Breaking Up and Coming Together I

What is going on in the world?

An old friend has just been through a rotten and heartbreaking divorce. I have family members who have gone through or are going through the same thing. And then there's Heidi Klum and Seal. And Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis. And Heather Armstrong (of Dooce) and her husband, Jon. And Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries (not sure I believe this one for two billion dollar seconds but ya never know).

I've only been married for two and a half years. With all this divorce swirling around, I'm terrified of where we'll be after seven years (you know, when the supposed itch begins). In my experiences so far, marriage is warm and comforting and fun and generative. It's also something that you do every single day. There's no way you aren't going to get irritated or forget or take things for granted when you do something or someone every single day.

So I'm writing this to remember and because yesterday I remembered without even trying. And in being pregnant and caring for a tiny two-year-old monster, it's not always easy to remember, but I want to remember like this more often:

I've had the same six albums playing in my car stereo since Sabine was born. I finally decided to change it up the other day. So I went through my music files and plucked out my old Prince CDs. Sabine likes a beat. And I refuse to listen to kids' music until I absolutely have to. So for now I'm giving her a solid diet of easy to sing along to dance music. We listened to Controversy and Raspberry Beret and I Wanna Be Your Lover.

And then, Little Red Corvette came on. The memories attached to the song came flooding back.


Kadin and I met for the first time in the summer of 2006. Our mutual friend from NY was visiting and Kadin came over to pick him up so they could spend some time together, too. When Kadin, who had just moved to L.A. from Washington D.C., first walked in my door, I thought he was super hot but young (he's five years my junior). I'd written off dating at the time--especially a young, hot guy who was probably a player just like our mutual friend--because I'd recently gone out with so many wrong-for-me assholes that I'd decided my judgement was clearly off.

Kadin brought our friend back the next day and decided to stay awhile (at the time, I lived on the west side of L.A. and Kadin lived on the east side). One of my girlfriends was over and the four of us decided to go to a local bar for afternoon drinks.

The conversation was smart and interesting. We laughed a ton and it was unbelievably easy and comfortable. I felt myself liking Kadin more and more but refusing to let myself because he had to be just as unavailable or asshole-ish as the last three guys I'd dated.

After Kadin went home that day, our mutual friend's girlfriend (who had joined us at some point) said to me, "Kadin thinks you're hot. He really likes you." The words felt amazing in an eighth-grade, girly kind of way. I told her I liked him, too, and definitely wanted to be friends and hang out with him but that I was taking a break from dating because I'd just broken up with a total butthole crackhead.

Kadin eventually went home that day but came back the next...

...to be continued...

via Observando