Calendar says March 6. I don’t have anything marked on my iCalendar app. It wasn’t like I was going to forget the significance of the date. Now, I only wish I could.
Two years together. Happy Anniversary!
But we didn’t quite make it. We flamed out three weeks beforehand. I’d bought the card. I knew how else I’d mark the occasion, with him in Denver and me in Vancouver. A special day, but it didn’t seem essential we’d be physically together on the actual day. Such is the nature of long-distance relationships. I always knew there’d be more.
Scratch all that. I’m the fool. I fully believed we were on solid ground. We’d worked through our differences as they came up. This was the one relationship where I didn’t hold on to things said and done in past conflicts. I seemed to blank on them immediately after the fact because the particulars didn’t matter. We’d gotten through. I felt secure enough to stay in the present.
When enough time passes, I’ll be able to finally look back. When people ask how long it lasted, I’ll unequivocally say, “Two years.” The three-week deficiency won’t matter. Mathematically, it’s a no-brainer case of rounding up.
Today, of course, rounding is a faulty exercise. It stings.
Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of special days on the calendar. I never have announced my “balloon day” on Twitter. I see how these posts generate lots of likes, but I don’t need that. It’s not an achievement when I have another birthday. "Still here."
Technically, I did a few things right to still be around. I regularly look both ways before crossing the street. I wash my lettuce (or, more accurately, because I’m lazy, I rarely buy the stuff, even as a vegetarian). Skydiving will always be a firm, “Hell no!” I made it through the AIDS crisis. Doctors successfully removed my melanoma thirty-five years ago and it hasn’t come back (that I know of). I haven’t fainted upon seeing a grizzly while hiking. (Worst fainting injury: broken foot—in my home, not on a trail.)
So birthdays…meh. Call me a humbug—it fits—but I don’t get excited about getting drunk on New Year’s Eve. (Do I even have to finish the obligatory flute of champagne?) Easter? I’m not much for chocolate. Pride? Too often it feels like people wanting to call maximum attention to themselves wearing as little as possible instead of a rally to consider what rights need our vigorous support locally, nationally and globally. Thanksgiving? I do love a pumpkin pie and I always make one sometime within a six-week window of the holiday, but it’s rarely on the designated day. Christmas? Yay, “Rudolph.” Yay, shortbread. But, personally, it feels like the loneliest time of year.
I prefer ordinary days. Basically, I do better on days like May 17 and November 3, random squares on a desk calendar. Maybe it’s National Pizza Day somewhere or Polka Dot Sock Day. I prefer randomness and quirkiness to obligatorily hyped days laden with expectations. Let me make something of May 17. Let me occasionally make ordinary extraordinary, all my own doing.
This is also why I don’t like Valentine’s Day. Hallmark, the flower industry, chocolatiers and primary school teachers have done a masterful job grooming us to acknowledge the day. Considering what happened to me this Valentine’s, I like the day even less.
But an anniversary has always seemed to matter to me. It’s not just the passing of time that makes an anniversary happen. This milestone is a result of commitment, communication and doing the hard work that allows a relationship’s continuation. There are lots of perks, of course—support, feeling seen and understood, sex, spontaneous laughter, truly connected conversations, a companion to do things with you wouldn’t do for yourself like make pasta from scratch or splurge on a stay at a magical hotel in a national park, someone to nudge you out of your comfort zone, getting you to ride a roller coaster or go to an EDM concert. An anniversary is a celebration of the work, the joy and connection that two people are invested in.
Today was supposed to be a genuine day of pride, not just Pride in the LGBTQ sense but PRIDE, all-caps, and appreciation of all we had experienced and an excitement that much more was to come.
Not to be.
This March 6th represents failure in the absence of a card or call. My parents have been married for sixty-three years, my sister for thirty-seven, my brother for thirty-four. Once again, I didn’t make it to two. And that’s not even counting time from the point of a ceremony. Weddings aren’t a marker for me. I didn’t even have the right to marry in a place where I lived until I was thirty-eight. It wasn’t a part of what I envisioned as a long-term relationship. I don’t need the hype of it. It’s not a must for me. Right now, of course, that prospect feels as ludicrous as it did when I first came out and was trying to find a relationship that stretched past two weeks.
I long ago stopped counting my relationships in two-week intervals, but now it’s two years that feels woefully short.
So today is just March 6th. An ordinary day. Cue Duran Duran. On any other day, ordinary would be just what I asked for. But on this day, it’s not what I want at all.
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