Grace.

I swear I'm still alive. And everything is fine. Lots of family is in town, work is busy, trip next week.

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No time to write in a quiet environment. 

[Author's note: This is a mixture between fiction and ideals, between reality and dreams, between satire and embarrassing truisms. Do not interpret this in the context of my life.] 

“My son, the battle inside each of us is between two wolves. One is evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Dear ____,

I want to get married and have two kids. I don’t really care if both are girls, but I’d like to have at least one girl. I also want to buy a house with a yard, so that I could plant lilac bushes and a variety of roses. I’d do the yard work myself, even the mowing. Preferably, the house will be in a nice neighborhood, and the other kids on the block will play with my kids. I’ll serve their moms lemonade on the front porch, while we talk about how hard it is to juggle everything, and how nice it is to have neighbors who are so close to each other. I’ll watch the school bus come by in the afternoons, and I’ll look forward to the day that my kids start school. I’ll live in a great school district.

I want to stay at home with my first child until I’m done breastfeeding and then I’ll think about returning to work full-time. Most likely, given the type of house I want to own, and the financial flexibility I want to have, I’ll need to return to full-time work after about two years. I’d work for another three years, and then try for my second child. So, it looks like the timeline goes as follows: I get engaged at 25, married at 26, buy a house at 27, have my first child at 29, and my second child at 32. I’d return to the workforce full-time at 33 again, and work for the next 27 years until I’m 60. If I’ve calculated the amount of money I’ll need at retirement correctly, I might even be able to retire a few years earlier.

If you are my fiancé, the groom at my wedding, the co-signer on the mortgage, the father of my children, and fellow RV-operator, you will be 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, and 58 respectively when each of these things happen.

You’ll have to do some planning, but I think you’ll be able to join me on this grand adventure. At 23, you’ll be in your first year of the graduate program you’ve chosen. It’ll be a tight squeeze for you financially because you’ll have student loans, and you won’t be able to work full-time.

If you’ll be proposing with an engagement ring, you should ask your mom and dad if there are any family heirlooms that you can have for this purpose. It will not cost you anything, and I’ll appreciate the meaning behind it. We can pay for the re-sizing of the band together, and that shouldn’t be too expensive. If you’ll be proposing without a ring, that’s not a problem for me. I’ll love you anyway. The proposal doesn’t have to be an elaborate thing either—just talk to me about our future and say that you want me to be in your life forever. That will probably make me cry.

Forever is a long time, considering you’ll only be 23 at this point, but I once read that a man knows within the first few moments of meeting a woman whether or not he’s willing to have his life turned completely upside-down for her. And marriage can certainly do that to your life, but you’ll be ready for this.

At 24, you’ll be completing your masters program, and you’ll be working with various choirs. You might be working at a high school, or even a junior high. Maybe you’ll be conducting the after school musical, but that’s up to you. If you’re thinking of doing it for the extra money, that would certainly help us, but if you’ll feel overwhelmed by the extra workload, then you shouldn’t exert that kind of pressure on yourself. We’ll find a way to get by just fine. Don’t take odd jobs to compromise your talent—and I believe you have great talent.

You’ll also be composing at home in our apartment in the evenings, while I’m in the next room, writing my novel. We’ll cook dinner together most nights, but sometimes, we’ll order Chinese food or pizza. We’ll be very happy together, and we’ll take turns introducing each other as, “My fiancé.” Sometimes, we’ll laugh at how silly we are because we can’t stop saying the word “fiancé” in ridiculous, French accents.

That summer, you’ll have a flexible schedule, so you’ll be able to set aside two weeks for our wedding and honeymoon. I don’t think it’ll be a very big wedding, but then again, you have a very large family. I know that there are family politics about who gets a wedding invitation, and I don’t really mind if you invite people I’ve never met. I understand how difficult it can be to appease everyone at the same time.

I don’t particularly like the showiness of a big celebration. Maybe we’ll have an intimate ceremony in front of our families on the east coast. Or maybe we could do a destination wedding, and have our friends and family join us for the honeymoon. It doesn’t need to be fancy, as long as you’re there and everybody is happy. If you’d like to help plan the details, I’d be happy to have your help. You could pick the band and what songs you’d like to have playing as I walk down the isle and as we walk back together, as husband and wife. If you’d like your mom to help plan the wedding in your place, I’d be happy to work side by side with her. She’s a fun lady, and she brings me comfort, like you do.

After we get married, you can decide if you want to pursue a PhD program and what school you’d like to go to. I’ll come with you and support you emotionally, of course, and financially as well. If you choose a big city, we can rent for a while longer, or maybe buy a condominium at some point. Instead of a yard, I’ll just grow flowers and herbs in windowsill pots. If you choose a smaller town, I’ll be happy with that, because we could buy a house then. You’ll be 25, with about $25,000 of debt. I’ll be 27, and I won’t have any debt. That’s just how our situations will have played out, and I won’t blame you for the added responsibility that I will have of paying off your student loans. I’ll be happy for you that you were able to pursue your passion.

Anyway, I’ll have saved enough cash to have a down payment on a house, and probably have enough left over to furnish the rooms. The house will be on a nice street, and we’ll have the good neighbors that I’ve already described.

I’ll start a part-time MBA program that year, at age 27, while working full-time at a fulfilling job. Wouldn’t it be great if we went to the same school? We will, in fact. You’ll have a brilliant advisor, and you’ll have many responsibilities. But you’ll be happy with the quality of music you’re writing. I’ll have long hours at work, and weekends packed with homework and group projects, but I’ll feel like I’m getting a good education.

Time will fly by, and two years into your PhD program, I’ll tell you that I’m pregnant. It won’t be a huge surprise, because we will have been trying for a few months already. By the time I give birth to our first child, I will have graduated already from my MBA program, so I won’t have to worry about school anymore. My job will be flexible, and I’ll have six months of guaranteed leave, but only 12 weeks will be paid leave. Don’t worry, we’ll manage just fine. I’ve planned ahead.

It’s a good thing that our mortgage payments won’t be very high. We won’t have many other major expenses. For example, we’ll have a car, but we’ll use it only occasionally. You’ll bike to class, office hours, music lessons, and we’ll live close to a park and a community swimming pool. Our savings will supplement the money you’ll be earning as a choir conductor at a church, and the private piano lessons you’ll be giving to kids and adults at the University. We won’t go out to eat often. Instead, we’ll cook at home together like we always have.

We’ll tell the doctor not to reveal the gender of the baby, and we’ll paint the nursery in gender-neutral colors: yellow and green. The toys will be animals, mostly. Lots of frogs and teddy bears. I won’t mind hand-me-down toys and clothes, as long as they’re properly sanitized, although people make too much of germs, I think. We won’t have hand-sanitizer in the nursery, for example, and we won’t need to have anti-bacterial hand soap in the bathrooms. You know what else we’ll have in the bathroom? Teri-cloth hand towels and wash clothes. I love that material. It’ll be a gift that we get for our wedding. I suppose we can decide the gift registry later, even though you’ll probably just say, “Anything you want is fine with me.” It’s true that the money situation will be very tight after we have our baby, but we’ll be happy to have our child, and the entire family will be very happy for us.

They’ll help us in any way they can. They’ll visit often, and both sets of grandparents will drive one weekend every month to stay with us for four days. Of course, if any of the grandparents want to stay for an extended visit, they’ll be more than welcome to. They’ll get along with each other, and they’ll understand the boundaries that we’ll set up implicitly. They’ll simply understand, because they remember what it was like to be our age, even though they had very different lives.

We’ll have a small guest room next to our bedroom. I’ll cut fresh flowers from our garden every morning and place them in the guest room. During the winter, I’ll serve hot cocoa in the kitchen and put mints on the pillows for turndown service. Everybody will love that extra touch, and it’ll make me happy to see others happy.

I’ll enjoy having our parents’ company during the day, and their help with the baby will be appreciated. You’ll be able to spend time with us during the evenings and weekends, although on Sunday mornings, you’ll have to get to church early so that you can warm up the choir. This part will always make us laugh because we’re Jewish, and you’ll go to church more regularly than a Christian person. But we’ll understand that that job is only temporary. Once we move to a bigger city, there will be synagogues for you to work at, and we’ll join our favorite one. I’ll join the book club, and the women’s band, so I’ll be able to keep playing the flute.

When you’re 30, you’ll be completing your PhD and we’ll be making our decision about where to move next. Maybe we’ll move back to where our parents live, or we’ll move to another city, but we’ll be very happy with the decision in either case. After we sell our house, we’ll be able to buy a slightly bigger house. We’ll want to have a third bedroom for our next baby. As we’re looking for our home, I’ll ask the realtor to give us a moment to talk about the property, and that’s when I’ll tell you that we’ll be having another child. I will have just found out that morning. And this time, you will be surprised, because you didn’t think it would happen that quickly. You’ll be thrilled, and I will be too.

I know that I’m leaving out a lot of the details in this timeline, but don’t you think it’s better not to plan everything? Life does have a way of ebbing and flowing on its own, and it’s nice to think that we have some control over it, but something tells me we don’t. Over the next few months, I hope you’ll consider your role in the rest of my life. Think about what our lives will look like for the next 35 years. Several pages of a typed letter can really hold a lot of information, although not all of it, but I hope that this letter helps to ease some of my your concerns.

Love,

Marina

Dear _____,

I sent you the last letter because I wanted to speak to you about our future as if I knew what would happen in our lives. And I don’t know if you interpreted it that way. You must have been frightened by what you read, and I don’t think you would’ve called even if you had my number. It was probably too soon to send you something like that, since we don’t really know each other that well. I wondered if maybe I could be completely honest with you, just to see what you’d say. I was hoping you’d say that what I wrote touched you somehow. I was hoping you’d show up at my door with that heirloom ring and ask me to marry you right on my front step.

I’ve been thinking lately that I don’t know if I believe in people. I don’t know if I like the idea of being with one person for the rest of my life. You’d be that person, if I believed in you.

I hear the loving things you say to me. I thank you each time you open the door for me. I reach for you at night, placing my hand between your thighs because I like the warmth of what I find there. My hand curls around your penis and I fall asleep again.

I hear you say, “I’m a lucky man.” You tell me that you think I’m beautiful almost every day, and I know that you’re not counting, not keeping tabs. If I needed anything, you’d find a way to get it for me. I know that’s love.

But what of everything else? How do I know that these plans will ever come to fruition, and how do I know that planning my life doesn’t guarantee some great doom?

Even as I write this, I want to believe. I crave walking down the isles with you, the isles of Target and Crate & Barrel. I want to feel legitimate next to you, picking out dinner plates and flatware, napkins and wine glasses.

Legitimacy. How could it be that our society has been divided into such black and white halves—the haves and the wants, the lucky ones and the disposed-of. How easy it is to be either one, and most are both at various points in their lives. I see how women turn from lost to found, from waywardness to innate purpose. We have the capacity to take care of ourselves, I know, but it seems so much easier to care for others first, and only then, to feel content with our own place in the context of them.

Who are they? They are the lucky ones who cross our paths at the right place, at the right time. The ones who hear family members say to them, after meeting us for the first time, “Don’t let this one go. She’s a good one.” And they get that warmth in the very pits of their stomachs, that knowing warmth. If we are lucky, the timing is right. They’ll be ready to receive us, to make room for us in their lives, to even love us very deeply.

Most men know within the first few weeks of meeting someone whether or not they are willing to have their lives turned completely upside down for this new person. I didn’t invent that line. I don’t know who did, but it must be true because I don’t think there’s an original source for the quote, it just simply is.

There are so many variations to this story, but the basics have to be there in order for anything to happen. Both parties must have had some rough times in their pasts. I don’t like to call it baggage, the weight they carry on their shoulders that guides them in their decisions, but I don’t know what other name to give it, other than perhaps personal history or wisdom. I don’t think it gets any easier each time a new type of hurt envelopes us. Some are rescued in the arms or legitimacy at the right moment, just before her head hits the pavement. Some are lost forever to the wanting, the self destructive lust that comes from shiny packages and glossy finishes.

The truth is that the words “shiny” and “glossy” are meant to be said in a sneering way, snidely, better-than-you, but try as you might, you can’t say it meanly enough because you want those things. Matching dining table and chairs, placemats for six because you love to entertain.

I love the feeling of getting off a bus after work, and the stress of the day is slowly melting off because I’m reading a novel that I really enjoy, perhaps the last third of The World According to Garp, by John Irving. In the back of my mind, as I turn each page, I know that I’m coming home to you, and I can feel the smile on my face growing. You aren’t making dinner in an apron, or anything cliché like that. You’re probably rubbing your head, or twirling a pencil between your fingers, thinking of a new melody at the beautiful piano in our living room.

I wouldn’t even care if you were sitting on the couch, drinking a fancy Belgian Ale in your pajama pants, which you’ve worn all day. I’d walk in through the door, noticing how hot the apartment was, thinking why you hadn’t opened a window, but I won’t do anything but drop my purse by the door and come to you. I don’t know how exactly I’d touch you first, if I’d kneel before you and kiss your neck, parking my face in that perfect spot above your collar bone, breathing into your skin and inhaling it at the same time. I’d love that you’d smell like bedtime and it would only be six-thirty in the evening. Nothing would be on the stove, the sun would slowly be dimming and we’d sit in the mostly dark living room, holding each other for a few moments. Before I’d notice, it would be eight o’clock.

I know I intended this letter to be an explanation of the modern definition of legitimacy, but the only legitimate explanation for how I envision my future, how my real desires transcend the imaginary realm, is to say that because I love you, I want these things. I live imagining my reality, and it’s so entirely possible.

Maybe I am limited in my capacity to love in non-conforming ways, but God, how good it feels to conform to you—to let my body give in to yours. You exhale, and as I inhale, my stomach fills in the curve. You lay on top of me for ten more counts, and then we shift so that our legs become like woven Challah, the down comforter like butter on bread fresh out of the oven. How beautiful it is to give into your body, your desires, your needs. How beautiful it is to love you and to come home to you.

Yours always,

Marina

Dear _____,

If enough time goes by, I can see myself regretting these things I’ve written. That is why I’m mailing them right away, so that I don’t have time to feel as though I’m mistaken. Mistaken in these innate desires, could that even be? That’s why I haven’t written a return address—I don’t want you to come looking for me. I want you to understand though, that you probably already know me. Or maybe you met me a long time ago and just haven’t thought of me in a long time. In any case, I’m not that different from when you first knew me, but maybe you just didn’t know me completely then, so you’d be surprised by who I’ve become. Maybe you’re just very different now, so you finally see me the way I was meant to be seen.

I think I’m not so different from other women. Except maybe women who have been hurt enough that they no longer wish these things I’ve described. Really, there are women like that. My grandmother was like that. After two husbands and a medical career, I think she was mostly content helping people in her life, and raising her own daughter, as well as adopted children and their families.

She’d mend my ankle when I twisted it, she’d disinfect my bleeding knee when I fell off my bike, she’d feed me, anytime, hungry or not.

Before my Baba, my grandma, passed away, she pulled her daughter towards her and said in Russian, "You have to live life gracefully." Her brain tumor had been making her say strange things, sometimes inappropriate things to relatives and friends. She once started swearing like a sailor when one relative walked into her hospital room to see her. Baba said, "I never liked you anyway."

And when another relative walked in, Baba said, "I luff you, my sunshine," with her heavy Russian accent, and she stretched her big arms out for a hug. Her words were random, I wanted to believe. It was the tumor speaking; not her.

I held my breath before I walked in to see her, not knowing what she'd say about me. That's how I've always been. Sensitive. Deeply concerned with what people think of me. And she reached her arms out towards me and said, "Come here, crasavitza, beautiful girl." And I collapsed into her, relieved that she didn't think badly of me, that she'd liked me all along, truly loved me even.

And so the debate within me was settled. I believed the tumor was like a truth serum that had somehow gotten into her brain. It's not that she was ever a woman to hold back what she really thought, but I took those words and that moment as proof that indeed, she really did love me, all walls broken down, hospital gown, IVs and food trays. She loved me, and wasn't afraid to say so. And that meant a lot to me. Because there she was, dignity sort of stripped down, hair unwashed, big scar and red stitches across the side of her head from where they had to perform brain surgery to remove the tumor, and there she was telling people that she loved them, hugging them, telling them they were beautiful. I thought those acts in themselves were painfully beautiful. Graceful, even. And she was.

But I know that grace came with a price, and so I write to you now, please see me in my old age. Notice how my face has changed, sun spots, loose skin, droopy earlobes, gray hair and flabby arms. My eyes haven’t changed though. They still crave the way your old body bends and shakes when you laugh. My finger tips still feel enough to graze your back when you’re sleeping, as I reach across the bed to place my palm on your shoulder just to feel your warmth. Please remember me and discover me, lose me and forget me at the same time, before it’s too late.

Love,

Marina