Impromptu Road Trip

Sometimes you decide to take a last-ditch, last-minute trip to celebrate the end of summer. Neither of you has much money to spare, but you jump on the ferry and borrow someone's car on the other side and drive to the capital. There is eating and walking and lots of laughing. You might all decide to walk the one whole block(!) to the beach to catch the last of the sunset. 

Then there is bedtime in a small apartment, with three of you bedded down in the living room. One of you snores. Loudly. Not coincidentally, only one of you gets a single wink of sleep all night. 

The next morning, you and your love will stumble to the beach again and search for sea glass, clutching your coffees like a lifeline.

Why is Victoria such a great place to find
beach glass? I have no idea. 

You will find the best and cheapest breakfast place, right on the water, and the rest of your party will stumble in, and plans will shift and change, and soon you are heading to the river in two cars in the intense heat. 

Of course, you are not the only ones who thought that tubing on the river during a heat wave on a holiday weekend would be a fine idea.

The first place is sold out of tube rentals(!), but there is a second place. Fast forward through the yucky stuff: lineups, waitingwaitingwaiting on the asphalt in the heat, figuring out how much time we have left before someone needs NEEDS TO BE HOME, packing hot bodies in a smelly van to drive to the river. Nothing matters but hauling your tube to the water and AHHHHH! you're in. 

Even then, nothing's quite how you imagined: the water is still high but the current is sluggish so the breeze blows you backwards and it takes forever to float downstream to the rapids. But who cares? There is beer, and swimming, and lazy conversations. It's hard to capture this spectacular place, seeing as only one of you brought a phone. And- whoops!- guess what? Ziplock bags aren't waterproof! Someone's phone takes an impromptu bath!  

You finish later than you thought, of course. So two of your party race away, and you and your love linger at the ice cream store that sells homemade cookies, cupcakes, and other treats. You eat ice cream for dinner #1.

Dinner #2 is at the crazy little Mexican restaurant in Nanaimo. There's a lineup, and it's only open 'til 8, but the wait is short and the food is great, although it's so hot you might as well actually be in Mexico. And guess what? Even though you couldn't make ferry reservations and you're sure you won't get on... You drive to the ferry anyway and bliss! There's no lineup at all! You will get home earlier than you hoped, and a good thing too, because by the time you hit the sack you will have been up for over 36 hours. 

Sleep deprivation catches up to someone. 

And you learn- again- that nothing ever goes quite according to plan, but that the way it went was actually better than you had planned, and you need to let go of always wanting to be in control of things. And he learns- again- that maybe making a few flexible plans isn't always a bad idea. You learn and you grow and you squabble and you laugh, and you have happy, imperfect holiday time together as the summer draws to an end. 

Popping the Question

"Soooo... Are you guys planning to tie the knot?"

A friend at work, who saw it all go down last year when I first met my guy, hears me mention our 1-year anniversary and pops the question. The latest in a long line of friends who seem to think my relationship won't be complete until I a) move in with him and b) marry the poor man.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad. In the same way that we routinely ask people "So, what do you do?" defining ourselves always by our jobs when we really just want to get to know each other better, I know that my friends are really saying "Is it serious? Does he treat you well? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with each other?" They're thrilled for me: against all the odds and statistics this 'older' woman found love- and through online dating, at that! I am a rare and lucky bird, this I know. And well-wishers, the answers to your unspoken questions are: yes, YES, and Probably.

But here's the thing: my guy and I have absolutely no plans to live together, let alone get married. And you can scratch your heads and wonder why we choose not to 'commit' further, but let me tell you that we are truly happy in each other's company. Far too happy to mess up a good thing.

The luxury of being with someone later in life is that we have so much less to prove. We've already lived with lovers in a marriage-like setup (one of us had a partner's kid living-in as well). Back when we were younger we both thought about having kids, and both of us rejected the idea. As I pass through the last of my childbearing years I feel slightly aghast at the idea that I am-biologically speaking- old, but I have very few regrets about being childless. It was a road I decided not to go down, that's all. I love kids, and now that I'm a teacher I am delighted to be around them more, but my ovaries aren't pining to be used. As for cohabitation? Speaking for myself, I enjoyed living with someone for a while, but love became routine, small faults became large annoyances, and delight withered. He was a good one, the best, but the flame died.

There are so many practical reasons not to live with my person. We both have eccentric work schedules and often work- or don't work- from home. So we'd be constantly in each other's way. One of us is a bit of a workaholic (spoiler alert: it's not me). When we get together it's a break from our responsibilities and worries; if we lived together it would be an endless wrestling match between wanting to have fun and needing to get work done.

We aren't going to combine our financial resources- both of us are better off handling the ups and downs of those by ourselves.

And we're squeamish about swearing eternal love to one another, again because we're old, dammit. We've seen love come and go and we know that what we have now might not last forever. I mean, we both hope that it does, but one way that we can ensure that we are still in love year after year is not to force something that wouldn't be right for us.

You know, for so many years I was stuck in I should, and I wish and If only. What relationship could possibly survive the weight of so many expectations? I was unhappy with myself, and no man could waltz in and fix that. I left a long-term relationship. I had an short and emotionally brutal romance that left me bewildered that I could be so unhappy, since this was nothing I'd ever experienced before.

But when it ended, and I was wrung out, happiness poked its head out again like a sturdy little weed and I realized that for the first time I was truly content to be who I was, where I was.  I realized that I could "smack my lips over life" (to quote a character from one of my favourite children's books). I can remember roaming the streets of Victoria when I was doing a show over there, incredulous that I could feel so wonderfully vital and alive and content to my very bones.

And that feeling never left. Through rough times and loneliness and poverty I was- and AM- so very happy to be me. I don't know if torturing myself through an unsuitable affair was the 'answer'- whether having been through the fire of being so unhappy with who I was I landed on the other side just happy to have made it through. Ironically this unsuitable lover was always telling me to lose my expectations, a suggestion I vehemently ignored. But when I did... sweet relief.

Which brings me to my current relationship, where I simply expect the non-negotiables: love, respect, happiness. All of which are delivered in spades.

Every relationship brings choices. I choose the one I can laugh with, the one whose body feels right pressed against mine, the one I can talk with on the phone and in person like I've never talked with anyone before. The one who celebrates our differences, listens to and remembers the things I say, who brushes off our arguments because he knows there's rock-solid love underneath. The one who needs the space of his own home just as I do. The one who chose not to have kids, just like me.

For those of you who are happily married, or who want that for yourselves, I salute you and I wish you well on your journey. But know that there is more than one way to live happily ever after, and my way won't include an "I do."