Wait, let me explain....
Last night I fell asleep on the couch while I was waiting for a load of laundry to finish drying. I told myself that it should be done by the time one more episode of the Simpsons ended, so naturally I fell asleep while Homer and Ned got hitched in Vegas. Later I woke up, went up to bed, and lay awake for an hour. Bored, I got up and folded that laundry. Then I lay awake a couple of additional hours, and that's where I am as I write this (but didn't post until the next day, right now).
Being a twenty-something raised around people's broadcasted fantasy versions of themselves on Facebook and constantly aware of everyone's relationship statuses at all times, I wonder if my life is any more bombarded with people's love lives than others. It seems like I know way too much about too many marriages, and it wonder if it's warping my fragile little mind. The women who can't shut up about how much they love their husbands on Facebook confide later how badly they want to leave I know of multiple engagements of former classmates who previously split up after years of abuse and got back together, and I have a backstage pass to acquaintances racing to the altar because they want to get married before they hit a certain age.
It's a total bummer, really. It's like love and romance died and left a hollow shell of trite facades, and when you pick it up all there is inside is the whistling of depressed souls. That got dark, didn't it? But seriously, what optimism can a person have when our social interactions hinge on funhouse-mirror TMI?
So as I lay awake scraping for some kind of silver lining, I thought of a story of a younger woman married to an older man going to pick her husband up from a colonoscopy. Her powerful businessman had to sit in a lobby with a laminated sign to be surrendered to the doctor only when somebody was there to pick him up, like a preschooler waiting on mommy. The wife had to patiently get him home in his stupor after getting his colon examined.
It's a very unFacebook story, but it seems a lot more meaningful than the photos of "just because" bouquets. Colorful bundles of flowers definitely are effective mementos of affection, but they also are easy to procure and are technically already dead. If there's anything I've learned in my life, it's that the most meaningful things are usually a combination of the most painful with the least theatrical... you undergo a drastic metamorphosis over such an agonizing period of time that you don't even notice until you look back and wonder why you thought it was so hard at the time. Love already hurts pretty much invariably, so it must be pretty fucking important.
There's not much that's sexy about a colonoscopy... It pretty much means you're getting old and your butt is a health risk, and there's a lot of unpleasant preparation and recovery. Romantic comedies and fairy tales don't warn us about the colonoscopies, the obnoxious habits, the tangible and lasting hurt from those slapstick misunderstandings. But those seem like the things that, when overcome, are so much more romantic to me. Of course she wants to be with him when he's buying her pointless trinkets and paying for dinner, but to be there at a time where there are no rewards takes more than a wallet.
Anyway, there I was, a single twenty-something lying awake having romantic fantasies about colonoscopies. As weird as my aspirations are, at least they are realistic, and I'm sure they'll sneak up on me sooner than I can imagine.
No comments:
Post a Comment