Jess looks worried, which makes me think about the second reason Ben is suffering less than I am. This one I don’t share with Jess. I have never said it aloud or even written it in my journal. It is something I have always been aware of on some level, but have not allowed myself to dwell on. Until now, there wasn’t any point in addressing it.
The reason is this: I am pretty sure that I love Ben more than he loves me. I know he loves me a lot. I know he loves me more than he loved Nicole or anyone else. But I still think I love him more . It’s one of those things you never know for certain because there’s no way to enter all the relationship data in a computer and have it spit out a definitive answer. You can’t quantify love, and if you try, you can wind up focusing on misleading factors. Stuff that really has more to do with personality the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relationship. But beyond such smokescreens, the answer is there. Love is seldom almost never an even proposition. Someone always loves more.
In our relationship, that person is me. With some couples, it can switch back and forth. But in the beginning, middle, and end of ours, I think I’ve consistently loved him more. Ben would tell me I’m being ridiculous but if somehow he were forced to answer honestly, I think he’d acknowledge the truth of my claim. I think he’d also agree that it has nothing to do with our merits as people. I think we’re roughly equally smart, successful, funny, and attractive, which seems to comprise the Big Four in the crass business of mate comparison. I am Ben’s approximate equal and have always felt secure, confident, and worthy. But still. I happen to love Ben slightly more, which has the effect of making you fear losing someone more than if it were the other way around.
Which brings me to another point. I think I have always had the misguided sense that worry and fear serve as an insurance policy of sorts. On a subconscious level, I subscribe to the notion that if you worry about something, it is somehow less likely to happen. Well, I am here to say that it doesn’t work like that. The very thing you fear the most can still happen anyway. And when it does, you feel that much more cheated for having feared it in the first place.
* * *
five
Sorrow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, your denial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You also have the old standby catch all the blind belief in fate, the whole “things happening for a reason” drill.
But my personal favorite defense has always been anger, with its trusty offshoots of self-righteous indignation, bitterness, and resentment.
I remember the first time I realized that people turn to anger in sad times. I was in kindergarten, and Jimmy Moore’s dad had just died of a heart attack while lugging their Christmas tree in from the garage. A few weeks later, my mother and I ran into Jimmy and his mother in the grocery store. I peered at Jimmy from behind our cart with morbid curiosity while my mother asked Mrs. Moore how she was doing. Mrs. Moore shook her head and clenched her fist. “I’m so furious at God right now,” she said.
Jimmy and I exchanged a glance and then cast our eyes down. I think we were both startled. And I know I was a little scared. I hadn’t heard of anyone having a bone to pick with God. It seemed like a dangerous thing to be doing. I also remember thinking there must be something very wrong with Jimmy’s mom for feeling anything other than pure, unadulterated grief upon her husband’s death. Anger didn’t seem like it should have been part of the equation.