The Adventure, part 4: In which my brain attempts to process

The strangest part about the new relationship was that it didn’t seem strange. It seemed perfectly comfortable and familiar and normal, which is why I kept circling it in my head, poking it with a stick and waiting for it to rear up and bite me. Granted, John and I had known each other for fourteen years, but I'm the person who has said the following, in no particular order: “Marriage is like a living death.” “I'm never moving for love again.” “I'm never living with a man again, unless we're married, and maybe not then.” “There is no such thing as love at first sight.” “It's not possible to be completely, 100% sure about a person.” “I'm never leaving New York again.”

Well. Never say never.

It quickly became clear that we wanted to explore this, to spend as much time together as possible. Which meant one of us would have to move. Which meant, naturally, I would have to move. He worked in the gaming industry, which is an almost entirely West Coast-centered industry; he would have had no opportunities in New York. And his son was on the West Coast; until he went away to college, John wanted to be as close to him as possible (custody agreements notwithstanding, of course).

At first I resisted the idea of moving. It was an instinctual battening down of the hatches, borne of my last serious relationship--in which I moved for love, completely rearranging my life, and was summarily dumped a year later for my trouble, without even a satisfactory explanation as to what had gone wrong. When that ended, it almost killed me. My heart was pulverized and what little was left was buried so deep I was sure it would never see the light of day again.

“Never move for love,” I declared, and I followed my own advice so well that for the next two and a half years I didn’t love anyone, thereby negating any possibility of moving. I’d banish that asshole from my heart if I had to cut it out with my own carving knife, I thought, letting my ineffectual rage slowly congeal into a core of ice. I didn't want to feel anything, for fear of going through something like that again, and then one day I realized I hadn't felt anything for so long that I was pretty sure my heart was dead. And then--la!--there it was, hiding in a Vegas hotel room.

John made a reasonable and rational argument not only for my moving cross-country, but for our living together, after--let’s see, that would have been after about four days of serious dating. I squirmed, I hedged, I said, “Let’s date long-distance for a while and see what happens.” Then I said, “I’ll move, but I want to get my own place in San Diego.” Finally I agreed. Surprisingly, most of my friends said, “Why not?” I was expecting an outcry of “Jesus, Jenny! Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time?” But my friend Keed put it very succinctly. “The fact that it didn’t work out last time is not indicative of a character flaw on your part,” she said. “You took a gamble, and it didn’t work out. Which sucks. But it could have gone the other way, too. You’re not a bad person for having taken a gamble.” “Shit, you only live once,” declared my friend Jim. “Explore this, see what happens.”

John himself said, “If this relationship ends, it won’t be because of me.” Ha, I thought, I’ve heard that before. But some dormant part of my brain awoke, and told me, do you really want to be the jaded, cynical, serial-dater New Yorker for the rest of your life? Do you have any reason to doubt him, other than your own fear of being dumped again? Do you really want that last jerk to be dictating your relationship decisions forever? Shut up, I replied, let me doubt in peace.