Toothbrushes

Something happens as  I look at the two toothbrushes now inhabiting the pewtered-colored tumbler in my bathroom sink. By something happening, I mean that I am overcome with incredible happiness, dread, and anxiety.

It goes like this: I smile and think this is a good step forward, then I dread that this could ever come to an end, and then I get anxious about… well, about everything.
  

I’m transported to a place and time in which someone took the time to make space for me in his life, space that was signified by a drawer and a clear, plastic toothbrush of my very own at his place. Back then I was in love; back then I thought I had it all.  

The clear toothbrush and drawer signified clear progressions of our relationship --one that went up in flames as tragically as Lindsay Lohan’s face (seriously, she’s supposed to be 26, not 62). While memories of toothbrushes and drawers from a past relationship are complicated in their bittersweetness, I have a hard time separating the positive from the negative events that culminated in that one phone call that ended what I once thought would be forever.

Then start the comparisons, bringing the past to the present and hoping that I will be able to find the one loophole that will help me avoid the catastrophe of a failed relationship once again. Is there a way for me to go from here to happily ever after and avoid the mess? It would be too easy, I know.

Of course, I can’t really compare the feelings I once felt to the ones I am currently experiencing and  am aware that each relationship is unique --I’ve watched Sex and the City after all (I’m kidding, mostly). The differences between the two men, the one in my past and the one in my present, are monumental and key to the dynamic of each relationship.

While what I had in the past is what I needed then, yet we both outgrew each other and in different directions; what I have now is fantastic, but who am I to say it will last forever? That’s the crux of my anxiety, the fact that there are no guarantees or shortcuts. Yet, if the volume of dating books being continuously sold and published is any indication, we still want to search for those guarantees and shortcuts.

The truth of the matter is that these two toothbrushes are not a shorthand for guarantees or proven shortcuts, but they are proof that for the first time in my life I’m taking the risk of making space in my life for someone else.

For now, that’ll have to do.