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Friday, May 20, 2011

five

we fell in love on a friday afternoon. at a park frequented by pregnant women walking with strollers, overachievers exercising and tribes of homeless relaxing across the street near the side of the library. we were supposed to meet friends at the park and hang out, play bocce ball, drink coffee. no one else showed up except us.
eleven am to four pm. we sat on a big spread out sleeping bag, sandwiches untouched. he drew. i wrote. (i think i wrote the same sentence over and over to look busy.) he found songs on his ipod and played them for me, one by one. to tell you the truth, i think we barely spoke. just sat there. together. i left the park walking in stop motion, made out of metal shavings, shifting with each breath of air.

we didn't kiss until the next day, a sweet first kiss next to my car before we headed out to a friend's house to drink wine and smoke cigarettes. when i closed my eyes, i saw sunflares.

we said 'i love you' on day three. both of us not quite acting like ourselves, all in with one heavy push of the hand, the pot in the middle filled with promises to make the absolute best of what we found sitting under the tree in the park that afternoon.

shortly after i found out i was pregnant the first time, we almost broke up. it was serious. we cracked in tiny pieces and i sat looking at the shards of us spilling all over the linoleum thinking there is no way to glue this back together. i tried and tried to put the pieces back in their right spots and all i saw were the cracks. i blamed him for ruining my fairy tale. and then i remembered: i never (even as a child) wanted to be a damsel in distress, rescued by a prince with a foot fetish. so we slowly collected the pieces and put them in a jar for safe keeping. for months, we would find tiny shards stuck in corners, hidden near baseboards. with each new piece found, bryan would hand it to me and i would put it in the jar, safe and visible.
we became two different people entirely, stripped of all of our preconceived notions about love and lust and relationships and the truth. we learned how to be ourselves with each other without leaving scars. we are still learning that, i think. and i'm not sure it's something you ever really stop learning. because with each new ring of the tree under our belts, there are scratches on the walls and marks on the floor. there is a mess left behind.

i will never forget the way the afternoon smelled the day bryan and i sat in our living room, angles askew, the fork in the road stuck in our thighs. we chose to stay. we chose to move on. we chose to rebuild what we had destroyed and create something entirely new.
we chose each other.
five years.
i have not regretted my choice. not once.

and i left the shards of our broken past in our old apartment in the crime-filled neighborhood where we learned what we were worth to each other.
we're worth more than the silly preconceived notions.
so much more.

i remember the afternoon in the park like it was yesterday. because i unlocked the part of my ribcage that was previously walled in steel. i opened the door and silently invited him in.
and he came in.


19 comments:

  1. It is a fairytale. A great one. The kind where truth and transparency make sandwiches out of folklore and normalcy. The kind of fairytale in which the sandwich becomes a banquet and there is food enough for the fork between your thighs to be an implement for your scrumptious meal, and the thighs themselves to spread open for new lives with fairytales of their own to hatch. It was a beautiful telling...just like the two of you!

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  2. *Smiles* I think there is a certain perfection in the shattering, the breaking down of each other into something new in the beginning. You give more places for strength, for we are always stronger at the broken points.

    Beautiful 5years and many, many more to come. (Hugs)Indigo

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  3. i love that, the ring around the tree...you write beautifully and i love seeing your faces. happy, happy lady. xo

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  4. ~absolutely beautiful!!!

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  5. Wonderful love letter. Congratulations!

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  6. I can really relate to this, and it is so beautifully writ.

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  7. I've tagged along on the coattails of this 5 year ride and, loving you immensely forever, have enfolded Bryan, Finn and now baby-to-be into my heart. It's not always smooth, easy, or absolutely ideal - but the love is perfect as it's being built of shards, splinters, rings, and anything that's a part to make a whole. You are my first and utmost priority in life so your happiness makes me happy. I love you, my Kulisch family!!!!! Mom, Barbi, Mimi

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  8. I love how you left the shards behind...so very hard to do, sometimes.
    It's so good to read a real story with a happy ending!

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  9. Beautiful. Your writing is always so poetic and.. real.

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  10. Chills. The scenes emerge like in a film, they really do.

    So happy to read of love.

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  11. This is so sweet. Absolutely beautiful :) You're such a good writer.

    <3 Belly B

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  12. I think this is the most beautiful thing I've read on your blog. Which is saying a lot. Love is such a complicated thing, and hard. But oh, so good.

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  13. So much better than a fairy tale. Real life love is much richer, don't you think? Congratulations.

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  14. How did I miss this one? Love it and happy 5th!

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  15. i love your writing and your stories and your way. love. happy five!

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  16. What a wonderful and succinct story-telling!

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  17. So beautiful... Congratulations on five years, Bryan and Krista.

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use your kind words.