For now we still share the same house. We love and care for our two children. The kids need us. In some ways, we still need each other. We want to do this right. We're taking things slow.

We're in uncharted waters -- operating on instinct, through our affection and respect for each other. I don't know how this will work or how long it will take. I only hope we come out on the other side separate but whole.

-- Anonymous

Sometimes you just know. Or do you?

So I'm on the phone with my big sister, looking at bridesmaids' dresses online. She's bitching about the paucity of options to flatter her upper arms ("Cap sleeves! God!") while I'm smiling to myself, basking in the knowledge that I have found The One. Martin and I both realize it's ridiculous to be talking about marriage after we've only been together for four weeks, but we just make so much sense together, and he's about to turn 40, and we are both good people with similar goals for the future, so why wait? I'm only 28, but Sylvia Ann Hewlett has informed me that my fertility is already in decline, and my sister has informed me that if I turn down my own personal Col. Brandon because he doesn't get me as sweaty as some pretentious, artsy 25-year-old tool, the family will no longer require my services.

Also, my shrink, who has in the past blatantly marshaled every ounce of her professionalism to keep from screaming "Dump the jackass!" at me (more than once), not only thinks Martin sounds great but says her parents got engaged after three weeks and stayed married for 50 years. Sometimes you just know, as they say.

Martin and I aren't actually engaged, because we are both entirely too pragmatic for that, even with my shrink's blessing. So instead we have conversations like:

"You know that wedding we're not officially having, because it would be ludicrous to be planning a wedding at this stage? Is it OK if I make an unofficial appointment for us to talk to someone about a reception at the Delta next summer?"

"Unofficially, I'm free Friday afternoon."

I have put off plans to move back to the city where I grew up, 500 miles away. Instead, we take a vacation to that city so Martin can meet my friends and family. They love him. How could they not? I fly 2,000 miles to meet his family. They love me. How could they not? We're both so nice! Personable! Compatible!

You want to know what kind of guy he is? He's the kind of guy who will go see Freaky Friday with me and my 9-year-old niece. And when I walk out of the theater, elbow my niece and say, "Seriously, how hot is Chad Michael Murray?" and she goes, "Totally!" he laughs good-naturedly and says, "Yeah, well, I've had a crush on Jamie Lee Curtis for 20 years, so I enjoyed it, too."

My niece and I turn and stare at him. I mean, I'm old enough to see where he's coming from: Jamie Lee Curtis is hot. I'm also young enough to see where my niece is coming from: "You were hot for the mom?"

Bah! Age is a construct! We're in love! We want all the same things! We make sense!

Fast-forward a few months. I'm driving to my hometown again to visit my friends solo, to really catch up this time. I've decided I'll visit at least once every three months, as long as I'm not actually moving there, because I love my friends in that city so much.

He's said he'll move to this city with me. He just can't leave for a couple of years. That's OK. He's just gotten this new promotion, and he's developing a product that could really make a name for him in the industry. Staying there makes sense, for now. I cross the border into the state where I grew up and wiggle happily along to the music on the radio, knowing I'll soon be having a beer with my oldest friends, the people who still make me feel most myself, in the place that was home for most of my life. It's OK that my adopted city is sort of home now, even though I was more than ready to pack up and leave it a few months ago. That was a flighty impulse anyway -- as my late mother always said, "Geography does not equal happiness." Also, "You're too flighty. Settle the hell down."

I know she's looking down on me now, pleased with the choices I've made recently. I know she's proud of me for giving up my wild, adolescent fantasies and finding a man who, above all, can be depended on to stay. Who will be a good father, a good provider, a loyal husband. Someone who will help me find my real, adult self, and put to rest the dreamer whose impulsive behavior and emotional recklessness probably contributed in some measure to my mom's heart problems. Someone to help me be more responsible, more... presentable.

I break up with Martin when I get back.

I want to say I still have doubts and regrets, but honestly... Nope. Despite Hewlett's dire warnings, my biological clock seems to have stopped dead. For the first time in my adult life, I don't particularly care where the next boyfriend will be coming from. For the first time in my entire life, I'm considering the possibility that I might never marry or have children, without being horrified by it. I do want those things, but now I can also imagine building a life for myself, by myself, around the people and work and places I already love. I'm starting to believe I can have, if I choose it, a universe with no center, a world in which flightiness and volatile emotions and chemistry and pheromones and pretentious, artsy tools are the pillars of long-term fulfillment, the things that will make me fully human.

-- Kate Harding

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