It's Water and Bridges Now...

It’s easy for water to go under bridges but it’s just as easy for the rapids to wash that bridge away completely. It really depends on the words that created the ripple someplace upstream.

In my experience it’s always best to have all your relationship conversations from the relative safety of dry land - preferably away from any blunt objects that could be used as weapons. Things are apt to get heated so best not to arm your opponent. The words are usually weaponized anyway.

I can look back at my twenty five plus years of dating (which I do to an alarmingly large sum) and count everything I’ve learned on both hands with a few fingers left over. My point being that I’m probably the farthest thing from an expert on the subject. Of course that will in no way stop me from writing about it and I hope it won’t stop you from reading it.

There’s a trick to recalling old arguments you want to write about twenty years after the fact. There is a singular enemy you must face down or the truth will never make its way to the paper. Two words need to be front of mind the entire time:

Fuck nostalgia.

With every fight will come a hundred rosy memories. A whole bunch of “for betters” tagging along with your one specific “or for worse” like some kind of cache of LiveJournal entries from 1996, moving at dial-up speeds but getting closer still. Just remember: no happy relationship ever ended in a split.

Oh, and it is NEVER mutual. That’s just more nostalgia mixed with 1980s rom-coms. It’s a lie and one you’ll most likely want to believe. Do yourself a favor: don’t.

I guess I should admit it now: I don’t know for a fact that I’ve ever actually won an argument with a girlfriend or my ex-wife. If you ask them, I certainly haven’t. I used to be embarrassed by that and don’t recall copping to it until just recently. And by “recently” I mean five words ago. I suppose in addition to nostalgia you should also keep these words front of mind:

Fuck ego.

Ego led to most of your fights, arguments, and misunderstandings. I don’t know you but I know it’s true. I’m certain of it. We all do it. Your fellow fighter was practicing a healthy amount of ego then too. It makes sense: you can’t be certain of your position - even if you get caught in a lie - without your common sense taking a back seat to your ego, like a fucked up bicycle built for two. And the chain keeps coming off. And there’s a flat tire. Still the ego is peddling harder and harder and not getting anywhere. Meanwhile common sense is there quietly asking the ego if he can say something. Of course he can’t.

So fuck nostalgia and ego and hold tight to common sense. It all seems so easy but it’s fucking not. You’re older now. You’ve learned so much in the intervening years. Yeah. Right. That’s what you think. If you learned so much then why did you continue to have arguments with every single human goodly enough to sleep with you? Exactly.

To this day I can pinpoint the interaction that ended every relationship I’ve ever been in . I can recall the topic of the final straw, where it took place, and how it started. What can’t I remember? Why was it THE last time we argued. Why did we let to get THAT far? Why did we convince ourselves we LOVED one another?

Against my better judgement and not acting on anything I’ve ever learned, I get sad. Melancholy reigns and all of a sudden the fight itself seems so inconsequential, it wasn’t really a big deal. We didn’t have to break up. I mean, what about the good times? What about that time...

I distracted the hostess at Denny’s while you shoved enough place settings into your purse to set a banquet?

That time in the hotel pool?

And the hot tub?

And the elevator?

And only stopping at the behest of the hotel security guard?

Those were interesting times and stories to never tell the kids. But the bigger and more important question is still lurking over in the corner and no matter how many elicit late night hotel stories you can conjure you can never strike it moot:

What about when you weren’t making memories that made you blush? What about the time...

You said you were at work late but went to coffee with that cute girl from work?

You picked a fight so you could stay up later and write without being bothered?

You caught your wife in a lie and her friend was much more than a friend

Your work friend made a move and you didn’t reject it?

Not all nostalgia is pretty. But that’s the ugly price of admission to the twisted theme park of your past. All the kiddie rides were torn down years ago, probably before your last fight. All that remains in that disaster Disneyland is a boarded up churro stand and a rusty Tilt-a-Whirl, which is actually a blessing. Sure, you’re about to become very dizzy and disoriented but there’s not going to be anything sweet to mask the desolation. Trust me, it’s for the best.

One last thing: there’s going to be people, well meaning friends mostly, who are going to tell you not to bother, that rehashing the past is a fool’s errand. you can add them to the list of things you can “fuck”. They aren’t you. They don’t own the same memories you own.

Oh yes, dear reader. You OWN them. They are yours to ignore, distort, relive, alter completely, or decide to look at through smudged and cracked rose colored glasses. You earned every memory like you earned every crack in those glasses. Use them both, the glasses and the memories.

Just do it on dry land and away from all blunt objects.