July 05, 2016

Postscripts


ensuring that the rock doesn't fall, july 4th, 2016

Today marks the one year anniversary of my first trip to Cutchogue, New York to visit Jon, Fitz, Jon's Aunt Patricia and Jon's Uncle Dick. I took a Hampton Jitney from Manhattan, a long bus ride ticket that Jon purchased for me because he really, really wanted my company out here. This was well before we evolved into the very serious romantic lovers and life partners that we've since become. We left Fitz at home with Patricia and Dick to go out (not "go out" rather...well, go out) and returned to the house to then walk to the Long Island Sound, where we drank and smoked and Jon braved the waters and bloodied up his bare feet in the process on the water's rocky floor surface. 

That was the weekend Fitz threw a tantrum when he learned I would be sleeping across the hall in a separate guest bedroom and not in the same bed with him, shoving his little balled up fists down at his sides stating repeatedly, fervently, "BUT DAD. THERE'S NO REASON." There's no reason Kristin can't sleep with me. This child version of an anxiety attack went on for what felt like hours, and I worried, sitting across the hall on the edge of the separate guest room bed while Jon coaxed Fitz to sleep, just what I had gotten myself into by leaking into their lives.

Now, a year later I am not in the guest bedroom "across the hall," rather in the room with the King-sized bed and beautiful ambient light streaming in and Jon, now my very serious boyfriend, snoring peacefully with his strong arm draped over a pillow. It's the Tuesday following Monday, July 4th and we've had an unbelievable weekend here on Long Island, this time with Jon's mom, too (Patricia's sister, Linda), and Fitz's cousins Tristan and Seren. 

Why did it take me so long to get here? Why is the road paved with so many jagged cracks and wrong turns?

It ultimately doesn't matter because I firmly believe the last sentence of the book determines most if the author was successful at telling his story. The last sentence can be a run-on and can deviate from itself to take on side sentences and jump off the page to grab a glass of wine and stumble its way back, maybe adorned in out-of-character accessories like beach hats or costume beads. Maybe that last sentence stutters slightly, consonants slurring together and vowels hopping about in between.

I vividly recall what it felt like, what feels like so long ago, to receive the text that Jon was checking himself into a detox hospital. We were such best friends by that point. When we would hang out, his breath, coated in whisky and cigarettes, was the most familiar scent to me. I don't even recall what month this text came to me, only that my heart felt like someone had clenched it tightly and that I couldn't breathe. 

And despite how morbid it may be, that weekend that he spent in detox may have been the one wherein I fell so madly and forever in love with this wonderfully sensitive, powerful force, this sturdy single dad, this lanky and awkward upright human who happens to be an incredible musician and thinker and can delight in listening to Phil Collins and Lionel Richie and REO Speedwagon with me like no one else, ever. When he took it upon himself to seek recovery, not only did my heart sing its praises for him but I felt a longing to sit next to him and hold his hand through anything. Anything ever.

Jon is my last sentence.

Fitz is his, and I grant him that lovingly. But maybe I'm the second to last, which still plants me on that last page of the book. I'll happily assume that position.