couple selves. 

Together we were unstoppable. If only we could figure out how to stay together long enough to finish a project. The admin team tends to work frantically before events and then pass the baton to the instructor team for the final push. So there I was, setting it all up, when the Work Bestie bailed. Due to stuff going on in his life, totally separate from our professional and personal entanglements, he disappeared at a critical moment in making the deal happen. Years later, I can still feel that ache of embarrassment, suddenly unable to deliver on any of my promises and having very little information to offer as explanation. 

So when we entered a similar venture with a nonprofit organization in San Diego I was a lot more subdued. I did the admin work, but I didn’t volunteer any effort outside my lane. I didn’t make any promises that I couldn’t deliver by myself. When the Work Bestie requested my presence at meetings, I made sure I was at those meetings. I didn’t invite myself to anything though. 

It came as a bit of a surprise, rather close to the wire, when the Work Bestie asked me if I would be interested in coming down to the San Diego workshop in person. He covered my travel expenses and made all of the arrangements and told me that he would clear my stay at his place with his landlord. I was hesitant to put my faith in this plan, on account of what if his landlord said no. The Work Bestie reassured me that he usually gets what he wants, adding that sometimes it just takes him a little while to realize what that is. 

Coming on the heels of his threat to put a ring on it, I was inclined to agree, and to blush a bit. It did take him a long time to come around, but better late than never. I had never been in a hurry. Honestly, I think the commitment meant that much more to me, knowing that neither one of us was rushing in blind. 

Shortly after the conversation about getting what he wants, once he figures out what that is, he sent me a picture of a fortune from a cookie. This was something we did somewhat often, sharing our fortunes with each other. This time the fortune said “LISTEN TO YOUR HEART,” and he commented, “coincidence?”

The January 2022 San Diego workshop was a reconnaissance mission for me. Could I live there? Could I live with him? Could we really do this? We were working long days together, going “home” together every night. It felt so right. Yeah, I would totally marry his dumb ass.

That was the first time we’d ever taught together. Like almost everything else our styles are very different. I have filled the lesson plan with corny dad jokes. He’s much better than I am with the white board and has all the field experience for going off script knowledgably.

The particular lecture I teach had been sort of dry and confusing the first time I sat through it as a student. It was better the first time I saw him teach it. I think he still teaches it better than I do, but neither one of us has ever taught it alone nearly as well as we taught it together in San Diego. Our sum was always greater than our parts, but that moment was next level.

I’m too old for checklists itemizing what I want in a partner. People aren’t checklists but, if I still had such things, his bookcase would have been worth a couple of points for sure. It felt so intimate staying in his home, peeking behind the curtain. He had been in my home so many times, already a part of my family. Finally, I got to stay over at his.

One night, I showed him something on my phone, and he took the opportunity to scroll through all my Facebook photos. Oh, okay, so we’re going through each other’s phones now? Alright. I have no secrets from him, so why not? 

He found a picture of one of my cousin’s kids as a pudgy cheeked infant and told me my family makes beautiful babies. I shrugged. He repeated it, as he often does when my reactions are more subdued than he wants them to be. I changed the subject.

I’m done having kids. I’ve fulfilled my biological clock and feel no intrinsic drive for more. It’s just, when he said that, I wanted to. I wanted to have a beautiful baby with his eyes, intelligence, and charm. I’m a good mom. I love being a mom. Still, it shocked me how eagerly I would go through pregnancy, childbirth, sleepless nights, my hair smelling of spit up all the time, inconsolable teething babies, potty training, and everything after, just to go through it with him. I know exactly how difficult all of that would be, and yet… We might make amazing humans together. 

There were just so many conversations that needed to be had between a long-term, monogamous, committed, but unlabeled, relationship and let’s make some babies. This wasn’t the time to start having them. I didn’t want to risk any of them going awry.  Drama had no place in our precious little time in the same zip code.

I spent too much of our time apart sad and missing him. I would break my own heart, telling stories about how this ends. He’s going to meet someone young and beautiful who doesn’t have to question if she can give him babies. I send him too many emails telling him this story. He doesn’t respond. 

What if I’m wrong, though? What if that’s just a story I made up? He kept pulling me out of the office, making my work day take twice as long as it had to be. He kept coming back to me. Presumably, he likes something about me.

I was terrified about him seeing me naked for the first time. I don’t look like a centerfold when I take my clothes off, but people can probably figure that out by looking at me with my clothes on. He knew what he was getting into, and he chose me anyway. He chose me. What if we just kept choosing each other all the way to happily ever after?

Transferring to Berkeley was just a story I made up, but then I did all the things I had to do to make it happen, and it did happen. What if I made up a new story about the Work Bestie? In this new story, I wouldn’t run away anymore. Life is so short and precious, and I don’t want to waste more time than I already have. Maybe this would be the time it all worked out for me in the end.

The Work Bestie and I are good at problem-solving. Okay, so he wants kids. I like kids. I mean, maybe I could still have kids. It’s worked out every time I’ve tried, on the first try. So just being less fertile than I used to be might still be fertile enough. Besides, there were so many options. If we couldn’t do homemade, maybe we’d go with IVF, or an egg donor, or a surrogate, or adoption. This wasn’t an impossible hurdle. We could work this out.

There are a few things I know with absolute certainty. One of them is that there isn’t any problem we can’t solve together. Knowing what I want isn’t always easy. It’s even harder to say it out loud. Failure would be much less humiliating if I pretended not to want it.

Maybe, goals are the opposite of wishes, though, maybe you have to say them, or they won’t come true. What if I spoke my admission to UC Berkeley into being all those times I was audacious enough to say that was the plan?

Maybe it was time to speak another bold goal- After I graduate, I’m going to move back to southern California and build a life with the man I love, who happens to be my best friend and is definitely the most awesomest of awesomeness. 

But first, I needed to get my house in order. If I was gonna spend the rest of my life with this man, I wanted to arrive with more gifts than baggage. I was going to do everything I could to make sure forever started off right.

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on

Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long

We’re both of us beneath our love, we’re both of us above

Dance me to the end of love

Leonard Cohen
Dance Me to the End of Love