It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win;

And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
           

~Christopher Marlowe

            When I was young, I hoped my story would turn out wild and adventurous, with twists and turns, cliffhangers and mad fun.  I thought it would be, at the very least, unique.  Looking back now, it seems to have turned out to be one of unfulfilled love and suburbia, finishing firmly rooted in the American Dream.  I may puke.

            My neighborhood is like so many others in this land where everyone but those who are different from us can work towards and achieve their dreams.  My town is suburban to the n^th degree, my street predictably tree lined, creating dancing dappling on the sidewalk.  The perfectly manicured and watered lawns are mowed in neat rows, and vibrant beds of uninteresting flowers line the too green grass.  The violets, lilies, hydrangeas, ferns and roses that adorn my yard are replicated on every other lawn on the street.  Like at least a dozen other houses on the street, ours has a pool in the backyard.  It’s decently sized, and the rest of the yard is bordered by a white picket fence.  A tall, full oak tree dominates the back corner, providing a great amount of shade.

            Our house is a typical two-story home, light grayish blue with white shutters.  Four steps lead up to the front porch and a white front door with a bright, brass knocker.  Waist high, neatly trimmed hedge divides our yard from the sidewalk.  Master bedroom, two other bedrooms, two baths, kitchen with island countertop, and a rarely-to-never used dining room.  Crawl attic space, finished basement.

            Simple prints of over used artwork hang from our walls while family pictures conquered our fireplace mantle years ago.  Books fill the shelves in the study where my husband Henry does work when he doesn’t finish it at the office.  The house sits quiet during the day now that the children have all grown and moved out.  Our golden retriever lazily sprawls in the afternoon sun, wherever it falls.  Lawn mowers drone from five to nightfall and most of the weekend during the summer, and the laughter of neighbors adds to the cacophony that is suburbia.

           While this all sounds wonderfully domestic, for the last thirty years or so the greens in the plants appeared muddy, the colors in the flowers grayish.  The sun shone dimly, the lilacs remained half as potent.  The first chunk of years, when the children were young, while they blossomed into young adults, I managed to ignore the funk I was in, writing it off as exhaustion.  When they first moved out, I attributed it to empty nest syndrome.  After a few years of daily solitude, though, I finally started to let my mind wander to what the issue was.

It felt like drowning, the realization that I made the wrong choice, chose the completely wrong path.  I floundered, which, luckily, aligned with my summer vacation because my students surely would have noticed.  Teenagers are far more perceptive than most give them credit for.  I think that painful in between stage heightens their emotional awareness.  Perhaps being with them everyday caused it to wear off on me.

Maybe it’s a midlife crisis.  Those can come at fifty-five, right?  Or a post midlife crisis?  Either way, I daily find myself revisiting one short year of my life, when it was just beginning.  An exquisite, beautifully painful year during which I learned how to see the wondrously small pleasures of life.  I experienced immense confusion and poignant discovery.  I finally understood the degree to which we are capable of feeling and relearned how to have impossible dreams for the future.  Mostly, I learned what unwavering, earth-shattering, life-altering love felt like.

*          *            *            *            *

           I was in my third and final year of my masters program in theatre.  Life was routine with the variation coming in the form of productions.  I’d recently started dating a guy friend of mine, and it was nice and easy, extremely drama free.  My life was pretty much in order, my path to becoming a high school theatre teacher clear and neatly laid out before me.  Along with that, I was aiming for a family, a house in the ‘burbs with 2.5 kids, a dog and a two car garage.  I believed in practical dreams, ones that were easily achievable. 

            At that time, a number of websites had popped up whose sole purpose was networking, some dealing mostly with matchmaking, others with college students, and still others with people in general.  I had an account on the last two types and added strangers at will, looking over their profiles to see what we had in common, talking to new people from around the country and making a few friends along the way.  There was nothing strange about getting a request from a complete stranger to add each other to your list of ‘friends.’  Especially if you happened to be a young, fairly attractive female. 

            There was nothing special about that day.  October 13^th, perhaps a little formidable because of the date, was any other class day.  Per the norm, I signed onto the Internet when I got back to my apartment and had yet another request.  I clicked on her profile, scrolling through the information.

Twenty-years-old.  Your basic, clean-cut (and extremely girl-next-door cute), Midwestern college student.  University of Wisconsin.  She was studying art and art history, loved old music and jazz, and, from her pictures, was extremely close to her friends.  Heroes: Her grandma, her grandpa, and Katharine Hepburn.  She had an interesting layout for her profile, nothing overdone, but enough to not be boring.  It seemed that she might prove interesting to talk to with our similar theatre adorations, but I wondered if her maturity level would be bearable.  Regardless, I added her to my list, left her a short thank you comment, and signed off.  Strange how little we think about the decisions that change our lives.