Leveling up

When I was a child, I watched my mom work hard to support the two of us. She wasn't home much, but when she was we did things together, had a good time. I spent a great deal of that time she was at work with my grandmother, and an even larger percentage of it alone, reading, watching geeky shows, reading, being outside, and reading. I learned a lot about life from books.

I never thought: "Life will be easier when I grow up," because life didn't look like it was very easy from my vantage point. I actually thought I had it pretty good, and I should do all the things possible to delay "adulthood."

Although I did a lot of reading about sex and relationships, both fiction and self-help books, and I was completely fascinated with the concept of sex, pleasure, and power exchange from quite a young age, I never even looked at a real person as a potential romantic entanglement until I found myself online, face-to-virtual-face with a bunch of geeks who were talking with me and engaging my intellect.

Suddenly I was desired. People flocked to me; I had a posse. From that far-flug, digital posse I chose my first real romantic entanglements.

Life was better. Hadn't even seen it coming, but there it was. Better. I was blissfully happy, for a time. Then, disaster. Heart crushed. I thought I would die. I don't know that I'll ever really get over my first real heartbreak. I wandered hopelessly through country roads on foot, achieving naught but sunburn and a few guys in pickup trucks trying to pick me up. I wanted to die; I didn't see what good living would be like that, unloved, unwanted, unnecessary.

On the other side of this deep and yawning chasm of depression, though I couldn't see it at the time, was another hilltop of bliss. I had to trudge through the very, very difficult part of this game to get to the other side, to get to the reward. That particular hilltop was fairly low; it didn't have to be high to be bliss considering how low I had gotten.

All things come to an end, whether they are good or not. The happiness of that low hilltop was soon replaced with another grueling low point.

Then there was my husband. A brilliant, shining sweet white light, and we leveled up together, crashing through the lows, sometimes trudging, but always putting that one foot in front of the other because each step through the abyss was one more step toward the pinnacle. We managed, because we knew the sucking miry swamp would eventually yield to sweet meadows, sunshine and pleasure.

Life with him has been so much better than it ever was without him. But even once we were secured, fastened to each other with bonds that were legal and unbreakable unless we so chose, life continued to throw us curve balls. Our first decade together has been a combination of bliss and struggle, as we worked to build a life, finances, educations, careers, family, a house. Each milestone of our life has been marked with a meadow - a peaceful resting place where we beam with happiness but from which we are eventually torn by circumstance, or fate if you believe in that.

We level up, and the game gets harder. We get a few months of bliss, and then.... stuff happens, and everything changes.

I'm sure we're not unique in this. Thankfully, when I look back, save one or two particularly deep dark holes, all I can see are the gorgeous pinnacles. Everything else fades into the mists.

So, from my vantage point as an old lady, I can say: Life does get easier, but then it gets harder again. If it stays easy.. well, where's the challenge? I love a good challenge as much as the next geek.

As long as he is by my side, I will keep trudging through those challenges, because everything we've done together has just gotten better. I have faith that the decisions we make will carry us eventually to a happier, better place.