Competing with Water

When I was a sophomore in college, I asked Jack to join my family on our summer vacation.  My parents said I could bring a friend.  They were very surprised that I invited my boyfriend, but decided to let me bring him.  My brother also brought a friend.  We went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where my parents rented a house near the water for a week.  Jack was a swimmer in college, so a trip to the ocean was a good thing for him.

It was a good week, all in all, with a few memorable moments.  Jack got a horrid sunburn and had a painfully itchy back as a result.  He thought his Chinese genes protected his skin and he wouldn't get burned.  No such luck.  My dad and Jack went deep sea fishing together, and both my father and Jack got a bad case of seasickness as the small boat jostled in the waves.  My father was called back from vacation to attend a meeting for work.  My brother had just graduated from high school and I was in college.  This was the only time we could take a family vacation given our schedules.  This time was sacred.  My father's company had gone through three presidents in a year, and the new one was especially difficult.  Being called back for a non-essential meeting was the last straw.  My father flew back to Ohio, went to the meeting, quit his job, and flew back to South Carolina for the rest of the week.  Now that I think about it, that might have been the last trip my parents, brother and I took together.

In spite of the itch back, seasickness and my father quitting his job, it was a good trip.  It was on this trip that I fell in love with Jack.  I had always liked him, enjoyed his company and so on.  But this was the trip where I knew I needed him.  I couldn't sleep at night, knowing he was in another bedroom across the hall.  I had liked other guys before, but I never found one who kept me awake at night.

Anyone can fall in love on vacation.  It is a cliche.  The Go-Go's had a song about it in the 1980's.  Grease is about summer love meeting reality.  Nevertheless, there I was.  This was different because I fell in love with a guy I had been dating for a year, a guy who I would see in the fall when we returned to Chicago for school.  This was more than a summer romance, more than a cute boy I met at the beach.  Part of the reason it was easier to fall in love there was because we were removed from homework, finals, swimming, friends, laundry and everything else.

In college, Jack swam.  He was a walk-on on the varsity team.  He had a big heart, lots of passion, but his skinny 5'10'' frame couldn't compete with men who were four to six inches taller.  But he tried and never gave up.  He perfected his technique on his stroke, showing me at dinner in the air the best way to butterfly.  Jack has always been a passionate guy.  He never does anything half-baked or half-way.  He is all in or not at all.

Jack loves water.  Unlike other guys I was attracted to in college, Jack couldn't dance.  In the water, though, he had a grace I have never seen him possess on land.  He didn't just float, he skimmed the surface, dancing on the water.

On the day before we left vacation, we went to the beach.  The water was warm and the waves were high.  Jack dove and jumped for about a half an hour.  I watched, sitting on the beach.  His back was to mine, but I could sense something: joy.  I had never seen Jack so happy as when he was jumping and diving into the crashing waves.  His hands caressed the crests of the waves as the smaller ones slipped passed as he waited for the bigger ones.  The next time I had ever seen him so happy was the day he graduated from medical school.  I took the afternoon off from work to join his family for the ceremony and dinner.

I remember thinking at the time that I could not compete with water.  It wasn't a sad or tragic thought; rather, that I could never make Jack as happy as he was playing in the water that day.  I didn't know what the idea meant at the time.  Jack is passionate about ideas, work and play.  In some ways, that is what attracted me to him.  In high school, I had a few boyfriends who doted on me, which I didn't find appealing.  I wanted someone who had strong interests in the outside world.  I wanted someone who was independent versus treating me like I was their prized petunia.

And now, all it has fallen out of whack.  Jack's interests and independence had taken over such that I was no longer a part of his emotional or intellectual life.  We were boiled down to the practical, and I took care of almost all of that.  What is left?