It starts how all fights do: A point of ambiguity tumbles into a pool of insecurity and vulnerability.
In bed late Sunday I ask you plainly but casually, “Tell me a reason you’re with me.” Laying supine, you stare back at me blankly, dismissively, without uttering a syllable.
Indignant at your inability to answer, I ask again. Your eyes, usually dreamy and inviting, now look vacant and inaccessible.
Blood temperature rising, I decide this is a hill to die on. Was it the wine? No. The question seems fundamental and even the most banal answer would suffice. When to press and when to let go, it’s what relationships are made of.
Here we go, I tell myself.
You could choose to respond with anything, but instead relay nothing and cower into the bedsheet. It’s a pattern now. You struggle to verbalize your emotions and recoil from any signs of conflict around our relationship. Embarrassment, to you, is the most flagrant sin. But now it is I who am appalled. Affirmation — that the year we’ve spent together is the foundation for something durable and worth continuing — is all I seek.
But in this moment there’s an emotional chasm that feels even wider than two decades between us.
You are 24, I am 45. This is the generational tax we pay.
How could this question leave you wordless? I tell you if you can’t answer you can