I can’t ever make it up to you
But I can always make a space for you
Why don’t you lay here
Head on my shoulder
You’re the only reason I could ever get older
– Eliza McLamb (“Older”)
His head is on my lap and I have never felt more important. And it’s not because a man sees me as something worthy or desirable—I think I’ve based my perception of self-importance around that premise for long enough. I feel important because, at this moment in time, I begin to realize what our love isn’t—a burden immediately lifted off my shoulders.
We started dating about eight months ago. Some would argue we are still in our “honeymoon phase,” the period in which the relationship is shiny and new: butterflies when you see one another and melancholic meltdowns over brief periods of separation. The truth is, we haven’t left the honeymoon phase. I don’t think we ever will. It makes me cringe just writing that. My entire academic and professional life, I’ve been taught to avoid clichés. However, sometimes reality is just too sweet to neglect them. After all, they’re clichés for a reason.
Our timeline, albeit rushed to some, seemed right to me. I met him and it became abundantly clear that he was going to be an important part of my life. I thought he was cute as can be from the moment we met but I figured that even if we never pursued a romantic relationship, having him in any faction of my life would certainly be enough.
I held my breath for that first month of dating, terrified of ruining something so impossibly good, imagining the relationship splitting into thousands of pieces around my feet. Inevitably, as in all relationships, an argument arose. I don’t remember what it was about, but I remember how it ended.
“I’m really sorry I made you feel that way. I’ll work on that,” he said. I’ve always been made to feel as if I’m incredibly high maintenance for communicating what upsets me. For years, I’ve believed this to be true. My standards were “too high.” It’s impossible to find “a man like that” in young adulthood. But after our first argument, I realized that maybe my expectations of men were not too high. Maybe, I had just finally met one willing to meet and exceed them.
Our relationship is not as fragile as some of the ones I’ve known before.
I figured, for a long time, that I was the problem in my past relationships, platonic and romantic alike. That expecting the love I give to be reciprocated back to me is not fair. That it’s a crime to feel hurt and express it, and an unforgivable sin to ask for more than what I’m receiving. I now know that this isn’t the case. I feel free to make mistakes. I’m encouraged to communicate when I’m upset. I am promised that changes will be made. Better yet, he makes truths of these promises. I have never known a love like this.
What I once found corny and embarrassing displays itself to me now in a different light. We hold hands on the bus. He gives me a kiss “goodnight” in front of his friends. He texts me first thing when he wakes up. He writes songs about me. What I once saw as embarrassing—even codependent—I now realize came from a place of jealousy. I was envious that those couples had found something I had never known: pure security in one another, and not worrying what others think about their love and how they choose to show it.
His hand is holding mine, and I have never felt more important, and I think it’s because my first “real world” relationship has taught me so much. Yet, what it isn’t has taught me more. My feet are grounded where I stand, and I know that after a particularly trying day, there is a soft place to land in him. While I can’t replicate exactly what he’s given me, I’ll always create a space for him: a space to know he’s more loved than he can comprehend, and cherished beyond measure.
“I can’t ever make it up to you, but I can always make a space for you”