Eating Thin Mints In Bed [rough draft] (Patreon)

I wish I could go back in time, and tell my younger self not to die. I wish I could grasp her by the shoulders as she stood on the precipice of that bridge and tell her “don’t you dare take that step. Because we make it, you and I. We make it. And we find happiness.”

If I think about it solidly, perhaps I did, some time ago. Perhaps I felt my older self tell me to stay the blade, stay the fall. To keep on walking, and hold out for a little longer.

Maybe I told her then about our marriage. About the travel down to her mother’s home, about the fire we built, about the ceremony we had. On a breeze, maybe I whispered the scent of lavender, and smoke. How we walked a circle around the flames to build our ritual bed as the sun set and the twilight hour befell us. As waves pitched and grew beneath the bridge, perhaps I murmured how our lung filled with ash and our eyes burned from tears we fought to keep back. The fire cast light shadows and danced upon the logs it consumed. Her mother held the herbal smudge and brushed it through the air around us. Did I recite to my smaller self what she said? The words of travel, of time together, however long that may be? Of lasting love and growth, no matter where our paths lead, even if one day they separate? Did she tear up, too, on that hot Portland day, peering out across the river, at the thought of ever having a life without the one we chose by our side? And as the night began to grow, did her heart flutter as it did mine when our wife and I kissed, sealing our promise to one another, and endeavoring to take this journey together?

No, perhaps I did not tell her any of that. Perhaps I only said we would marry a beautiful, intelligent woman one day. Perhaps I only said we would bake cookies and doughnuts and salmon, that we would have a right and proper feast as the fire cast its Orange glow upon us. Perhaps I only said we ate seafood and vegetables and roasted potatoes in foil beside the coals. That we drank homemade mead and smoked. That we laughed and shared stories and we felt loved and welcomed and as if we truly had a family again.

Maybe I just said we ate and were merry. Maybe instead I took her hand and shared that we drew a bath that night, and while it did not get to the sweltering temperatures we wished, we still found ourselves dozing in the water beside one another, until at last we gathered ourselves up and went up to our bedroom. And did we fall into lust for one another? No. No, we gathered our treats and opened a box of frozen thin mints, and ate them together in bed.

Perhaps I told her none of this. Perhaps I just guided her to solid ground and told her “stay.”