Alchemy

Karen and I met and courted while studying in the College of Chemistry at Berkeley. Surprisingly enough, at the wedding we didn’t have to endure any hokey comments about “chemistry.” Thank God. Bad enough getting facial cramps from smiling for hours on end; it would have been far worse if we’d had to laugh at dumb jokes, too.

Our courtship ended far too quickly. My feeling of optimistic satisfaction from being around Karen, our hours-long kissing sessions, our talks into the wee hours, the simple joy from knowing I had finally clicked with someone, like finding something I hadn’t even known was lost — Karen’s illness scoured all of it away, and we hunkered down together, converted over to a wartime mentality, us against disease.

After that, we loved each other, but I don’t know if we were in love. Reality had kicked our asses and (MS being what it is) continued to kick our asses with such regularity that we came to expect the boot. Optimism has no place in such a relationship. Stubbornness, commitment, resolve — all ways of saying the same thing — those were the things that nourished us, all of it thin gruel. Now, I’m not knocking commitment. It has kept us together through things which would have sundered a lot of marriages. Commitment is a good thing, but it’s not necessarily a joyful thing.

I’ve never been a soldier, but I imagine those folks have their share of pleasure mixed with terror. The mere act of surviving together creates a bond. Time on leave together, they must enjoy those precious moments of respite, but the pleasure would always be tempered by the knowledge they must return to battle eventually. Even in the thick of it, humor counts for a lot. The two of you laugh, make a joke out of it as much as you can. You make the best of the good moments and try your best not to get crushed by the bad moments.

All of this is my half-assed way of explaining the rut we had gotten ourselves into. Honestly, I don’t know that either one of us saw any other way of being. We’d been that way for so long — over twenty years. And that whole time, we were there for each other, giving each other strength, doing what was necessary to survive, yet not really finding much joy in one another.

I never would have predicted the odd combination of events that has caused a tectonic shift every bit as profound as Karen’s illness. My birthday, our subsequent heart-to-heart, a friend’s health scare — hopefully no more than a scare, but we’re still waiting — all of that doesn’t sound like much, but I guess you never know what sort of potion will transmute lead to gold.

Now we’re in love, and it’s like courtship all over again. Crazy, huh? I’ve been hesitant to say much, pessimist that I am. I’ve been looking over my shoulder, hoping to catch sight of the boot before it kicks me in the ass; I’ve been watching myself, too, thinking, Okay, Hoffman, what are you going to do to sabotage this? But it hasn’t happened and  it isn’t going to happen. I guess that’s optimism.

The only question remaining is whether a happy man can still write humor.

D.