8/365 There Were Days

There were days

when discovery was intoxicating

We knit hands

gazed deeply

felt at once nervous and overconfident

They call this falling in love

A misnomer

We kept our feet under us

Grins perpetually creased our cheeks
If you keep making that face,
it'll stay like that.

There were always fresh flowers, knowing winks,

and voices kept pleasant

So used to pulling our punches

in time

we thought of our knuckles as soft

Certain we knew each other’s worst,

we embraced the flaws

never fought about anything

picked the same thing off the menu every time

and agreed one of us should order something different

on principle

I was pleased to settle for my second choice

because you were always my first

and I knew you would share a good bite with me.

There were days

when simple things became complicated

when we messed with each other’s routines

and didn’t know what to do about it

There were days

when you tired of socks and dust bunnies under the bed

dishes in the sink

and my feet on the ottoman

There were days

when I tired of your country music on my car radio

and fake smiles over forced lunch with your friends

There were days

of packing and moving

migraine and morning sickness

back pain and in-laws

not the picket fences we’d once dreamed of living behind

We are different.

Before going out to dinner now

we pack a full bag

We no longer get a window seat

never try to order the same thing

they ask us if we’d like a high chair

or a booster seat for our children

who monopolize all the eye contact at the table

Our meal is punctuated by one or more spilled beverages,

screaming fits,

trips to the potty,

and passers-by who tell us our children “are just so well-behaved”

We pay the bill

leave a tip
kneel on the floor

clean a half cup of spilled rice off the carpet before leaving

run back in because we left a sippy cup on the table

run back in again because we forgot our leftovers

There are days

when our kitchen table can’t recall the smell of fresh cut flowers

and our tone is anything but calm and hushed

There are days

when we call the girls “your daughter”

and we forget to say, “I love you” on the way out the door

It is not as it once was.

It is better.

Heads down from the clouds

we know each other’s worst flaws

are not the scandalous misdeeds

but the annoying ones.

Through the airbrushed haze of romance love was effortless,

but in the midst of snoring

and stolen bedsheets,

bounced checks,

and important things not put on the calendar,

Love

is at its most selfless.

There are days

when you make dinner, do bath times, and comfort our teething child alone all so I can read one poem

There are days

when you let me sleep through the third dirty diaper of the night.
This
is true love

There are days

when neither of us find it easy to smile

to be thankful

to forgive

and yet we do it in spite of ourselves

This is more than we hoped for

Not so much like what we expected.

I do not fear the pains and awkwardness of old age.

They will surely come for us both

Love will take a greater act of will

knit our arthritic fingers tighter
One day

we will once again share quiet meals

pick the same thing off the menu

earlybird special

again

I’ll let you have it
I've already got exactly
what I want.