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March 09, 2005

If ever two were one, then surely we

So tonight I went to a Traveling Vineyard party, drank lots of wine, ate chocolates, mushroom quiche, cheese and salami and crackers. Sat at a dining room table in a big house with some other married women and passed around bottle after bottle of sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, merlot, pinot grigio, cabernet, and I pretended I was like them and it was fun.

And almost the entire time I was there I was asking myself Where Did I Go Wrong? Why do these women have It and I do not? Where did I make the wrong turn, the wrong choice; pick the wrong door--it was the tiger, not the lady, that I chose, it was wrong, wrong, wrong, and although I am married, still, I am not married; I am not like these other women and though I can still say that I have a husband I do not really have a marriage. You said to me on Sunday "I love being married" and I thought What The Hell Planet Do You Live On? You aren't married, I am. But if only one of you keeps your wedding vows, does it count? Is it real? Or is it just an exercise in What If?

But meanwhile tonight there were the other married women: younger than me or not, prettier than me or not, fatter than me or not, but something else that I am not, that I have never gotten right, ever; and at this point in my life I think that I will never get right. They seemed so at ease in their lives and I wondered how they do it. How do you do it? What I wanted, what I want, is so simple, really: I want it; I want a husband who is my partner and lover, and I want middle-class, boring sex and the whole fucking American dream of what life is supposed to be, and I don't know how to get it. Apparently.

I want ... I want. To what point, I don't know. I could die with wanting, and for what. For quiche pans and toasters and coffee makers and anniversaries and growing old together and being loved and knowing you are with someone who wants to be with you, too, and why am I here with every fucking thing except what I really want. And the whole drive home I wished I could talk to you, I wanted to talk to you and I said to myself "call him," but why? I wondered, and then I knew that I wouldn't, that I won't, that I can't. I can't do that any more. O, discordia. I need to stay away from the married women.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)