2006-10-21 - 2:30 p.m.
Matrimonial Update, Farewell to Former Selves, and Decisions on the Subject of Monogamy
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I appreciate everyone's interest, but no, ELOFTING@HOTMAIL.COM is not yet a married woman. Hachinohe City Hall won't allow me to marry without first making a tedious, diplomatic pilgrimage to the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. (The Embassy closest to Hachinohe, which is to say, not close at all.)
The wedding itself will consist of very little more than a trip to City Hall, which pleases me greatly. In my opinion, the ideal wedding is one that can be described as no-big-deal. I do, however, want (and have been promised) both a ring and a no-big-deal sort of honeymoon. I've suggested a trip to Numazawa Lake. It's not too far away and Numazawa is written with the same kanji characters as Numasawa, which strikes me as funny, and as good a reason as any to select a destination. As for the ring, I know exactly what I want and nothing else will do. I want a narrow gold band - no wider than half a centimetre - that is etched/molded/whatever-it-is-they-do to look like a braid. I am vehemently anti-diamond. And I have my reasons for being particular about the ring.* Because such a ring currently exists only as a cigarette foil model that I made to Shuhei, it seems that we will have to find ourselves a competant goldsmith to create it. And because neither of us has ever had any need for a competant goldsmith, we're not really sure how to go about finding one. But, happily, Shuhei finds my wedding ring obstinancy charming, and I'm willing to wait as long as it takes, well after we're married if need be, to get it.
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And although we're not yet married, Shuhei and my current lifestyle is close enough to a marriage for me to feel very confident saying that transition to life as a married woman is going to be Easy. (Here, I am ignoring linguistic issues, which are seperate from marital ones, and by no means at all easy.) Adapting to married life is going to be easy, and nothing that I'm giving up for it strikes me as being of much importance, except for one VERY important thing...
It's been happening for a while now, but lately especially it's freakish how often friends are making a point of pointing out to me that I look happy. And it's true, I don't deny that it's true, and yet everytime I hear it, part of me wants to disagree. Or, at the very least, to assure them that I wasn't always this way. Any other reaction (including my usual one, which is... oh?) feels disloyal to the angry girl I once was.
How ridiculous is this? Anger is the one thing that's hard to let go, which is completely illogical, but very easy to explain.
Being an angry girl is exhausting, and really not a lot of fun. Despite that, it is also very satisfying in that an angry girl knows that she is right. That crumminess abounds in so many forms that happy people are morons and/or delusional and/or lying. That said, what do I have to be angry about anymore? I've got nothing. So, it's farewell to my angry former self, as I'm off to be moronic, delusional, and happy.
(But I'll never, ever forget you Angry Former Self. And that will keep me a cut above and a step ahead of the other lying, delusional morons.)
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Not long before I left Victoria, Dave asked me if I thought that monogamy could work. I said that there is a big difference between falling in love with someone else and having sex with them, then wished that I'd had something more intelligent to say. Since I'm about to get married, this seems like something I should have very well-developed opinions on, and these opinions will follow for anyone who's interested...
Falling in love with someone else and just having sex with them are completely different. And if either should happen, I would be very upset, but again, for different reasons.
I recognize that it is possible to love two people at the same time. I do not, however, think that I am so special as to deserve the romantic love of two people, nor do I want to love someone who thinks that they're that special. If Shuhei or I should think that we've fallen in love with someone else what will ensue will not be a love triangle, but a terrible, terrible decision.
I also recognize that it is entirely possible to have a one-night-stand completely devoid of love. I've done it myself once or twice, and I know that Shuhei has too. But those days are over, and that's for the best because one-night-stands are what you do to remind and assure yourself that you are young and desirable when you haven't had anyone around to prove it for you in a while. Having sex with someone you actually love is about a hundred times better, so there's really no point in a one-night-stand if you can do that.
Secondly, Shuhei is with me, and everyone knows that. If some hussy has designs on my sweetheart, she had best have a good reason to not think very much of that, which is to say, to not think very much of me, in which case Shuhei should be on my side and think that she's an awful bitch, not a sexy one.
And, finally, except for when I'm sick and the second day of Girl's Club, I'm up for sex pretty much anytime. Frankly, it's embarassing. There's nothing lady-like about my terrible, terrible urges. But, then again, I don't think that that's ever bothered anyone except me. In short, if my terrible urges and I found out that Shuhei was cheating, we would be upset that he was wasting it with somebody else.
And thus, monogamy is the preferred and most sincere arrangement, and here's why I think that it's going to work...
Most importantly, I've told Shuhei that I don't want him to have any girlfriends, and that I wouldn't pretend not to know if he did. Shuhei laughed as if that already went without saying, and it probably did, but it seems wise to have removed the possibility for any misunderstanding.
Unless my friends have hobbies that I don't know about, none of you have come across the cheating-husband-and-wife-who-pretends-not-to-know-for-fear-that-her-husband-will-leave-her as many times as I have in Japanese literature. They're practically an architype and at least as important as the back-riding demon, and, if it happens all the time in books, I'm inclined to think that it must happen in life as well.
But when husbands cheat in Japanese literature, it's never because they are Kunderian Epic Womanizers. Most often it's because they feel old and boring and are looking for a sense of magic and adventure, which could probably be found in any number of situations other than an affair. Pretty much anything outside the realm of daily routine can be a magical adventure. Midnight liquor picnics, tidepools at the beach, drives through the eeries fields skirting Shimoda, and so on. If Japanese literature is right, and husbands are cheating out of boredom, then all I need to do is regularly disrupt the cogwheels of our day-to-day life, and I was going to do that anyways. Also, if I were really worried about the possibility of Shuhei cheating (which I'm not**) I could stop calling him an old man when I want to tease him.
As for me, my experience with cheating is that a few seconds of feeling really good are not worth three years (and counting) of feeling like kind of a jerk. And, instead of cheating, what I should have done was summon the courage to end that relationship two months previously, which is what I really wanted. I don't need to cheat again. (And, in my defence, I would like to point out that I cheated during my boyfriend's bedpan phase. And that the bedpan was a bucket on the floor beside his bed. And that he didn't empty it every morning, much less everyday. And that that was in August.)
I also recognize that much of the responsibility for keeping my falcon loyal lies with me, and that it would be unfair for me to get fat and mean and expect him to be really excited about that. And I'm still not going to start shaving my face, but it's very much a part of my nature to take pride and care in my personal grooming (some people might consider it too much pride and care) and that's highly unlikely to change.
In conclusion, monogamy is super-cool and, with literature, common sense, the loyalty gene, experience, and vanity on our side, Shuhei and I are going to be just fine.
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* And those reasons are that, when I was a girl - and only when I was alone - I liked to make a tiny braid in my hair, wrap it around my finger, and then admire how pretty my hair would look as a ring. Because such behavior is rare for me (case in point, I'm relieved to not have to have a cake, RSVPs, and wedding dress wedding) I feel I owe such a ring to what is, once was, or tried to be that part of myself. As for diamonds, what would I do with a diamond? There are at least a hundred things that I would much rather have. A sewing machine, a bicycle, a proper (by which I mean Western-style) bed, the Mardrus translation of The Arabian Nights... Also, I've seen Lord of War. Everytime someone buys a diamond wedding ring, Nicholas Cage gives a homocidal maniac in Africa an AK-47, which is then used to shoot a baby in the head. And I want nothing to do with any of that, thank you.
** And, among the reasons I'm not worried about Shuhei cheating is the fact that he already, clearly possesses the loyalty gene, and often goes fishing and/or drinking with his friend Nobuo, who he has known since elementary school, which surely counts for something.
