Front Row Seat

I wrapped myself around him, around his life. It is my nature. For a while I thought that was our problem; that I was too submissive. As if being submissive was something I did, instead of someone I am. As if I could change, or turn it off, and ever have any semblance of happiness. I didn't understand who I was at the time, and he probably did not either. I think he did not know what to do with it, or with me.

He loved Sade, and while she would not have been my kind of music, she became that because she was his. Her music became the sound track of our courting. The first time we made love, she was singing in the background from a cassette player. Shortly before we married, we went to see her in concert. We had our tickets; paper tickets since this was before cell phones and personal computers and seat maps online. We were surprised and delighted to find that we had front row seats.

I am over him. I have been for years. I don't love him romantically anymore, although I will be honest and say I think I will always love him as another human being, as someone with whom I shared a life. He was the first person with whom I had sex,  and he remains the only person.We sit together now at holidays and the grandchildren's birthday parties, and we chat. We hug hello and goodbye, and the hug is not just for show. I don't desire him anymore, although he has always been and still is a stunningly handsome man. What I see now is what I didn't see then, that we really never really had a chance.

Shockingly mismatched in so many ways, so bereft from the start of mutual trust and respect, it is actually quite amazing that we made it for seventeen years. Our being together was not a mistake, and although I failed at being the wife he needed me to be, I don't regret even our worst day together. We were drawn together in a way I can't even begin to understand, nor do I need to understand it all.

He never did turn me into a Sade fan, but he did give me a song that still resonates. I remember how I felt when I watched her from that front row seat, and heard her sing this. I heard this song the other day as I was doing that radio channel surfing I am so fond of. It reminded me of him, for he once was the king of my heart. But more than that, it reminds me of me and who I am. Of what I finally accept what I imagine I intuitively always knew.

My heart presently has no king. It needs one. I feel very vulnerable and just a touch scared as I write these words, but it is the truth. I am the kind of woman whose heart needs a ruler.

Susan

"Your Love is King" written by Sade Adu and Stuart Matthewman