Call it dick envy, but...

A story of misunderstandings and happy endings

“Grab my butt,” I said, standing in his way as he was making dinner.

He grabbed it.

“Grab it harder,” I said. “Jiggle it.”

He did each with progressively more heart but never quite the whole.

“Am I too demanding?”

“No, you’re not demanding.”

I felt relieved.

“But sometimes I just don’t get you.”

That was also a relief to hear, because I didn’t expect it. I was glad to know he understood the lack of understanding.

I felt misunderstood. And I could tell he felt misunderstood. It was always in that order. Because he never went looking for this information the way I did. Then, when I felt it and came to him with my sad feelings, looking for affirmation gracelessly, he got confused. When he was confused, he was not himself.

I could be inconsistent. He was never. I could be irrational. He thought he was never.¹ But he could be.

This is what girlfriends are for, I thought to myself on the better days. But some days, I wished he could do it all. He’d never fool himself into thinking that doing it all was possible. But I could.

“This is all connected to the same part of you that burns you out,” he said.

He wasn’t wrong.

“You’re not wrong,” I said.

I had a hard time prioritizing when it meant offloading things I found important. And I expected him to do the same. But to him, that was insanity.

“I look crazy,” I said a few days earlier, looking at a photo he sent me of me holding our kids.

“Well,” he said, with a glance.

I laughed. “You’re saying I’m crazy?”

“Well, I’d be crazy to say you weren’t.”

That’s what inconsistency, and the nonmathematical understanding of what can happen within one hour of human time, looked like to someone reasonable. Good thing he wasn’t stupid enough to believe insanity was a problem in and of itself.

We communicated in different languages sometimes. We could be a trope of gender stereotypes. But it wasn’t all bad — he knew what I wanted. And I knew him. Even if we drove each other mad from time to overly-stretched-time.

I put my shoes on as dinner was served. He set the plates in front of our kids. I kissed their heads.

“Bye mom, I love you!” they said.

Then I left, walked down the sidewalk without headphones in, and found my friends at the end of my journey.

I got home after a few margaritas, some tears, and some laughter. The dinner plates were empty, still sitting where I’d last seen them. The kids were asleep.

My heart felt rosy, my body light. My headphones pumped funk music into my temples.

My husband found me smiling at nothing. Then I pushed him down onto the couch, as I wiggled an unintentional lap dance to the funk music only I could hear.

“What are you doing?” his lips moved.

“Shhh,” I said, thinking he didn’t have to know, to know.