To Face Unafraid the Plans that We Made

I just put @khatsha​ to bed after our first christmas dinner together and my heart is very full. (just as my stomach is full with bad delivery Chinese food) Just now she said, “that was pretty crazy right? Getting married without ever having lived together?” And I said “Yeah!” We both took an enormous risk, her even more than me in her move across the Atlantic, to be together.

And yet I never felt serious doubt. And I don’t think she did either. And today, my day off in Boston, played out just how I hoped and imagined such days: the hours of intimate conversation, the cuddling, the partnership in making plans (”later on, we’ll conspire / as we dream by the fire”), the making fun of mullets in the Band Aid video, and the hot spontaneous hypnosis and D/s scenes.

In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parson Brown
He’ll say are you married, we’ll say no man
But you can do the job when you’re in town

I hate the censored version of Winter Wonderland - what, are we afraid the little kids are going to have sex after they play marriage? - and am shocked and dismayed that Annie Lennox chose to sing it. Like why is changing it to “a circus clown” less threatening? And what child refers to other children as “kiddies” - a word exclusively used by grownups that hate children?

But I also actively like the original verse, the ambiguous time distortion of it: playing wedding in the meadow, and then one day looking around and noticing you’re married for real. That’s a little what this feels like, like a game of “let’s pretend” that just keeps going, with the best possible playmate.

Because we get to make it up. Marriage gets very very serious at times, and sometimes I get vertigo realizing what the stakes are, but it’s overwhelmed by the freedom of building something together like we want. Because the plans that we made don’t end at living together: they are also about building our adult lives, and even more specifically Boston hypnosis community, and so many good things are already happening in both departments.

This is already too long of a late night Kwak-fuelled ramble. But I’m just so pleased and grateful. Merry early christmas to all christmas celebrators, and I love you @khatsha​.