It changes. I want the change. I want the next part. I’ve never had that before. This first part isn’t the realest part. The next part, when we stop falling together and land side by side, that’s the real part. It’s coming. I want it, but I’m afraid that when it comes, when we land, you’ll be disappointed and you’ll panic.”
“I feel like you’re saying that we’re under some kind of spell and soon it will wear off and we will love each other less than this.”
“What I’m saying is that soon the spell will wear off and we’re going to need to love each other more than this.”
After a few months, I started noticing that our love shrooms started wearing off. I started to see Abby as separate from me, and I started to feel myself becoming normal again. That was a tragedy for me, because I thought that she was the thing that had finally saved me from having to be myself. I thought I could just be us forever now. She was right. I did panic. One night I wrote her this poem:
colors
Two years ago
You were pearl white
I was midnight blue.
We became sky blue.
Pearl gone, midnight gone
All sky blue.
But now, sometimes, you go.
To a meeting, to a friend, an opinion, a show.
When you go, I’m left with me again.
You take your pearl. I feel my midnight again.
This is right, I know.
Midnight is how I make things.
I just thought, for a minute, that I was gone.
I miss being gone.
The end of the Beginning is existing again.
We will be beautiful and strong side by side.
But between you and me (between pearl and midnight)
I liked sky blue better.
I look at that poem now, and I think: Glennon, you are always so desperate to find yourself and ready to abandon yourself. You so badly want to be seen and to disappear. You have forever been desperate to yell “HERE I AM” and to fade away at the very same time.
Abby and I have been normal people for a couple of years now. We are in the next part now. The initial buzz has worn off, but sometimes we’re sky blue again. It’s not a permanent state anymore; it comes in fleeting moments. It happens when we make love, steal a kiss in the kitchen, catch each other’s eyes when the kids do something amazing. Mostly, though, we’re separate colors. This is a beautiful thing, because we can really see each other. I have decided that I want to be in love with a person, not a feeling. I want to be found in love, not lost in it. I’d rather exist than disappear. I’m going to be midnight forever. That’s perfect.
Ask a woman who she is, and she’ll tell you who she loves, who she serves, and what she does. I am a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend, a career woman. The fact that we define ourselves by our roles is what keeps the world spinning. It’s also what makes us untethered and afraid. If a woman defines herself as a wife, what happens if her partner leaves? If a woman defines herself as a mother, what happens when the kids leave for college? If a woman defines herself as a career woman, what happens when the company folds? Who we are is perpetually being taken from us, so we live in fear instead of peace. We cling too tightly, close our eyes to what we need to look at hard, avoid questions that need to be asked, and in a million ways insist to our friends, partners, and children that the purpose of their existence is to define us. We build sandcastles and then try to live inside them, fearing the inevitable tide.
Answering the question Who do I love? is not enough. We must live lives of our own. To live a life of her own, each woman must also answer: What do I love? What makes me come alive? What is beauty to me, and when do I take the time to fill up with it? Who is the soul beneath all of these roles? Each woman must answer these questions now, before the tide comes. Sandcastles are beautiful, but we cannot live inside them. Because the tide rises. That’s what the tide does. We must remember: I am the builder, not the castle. I am separate and whole, over here, eyes on the horizon, sun on my shoulders, welcoming the tide. Building, rebuilding. Playfully.