Dating, part 11: conclusion

When I was 16, shortly before Christmas, snuggled between 6 pillows (I still need that many, and it would take some time to explain my optimal sleep environment), I lay on my back and looked out the window. My blinds, dark navy to offset the pale blue paint on my walls, were closed, but the small white Christmas lights outside peeked through the cracks and around the edges.

It was snowing – and how I miss the snow here. It’s hypnotizing, easy to find a window and get lost staring outside. Focusing on an individual snowflake is nearly impossible, so instead I let my eyes lose such sharp focus and sigh as pure, bright white blankets everything. Leaving a coating, whether powdery or wet, that makes your little piece of the world, for a time, exquisite.

We froze hanging those lights on the gutters every year.

“I’m cold!” I’d complain, trying to untangle lights Dad would retrieve from the attic.

“Are we almost done?” Brother would whine, eager to abandon us in favor of friends, or later, girlfriends.

“Katie, if you pull at those lights like that,” Dad would state from his perch atop the ladder as he turned to see me yank at them impatiently, “you’re going to break them. Then what happens?”

“I go in the attic and get another stupid set and start over.” I’d state through gritted teeth, because it always happened. “I don’t see why we just can’t buy new! In fact, for Christmas, I would like some new outdoor lights, OK?”

“Santa will make a note.” Mom said, smiling at me from her station below Dad’s ladder, feeding him the string of lights that he’d place carefully in the hooks that remain on my parents’ house to this day. “We’ll get done when we’re done,” was her comment to Brother, and I got another smile, because she loves me, and she told me it wasn’t that cold after all.

She’d eventually have enough of all of us; we’re pretty annoying and it can erode even the toughest of motherly Christmas spirit. So we’d end up snapping at each other, and saying we’d never put up Christmas lights again, and I’d throw away the string of lights I inevitably ruined in favor of escaping to the warmth of my bedroom before we were quite done.

But we continued to meet out there annually, stopping only when I had been in college for a couple of years, because the lights, and the time together, were magical. Like the snow, the white lights (not the flashing kind – our house’s tiny glow was constant) and the colored ones that always graced our Christmas tree inside transformed our home into something different and special.

“I like to look at them when I fall asleep.” I told Mom of the lights, so we would leave them on overnight. She and Dad are nothing if not indulgent of my silly wishes.

On this night though, I dreamed of finding my counterpart. The man with whom I’d untangle lights, stringing them along the edge of the roof, making magic from family and effort. I decided, with all the confidence and arrogance of youth, that next year at Christmastime, I’d be with someone. Have sex for the first time, I determined, because 17 seemed appropriately ancient enough to make such a decision. Begin my life with someone else.

I’ve thought of that night – watching the Christmas lights with a hopeful glow of my own – many times. Often, I’ve been grateful that younger version of myself didn’t know what was to come. Unrequited crushes, bad blind dates, relationships that were always somehow off, the ebb and flow of pain that surrounds being alone for me. I’d feel sad and pathetic and sorry for her, because I failed to provide and she somehow lost a little of that ability to dream.

In writing this, I realized I haven’t done too badly by her after all.

If I were to travel back, perch on the edge of the bed that now stands proudly in my guest room down the hall from where I sit, and talk to her, I’d allow her those dreams and plans. They were special and important. And being that person enabled me to make certain choices and made me, unquestionably, a better, stronger version of myself. But if she needed honest reassurance, I think I know what I’d say then too.

“No, sweetheart, there won’t be a partner next year, or for many years after that. In fact, I can’t promise you there will be one at all.

“What I can tell you with certainty is that there’s magic and beauty and tremendous opportunity for love, even in the absence of that man we want. You’ll have bad dates, in fact, I’ll put you through a whole string of the suckers. And later, when you remember some parts of them and forget others, you’ll write. You’ll roll your eyes, you’ll laugh and you’ll think about what you learned.

“The lessons, for us, are important. That desire to know and understand so many things is great, and I’m proud you have it now and will retain it through some crappy times. It makes it interesting to be us, to think and dream and hope.

“There will be a great deal of fun and joy. Those friends you think you’ll never find? They’re waiting. Three in college, 2 you’ll keep, then another few in graduate school. You’ll be able to be honest and real, not worry about them hurting you or talking about you badly, and, because you had to wait for them, wish for them, you’ll appreciate it. Love them a little more than you might have otherwise.

“There’s also cool stuff apart from anyone else. So many books. You’ve already started your collection, but you’ll have more than you can find places to put eventually. And we’ll go places – make that much-anticipated trip to England, but also to locations you never expected. While scary, there’s something magical in that too.

“There will be jobs, mostly through school, that give you tremendous satisfaction and pride. Your work, in fact, will demand so much of your awed attention that you won’t remember to feel lonely at all sometimes.

“And some dreams – some pieces of what you’d hoped to find with that man? Well, you’ll get them on your own. A house with a yard that you alone maintain. In fact, I’m making notes on what plants to put outside in the spring. The respect of Mom and Dad, because even though you’re alone, you’re still a source of exceedingly strong pride. And they can demand a great deal of your time with all comfort, because in that special way that we like to belong to someone, you’re still theirs. We’ll have a dog, and a car, and our own front-loading washing machine that I think is particularly cool.

Then I’d lean in to whisper, because this is kind of new and special for me, even as I sit here and write.

“As for the man? The one we really want? I promise I’ll keep looking for him. I’m actually pretty sure he’s out there somewhere. So while I can’t say I’ll give it everything, I am watching for him, and will continue to do so. Because I remember being here – dreaming by the light of tiny white bulbs – and giving that up, letting years and dates and loneliness make it less important or special, isn’t possible for me.

“So we’re not done yet. But I know it’s been good – getting from there to here. And I’m absurdly certain that if I lie down to sleep tonight, and a version of myself – aged 10 years – arrives to talk to me, that she’d say we’re still doing fine. Finding joy, feeling pain, doing admirably well in this business of living.”

Her dreams were sweet, that girl who watched the lights so hopefully. My reality, though it isn’t always, can be sweeter.