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There’s something beautiful in the temporary. A glow to relationships that die out when they’re only potential. No one is wholly themselves when it’s all dirty martinis and banter and innuendo and this could really be something; most people never find something like this. But of course those of us who are inclined toward the chaotic find something like this often. At dive bars and nightclubs and scene-y restaurants. Electric banter and goose bumps, negronis and oysters and “I’ve never told a man this story before, you’re the first guy I’m saying this to.”
“We’re not in love but we can be in love tonight.” A dear friend of mine purred to a man she’d met a few hours before, sitting in his lap and giggling. They talked about their dreams and heartbreaks and how many children they wanted and whether they thought they could grow up enough to settle down and have them. She left his hotel room at 9:30 the next morning. He never called.
“Are you sad about it?” I asked her.
“Honestly, not at all. We were just in love for a night.” A third friend found his ex-girlfriend on socials that afternoon. She looked just like my friend. Isn’t it peculiar how some men do that?
There is a joyous freedom in seeing things as they are, not as we wish them to be. I have never been on the straight and narrow. I don’t have the endurance or the inclination to take the simple, easy path. I find energy and novelty too magnetic. I am a romantic and I find a simple joy in only knowing the delightful parts of people, only imagining an alternative reality where we aren’t two real, flawed humans making a choice to be together, where we fall short and disappoint and betray. Endings are sad, I am not immune to sadness but I try to savor the potential. Maybe in another world, those two people would have been doe eyed and joyful forever, in a way very few couples are. It’s a nice thought, even though a single night’s strange energy derailed their courtship.
You can fall in love three times in a weekend, if you’re in the mood for it. The best part of sex is often wanting it with someone new and there’s a beauty in letting that electricity exist without fulfillment. If I’d slept with that man, we’d be in love forever but I didn’t so we’re not. So much of life is heavy, new love is all lightness.
I once went away with a man for a weekend and then we never spoke again. It was perfect.
I am not denigrating marriage. I will likely marry again. I joke to friends that I must marry zero, one, or at least three more times. I like being married. But marriage is picking scabs and letting them heal, it’s knowing someone in a way none of us really want to be known. It’s not red wine on the couch in an almost see through white tank and a thong. It is encouragement and selflessness and wondering how someone who knows your deepest secrets still forgets that you cannot stand ketchup. The beauty in marriage is comfort and routine. The beauty in almost is limitless potential.
We’re not in love but we can be in love tonight.
I am in love with you, always.
Hannah Stella
you have such a way with words
Beautifully said ❤️