Wednesday, November 14, 2012

earnest happinesses

when i wake up i want to kiss him.  kiss his neck.  kiss his shoulder.  kiss his cheek.  whatever is closest. but he beats me to it.  and that’s how i don’t mind mornings: to know that i wake up hating to go work, hating to leave to leave him.  and if i were just searching for a kiss, it would feel so desperate, but he’s there already, awake with with me.

whether he wakes up not wanting me to leave, or whether he’s wants to get me dressed and out of the house so he can go back to bed, i like waking that way.  dressing and biking to work and working through the day: it’s a good day.

small beautiful moments.

a friend hosted some of my coworkers at his house to celebrate the great success my company has seen recently.  we drank together, told jokes, related stories that we might not have shared in the office together, happy to share a night together away from work, away from our duties and responsibilities and professional demeanor.  one woman’s young son danced around the living room, danced through our legs, grabbed our hands and led us for chases.

no scandal.

but at the end of the night, i found myself left with the host and our friend with a kid, all of us young, finishing our drinks, having a cigarette in the backyard.  we stood on the porch while the boy showed us his best moves in the semi-circle of porch light, the curtain black behind him.  i felt older to have friends with children, felt responsible, felt as if i had found my own time in the world.  and i felt young, somehow still too young to have children, not ready for families and houses and larger responsibilities.

the moment seemed beautiful and awkward and unusual and secret, but made me happy somehow to know that we three adults shared this private performance and the child danced earnestly then laughed.

in these particular moments i think i must be living the way my father and mother must have lived when they were my age.  jobs and responsibilities and waking and sleeping and children around.  i know that most of the time i must lead a very different life than that of my parents.  social: i go out often with friends, and generally date casually, and attend plenty of parties.  not to mean my parents were not social, but they had a family at an earlier age than me.  i have my friends and my cat and my job and my various interests, but not a lot to tie me down.  no judgement: just different lives.

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