LOVE

Getting Engaged

*******Quick note: I lowered my yearly paid subscription cost from $50/year to $35/year. I double-dog dare you to go paid 😬😬😬********

***

In September of 2010–seemingly randomly—I suddenly knew it was time to quit drinking. I was riding the tail end of an alcoholic decade of spiritual anarchy and violent selfish absurdity. I was 27 years old. I never looked back.

This seems to be my modus operandi: I struggle with something internally for weeks, months, years, until finally I feel that inner click and cha-ching, a door opens and I walk into a whole new dimension, never to return. It happened when I quit surfing in 2008. When I stopped drinking. When I started taking writing seriously. When I went back to school. When I decided to move to New York. Etc.

Now it’s love. My girlfriend, Britney. All my adult life the notion of marriage has hovered above and beyond me, somewhere in the ghoulish distance. Being a sensitive, off-beat, unconventional artist, I never knew if I’d ever actually get married. Marriage seemed like such an important ritual of my Baby Boomer parents’ generation, but this was my life, my time. Fewer people got married now. It didn’t have the heft and power it once did. Other than financially and biologically—carrying on the species—I couldn’t grasp why I specifically ‘needed’ to get married.

Even in contemporary times, it had always struck me that most people still got married and had kids to fulfill a role. They did it because they were ‘supposed’ to; because they ‘should,’ because that’s ‘what’ you do at some point in life.

But the above notion is anathema to my nature. I’ve never done things because I’m ‘supposed’ to. I’ve never been a joiner, a follower. Part of the prestige, in my view, of being a serious writer and deep critical thinker is that I can say what I want and don’t want in my life. I’ve never bought the idea that parenthood is selfless: You’re raising your own flesh and blood, your own DNA, your own legacy, hurling that legacy out into the future. If anything there’s a strong current of narcissism inherent in parenting. If you really want to help our already overcrowded society and be selfless, go adopt a child in Ethiopia. Now that I respect.

I digress.

I’ve always known I’d marry—if ever—for one reason: Love. It’s always shocked me how many people marry simply for safety, ease, finances, fulfilling traditional roles, etc. No wonder the divorce rate is sky-high. It’s like we’re still in the 19th century. And of course we’re all to some degree driven to marriage and kids by deep evolutionary drives.

Never in my life had I seriously considered marrying a woman. My ex and I’d discussed it half a dozen times, but each time I really thought about it the idea seemed embarrassingly silly. I never really took it seriously. No doubt some of my choice now is entangled with my growth as a man the past five years: Breaking up a long-term relationship; moving to New York City; surviving Covid-19 in East Harlem in Manhattan; my niece’s suicide attempt; my father’s terminal cancer diagnosis; leaving NYC prematurely to care for my dad; crippling loneliness and depression in a new city I did not know; etc.

So yes: At 40, finally, I was ready. But that didn’t mean I’d marry anyone. Of course. In fact, by the time Britney and I met last summer, I’d given up. Given up in a healthy way. I was focusing on my life. I didn’t ‘need’ anyone. I was fine on my own. I’d always, it seemed, been on my own, despite many relationships over the decades. A loner. A weirdo.

But then I met Britney and everything changed. That first night I knew. My soul smiled. My heart thumped. My inner self felt relief. It was as if all my life had led me to her. So here I was. Here we were.

Last week I handed her the ring. She was delighted. We’re engaged now. Already wedding plans are spilling forth. We’re happy. Superbly in love. We’ve had our fair share of fights. We live together. We’re both very similar and also very different from one another. Opposites attract, right? One thing is clear on both ends: This is about love. Not kids. (She already has a 17-year-old son.) Not money. Not practicality. Not tradition.

Pure old, simple old, glorious, indefatigable love.