Just for the Summer

I’d realized something after being with her. A valuable lesson that I think all the best and most enduring romances have figured out.

The love stories sold us the wrong thing.

The best kind of love doesn’t happen on moonlit walks and romantic vacations. It happens in between the folds of everyday life. It’s not grand gestures that show how you feel, it’s all the little secret things you do to make her life better that you never tell her about. Taking the end piece of the bread at breakfast so she can have the last middle piece for her sandwich when you pack her lunch. Making sure her car always has gas so she never has to stop at the pump. Telling her you’re not cold and to take your jacket when you are in fact, very, very cold. It’s watching TV on a rainy Sunday while you’re doing laundry and turning her light off when she’s fallen asleep reading. Sharing pizza crusts and laughing about something the kids did and taking care of each other when you’re sick. It isn’t glamorous, it isn’t all butterflies and stars in your eyes. It’s real. This is the kind of love that forever is made of. Because if it’s this good when life is draining and mundane and hard, think of how wonderful it will be when the love songs are playing and the moon is out.

Just for the summer

Listen to me, you don’t really like him. You’re only feeling this way because he’s six-three.

“Well, I woke up and had my coffee—”

“What’s your coffee?”

he wanted privacy, his account would be private.

We do not inconvenience ourselves for men, we do not change our well-laid plans for men.

No plants are injured in the pursuit of my career.

“When men stop assaulting women they meet on the internet, we’ll stop creeping on them to make sure they pass the vibe check.

It was taking everything in me to be that brave and that vulnerable just to show up.

Not a soulmate, just the love of my life.