thirty

ONE

"Sweet Love"

A wise man once said, "There is something beautiful about falling in love." He wasn't lying. However, I don't think he was telling the entire truth. The falling in love is beautiful, but being in love...well that was something else. Something I'm not sure I can define based on my experiences.

Those experiences made me the man I am today, but I still wondered if I am any better or worse for going through them. Today, on this cold January evening, I turned 30. An age I am honestly surprised to make it to. If you turned to the words reckless, dumb, or selfish about 10 years ago, the words Lance Michael Alexander would have been there in big, bold print.

As I sit here on my patio, sipping the now cold red wine, I can't help but look back on my past and wonder, 'what went wrong? What went right? What thing did I fail to say? What thing should I have kept to my damn self? What has led me to this moment and time?

"You're going to catch pneumonia," a warm voice said behind me. I turned around to see my husband as he stood in the frame of the door that led out to our patio, dramatically shivering as a signal that I should come inside. "I'll be in a minute," I responded, "I just wanted to get some air." He shrugged and then closed the large glass doors.

I finished the glass of wine, the fourth I'd had that night, and went to the house. My ruminations on the questions of my life would have to continue to swirl in my head. Hopefully, I could make time for them before they begin to disrupt my life...again. I walked into the kitchen and placed the empty glass in the sink.

I looked at the sheet cake resting on the countertop, a third of missing due to my birthday celebration earlier. I started to cut myself another piece when I heard, "If you eat that, you'll have a stomach ache in the morning," come from down the hall. I put down the cake knife and decided to just go to bed.

"Did you make sure the backdoor was locked," he said. I had not. I sighed hard and walked back through the house towards the door. Upon passing the birthday cake a second time, I could not resist and cut myself a hunk of it and put it on one of the small plates on the countertop. I locked the door and headed back to bed, along the way picking up the whole piece of cake and take bites out of it in the way you would an apple.

When I walked into the room, my face covered in the icing as if I was a child on my first birthday, my husband began laughing hard. "What," I asked with a mouth full of cake. "Your face," he laughed. I finished the last bite of cake and looked at myself in the large floor-to-ceiling mirror in our bathroom. I joined my husband in the hearty laughter once I caught a glimpse at my face.

I went into our bathroom to clean my face. He came in behind me and wrapped his arms around me. "You are so silly boy," he said hugging me tightly. I turned to face him and return the embrace. "I love you," I said and then leaned in to kiss him. He kissed me back but soon began to giggle as the icing was now covering his face. "I'm so sorry," I laughed as I ran to get a towel off the shelf to clean our faces.

"I take it you enjoyed your birthday," he asked as I wiped the bright yellow icing from his face. "I loved it," I responded as I removed the rest of the icing from my face, "thank you for making it so special." He smiled and kissed me again. I kissed him back and wrapped him tight in my arms. We continued to kiss until we made it back to our bed. We quickly undressed each other and began to make love.

Sometime later that night as my nude body was cuddled up tight to my husband's, the thoughts returned. The emptiness began to swirl in my stomach. My eyes blinked open and I was now awake. I lay there motionless as to not disturb my love's slumber. Another night, wide awake while my thoughts ran amok.

I couldn't even get a break on my fucking birthday.

...

Evan Jerome Vaughn was the most beautiful man I had ever laid eyes on. I thank God whenever I look down at my hand and see the glimmering wedding band shining back at me. I never believed in love at first sight until a hot August day about two years ago. It was nothing but pure luck or maybe fate if you believe in that sort of thing.