The Bad Habit

I woke up to this message from my wife, who is away at a conference in Baltimore. “I knew something cool was about to happen when I got all giddy about my new friend who did not want to sleep with me. So cool that now I cannot sleep without him.” Not sleeping in Baltimore probably doesn’t seem odd to anyone versed in the work of John Waters, but this inspired me to shed a little light on the story of us.

Lisa and I have always been inseparable, in the most serendipitous kind of way. We just didn’t always act on it. We met through our friend Marti, most randomly, and spent an entire night talking. She asked me to walk her home. Rae Dawn (my fixie) and I happily acquiesced. She was special, I could tell. But no moves were made. No info exchanged. We were both just out of relationships and I was quite content to be doing my own thing. Besides, I knew I’d see her again.

We’d meet randomly at hippie (Alchemy, our local coffee house) with Marti and the Gym Jones gang. We’d gravitate towards each other until we found ourselves alone, the others long departed, bantering endlessly about politics, social issues, music, bad (and even sometimes good) movies. The MST3K connection was too much.

“Let’s get back to this Mystery Science Theatre thing.” We opened our phones.

“Romney, like the Presidential candidate?”

“Edwards, like the Presidential candidate?”

Our first email interaction made me smile. She could write, too—an elusive talent in this day and age. And the banter exchange accelerated.

We transitioned to another phase with no hesitancy but plenty of reserve. I was referred to as her “bad habit,” which suited us just fine. We were single; and committed to stay that way. Ben heard her reference apologized. “No,” I said. “It’s perfect.”

But it wasn’t perfect. As much as we tried to avoid it, life was better as Romney/Edwards. Our resolve was weak. When one wouldn’t call; the other would. We accelerated. And this wasn’t a part of either of our plans.

“We should just get married or go back to being friends.”

A quip is all it was. But it, too, accelerated because we both knew that it was true. The problem was that we were good together. Really good. A different experience for both of us; one that didn’t fit into our immediate plans. We weren’t ready. The latter was enacted.

It was a disaster.

You can’t plan love. You can’t plan life. Not if you’re an explorer, anyways, and we were both decidedly that. So we switched to the former and nothing I’ve ever done has seemed so natural.

There was only one thing left to do….