One of the conversations is a hyperanalytical back-and-forth panel discussion about contemporary gender roles; we both went to single-sex schools, and we're both eerily stereotypical in some ways (she likes fashion, I like Clint Eastwood) and completely anti-stereotypical in other ways (she's a gadget freak, I cry regularly at movies and watching television), and we're endlessly fascinated by the interplay of primordial and classical and contemporary gender roles in this utterly deconstructed era. Another key conversation, which regularly reached a fever pitch during 2008, is political, and although it manifests itself in a number of conflicting viewpoints (she supported Hillary, I supported Obama; she thinks we need to fix the mess in Iraq, I think we need to get out right away), it's really a complex, bilateral exploration of the ends and means of the American government, and how much they justify each other.
The conversation that we've been having a lot lately is about destiny, and free will, and to what extent we believe in them. Here again, neither one of us really necessarily believes completely one way or the other. I think that, at a certain level, we were meant to be together - that some higher force slowly and slyly guided us into place, so that we two people could somehow meet at the exact time and place that would be perfect to form a relationship. On the other hand, I believe strongly in free will - like all lapsed Catholics, I think there is a higher power, but I don't think that higher power is necessarily something I want to obey, or something that has all of our best interests at heart.
Then again, there was no reason for either of us to be here in San Francisco when we were. After college, we both wanted to work on the East Coast; we both had plans, and we both had no intention of living in SF, which seemed to me to be a tiny little imitation of bigger, better cities, a playground for Google kids and aging hippies and people not brave enough to make it somewhere cooler. When I got here, I wanted to leave. When my roommate and I signed the lease, I told him I'd be gone in five months, and we'd need to find someone to sublet.
Then we met, me and her, and we practically fell in love with each other over how badly we didn't want to fall in love with each other. We both didn't like San Francisco, and we both wanted to be in New York, and we both wanted to be independent, and everything we were doing was just to build up our resumé for New York, and somehow we accidentally built a life here in San Francisco.
We both knew that it would be hard - this whole months-long period, between jobs, between the old life and the new. Or at least she knew that it would be hard. I have a tendency to race into difficult situations with what appears to be bravery but is actually complete foolishness. I figured May would fly by, and instead it's barely crawling. Every day, some element of my life here in San Francisco seems to disappear - yesterday, I brought my desk home, and tomorrow it's my chair, my TV set, then my bed and my clothes. The worst thing is knowing that the same thing is happening for her, and knowing that the only thing I can say is that it will all be better in just a few weeks. Because it's our fate. Which we chose. With our free will.
Tony Soprano, in the middle of the really epic and depressing and wonderful final season, said, "You make your own luck in life," and that's what I think whenever we experience a transcendent moment together. This relationship feels too good to be accidental; yet, it feels so good because of all the work we've put into it. We've always refused to give up on each other; Free Will. But we don't give up on each other because we know there's something wonderful within our relationship, something bigger than the both of us, something pointing us forward; Fate.
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