Marriage Story (excerpt 2)

Once upon a time, there was perfect love. A man would only marry the woman he was made for, and a woman only married the man she was made for. And everyone could easily find each other. Because everyone knows that each person is designed expressly with another in mind. We were created to fit togther like halves of a puzzle. Everyone knows that. In this time, a man cared when he hurt his wife's feelings, and a woman understood when to say what. They had children who had perfect childhoods and happy parents, and those children grew up to find their own one-and-only.


This continued for years and years and generations, until one day a certain Eve walked into a bar and met a serpent, dressed in black, who wore a faux hawk and had a lip piercing. The serpent tempted Eve, and she was weak. He seemed to like her so immediately; he wanted her! She had never felt such passion or such power. And in the morning, when Eve woke up she was different. She noticed Adam throwing his dirty clothes on the floor. She noticed the seat was up in the bathroom. And she noticed the sideways look he gave the girl next door when she bent down to get the paper. Eve burnt the toast that morning.
And after twenty eight pieces of burnt toast, Adam couldn't understand why Eve kept nagging about the seat, and the dishes, and the way they never had romantic dinners any more. He couldn't understand why she wanted to go out with him on Saturdays all of a sudden. He couldn't understand about the toast.



Thinking there was no other way, they had a child. Then another. And they couldn't understand why everything was so hard all of a sudden. They didn't mean to scream about it, but they were so unlike their parents, and their friends. They felt so wrong all the time. There wasn't much else they could do but scream, often at one another.


The children, growing up this way, were ostracized because of their unconventional parents. They went into the world trying to find someone to save them from themselves, and to prove to them that they were special. They didn't find their one-and-only's. They were mixed up. Their minds were jumbles of burnt and buttery toast. Instead they found the wrong people. And they had the wrong children that they would not have otherwise had.


And this happened, and happened, and occasionally someone would get it right. Because even in a sea of wrong, God made sure to create for everyone his or her other half. But the serpent had blinded all the people by making them see, long ago in the bar with Eve. And now its harder to find your perfect love than it is to put a camel through the eye of a needle.


Oh, it can be done.
You just have to trust in he who made your Other.
Look long and hard, and through your blindness, you'll see.