“What do you call a divorced couple that wants to get back together?" asked Emi.
"What do you tell everybody? They will probably judge us like 'why do they get back together, they will break up again at any moment. If their love was strong, they wouldn't have gotten a divorce in the first place' and things like that," he continued.
Eva thought that life gets only more complicated when we care about what others think. Emi was an expert in such worries. Eva, not so much. "Maybe that's the reason so many breaked couples never get back together even if they want to. Society makes it complicated for them. Judging them without knowing the full picture." was her kind and indirect response. She learned not to say straight forward what she means, since some people don't take it nicely to be directly corrected.
Many women of my generation suffer from having to be subtle. Directness is not appreciated as a feminine trait. We leave that for men who are rewarded when they are confrontative. Maybe it has to do with their testosterone levels? It's very hard to be subtle when you feel the need to defend yourself.
In this case Eva didn't feel like she had to defend herself, she was merely comforting the troubled feeling of her soon to be husband again.
Emi looked at her eyes with so much love and said "you're probably right, it doesn't really matter what others think if we are sure about each others feelings." Eva was surprised that he got her meaning. One more reason to come back together. Even if it doesn’t last forever. They always agreed that the option to break up has to always be there, so no one ever feels like they are trapped in a relationship.
Emi and Eva go way back. They met in highschool but didn't get along until after graduating from college and having been in different relationships. When they found each other again at a friend’s party, they clicked instantly.
Their love story is a common one. They started dating a lot at the beginning. Eventually one of them switched jobs so they could live together. Started planning years ahead of them, bought stuff for their home, announced their plans to get married, threw a big party, and started living the adult life of a settled couple.
Everything was going just fine. Life was good to them. Everything would have been good if it hadn’t been that they skipped an important part of the process: they forgot to dream big.
So when life started getting monotonous and the excitement of everything new about each other went by... they started to distaste each other. Everyone else's life looked so much more exciting than their own. Eventually even watching a movie together felt more of a responsibility than a romantic date. Cooking together became tedious. In their first years of relationship they used to clean together after eating. Now they preferred dividing the tasks so each one could listen to their favorite podcast or music instead of talking. It didn't help that none of them particularly loved their job. It was ok, they made a decent living. They even had enough money to save for trips. Vacations they didn't really want to take since their last trip had gone so wrong. It was so filled with discussions and disappointments that secretly each of them decided never to do it again. If a plan to travel ever came up in conversations with friends they both said something like "it would be nice to visit this place", "yeah, I hope someday we go!". But none of them moved a finger to make it happen.
Eva watched her friend's instagram posts with envy. Her friends looked like they were truly in love with their respective couples, specially those in new relationships. Emi's outings with his friends became more sparse and boring every year. They all had boring corporate jobs. The friends who started businesses were so busy or traveling so often that they stopped attending their plans, so only the les ambitious ones were left.
Life became a boring succession of events. This made Emi feel sad and Eva angry. So they started arguing over simple stuff like who left food go bad again, who picked the awful movie they were watching that night, why was it so difficult to organize the maintenance and "important" stuff of the house.
He wanted children, but Eva was delaying her decision of growing their family. Pushed even forward due to her absence of motivation towards life. So he lived frustrated, not knowing what to expect of his life long term.
One day after watching the movie La La Land... they both realized that a divorce was their best option at the moment. If they didn't feel love anymore, why stick together? So she took her stuff one day to her sister’s house. And even though Emi was supposed to stay at their house, he started frequenting his parents’ house so much, and his sleepovers became so frequent that he virtually lived with his parents again.
Life stopped being boring, but continued to be sad for both of them. They didn’t dare ask the other how they were. He started using his socials again to see how she was doing. She looked happy in her pictures. So he started posting some, too. With his parents, and about the delicious food they make. He looked at his parents one day to ask "how are you still together and happy?” but really thinking “where did I fail?"
Their parents, kind and supportive, never questioned Emi about the divorce. When he came with the news, they each gave him an embrace and offered all the support he needed. They knew better than to ask before he was ready to talk. But when the day finally came, they had their answers prepared already.
"We are not always happy Emi, you know" started his mother. "Some days are really bad, and we have even discussed getting a divorce before" continued his dad. His mom looked at his dad with tenderness in her eyes "I am glad we never carried forward with it. Because despite all the bad and hard moments, the good ones were always better. Always worth it."
Emi's dad kissed her hand. And she pretended to blush and acted coquettish. After so many years together, what could possibly cause her to blush, they knew each other perfectly, Emi wondered. He didn't remember the last time he kissed Eva's hand like that. It had been years since he showed this level of affection and attention. But now he has lost his chance to try it. At least he was happy his parents had found a way to keep their love alive. And despite the sadness he had in his life, he felt the glimmer of joy, of empathy. Knowing he didn't have to feel the love himself to also feel this joyful made him even more reflective.
On the other hand, Eva was happy when around her sister. She had become a successful artist in her field, and living an intense and stimulating life, meeting new people all the time, having new project and coordinating events. Eva thought this must be draining, wouldn't want that for herself, but rejoiced every evening when coming back from the busy day her sister found time to spend with her and tell Eva about her adventures.
Eva wished she had chosen a more rewarding career path. She was a blue collar administrator, beloved in her office for her effective work, but felt very little satisfaction on the rewards and praise she received. When she asked her sister what's the secret to finding her passion she replied "you don't find your passion, the passion finds you when you are doing new stuff. Then, you know when it hits you and you want to continue doing that always”.
“Is it really that simple?" asked Eva. She couldn't imagine wasting so much time doing random stuff, but if it was as easy as that, she was willing to give it a try. "Hell yeah," replied her sister. "As easy as one, two, three."
She thought again for a second about her response and complemented it "it is easy to find your passion, but not so easy to pursue it. The world is cruel with the artists, creators and change makers. Some family and friends may judge you too harshly for trying untested paths. You may not find your right audience and feel like a failure at some point, especially at the beginning. But you gotta listen to your heart and carry on, adapt, adjust, and find the way."
"You make it look so easy, lil sis," was Eva's response.
"Thank you, I am glad that after all these years it is getting easier," said her sister.
Eva wondered about persistence and commitment and asked herself if she had ever persisted in something? Not even in her relationship with Emi which she gave up easily. She didn't understand the art of love in a relationship but maybe it is only because she didn't explore new things to find her passion. She regretted having lost her opportunity to try.
Both Eva and Emi felt lonely the night they had those conversations. They were not magically connected, these conversations did not on the same day, by the way. Each at their time were thinking about what went wrong with their lives, and ended up discovering that the problems were never about the relationship but about their own expectations of life.
They had never before seen life this way, unique, full of possibilities. They wanted to tell each other the moment they realized. But both thought the other must be already carrying on with their lives. And didn't want to bother the other. The decision had been made. Their lives were separated forever.
Until the force of destiny, or maybe just a beautiful coincidence, depending on what your philosophy of life is, they found each other at a random coffee shop slash bakery slash library. It was a rainy day. One of those that keeps everyone in their houses. So the coffee shop was nearly empty. Emi saw Eva the moment she walked in and almost jumped in excitement. Which confused him. He didn't expect to see her and thought that he would be sad if he ever saw her.
Eva was startled to see him. Nervous even. She had assumed she broke his heart and would never like to see her again. So when he called her name, and she recognised the beautiful voice she knew so well, her heart started racing. What an odd feeling, she thought. Anyway, she smiled and waved back at him. "Emi, so good to see you!" she said in automatic mode, not thinking really before speaking. Was it good to see him?
Emi was scared as hell but said it anyway, with a slight tremble in his voice "can I invite you a cappuccino?" she noticed the tremble but her response was a natural "I'd be delighted."
He had never taken her for coffee before. He doesn't drink anything energetic. No soda, no coffee, no tea, not even beer. She had always wanted to share coffee dates with him, but hated that he didn't like coffee. At the same time she loved that he didn't drink any alcohol. On the other hand he didn't understand people who loved coffee, but enjoyed how the cappuccino foam leaves traces above her lips. When she gave the first sip, and before she cleaned the foam, the scene made him remember how it felt to kiss her.
The tension alleviated a bit when they started talking, at first about what was new in their lives. "I got as new job," said Eva. "I wanted to start something new so I quit my position as a manager... and started as a regular position in the innovation department at an NGO dedicated to teaching girls and women more about all things feminine health, with a big emphasis on our menstrual cycles." She started, timidly, recognizing she was giving up a successful career and thought maybe he would be disappointed. ‘Why would I even care if he was disappointed?’ she wondered. But as she was speaking his smile only widened and she continued telling with ease details of her position and projects and how she wanted to become a project manager for impact projects. After an hour talking she realized she hadn't even asked about him. "Emi, but tell me, how have you been?" and he melted when he heard her say his name again. There was a two seconds delay before he could reply. "Things have also changed a great deal for me. I spend a lot of time with my parents and went back to my old workshop to continue some projects I had left undone".
"That's amazing Emi! I remember how you used to love building stuff. Do you have pictures of your projects?" asked Eva as enthusiastically as when she was retelling her projects. So Emi got his turn to speak for almost an hour about his current woodwork experiments and showed her photographs of all the progress. He got so excited and forgot himself when he started talking about the fablab and the marvelous things he would like to pursue but didn't have time for because of his boring job.
"Then quit," interrupted Eva abruptly.
This shocked Emi. "I cannot quit, I have to pay rent and food, and you know, adult stuff."
"My salary is not like before, but it is enough for me and to share," she offered. Emi stared at her blankly. He was in shock but she only realized after five seconds or so of uncomfortable silence about her wild offering to her ex husband. Blushed, she excused herself and went to the lavatory to wash her face and breath.
She was taking so long that Emi was already leaving the café thinking maybe she didn't want to see him anymore and could save her the embarrassment of explaining herself. But she came back on time before he left for the door. She had to raise her voice to stop him "Wait! Emi..."
He turned around, like in the song, with bright eyes. The rain was clearing outside, and beautifully some rays of sunshine were finding their way to the café. He realized that perfect moments like this, romantic in nature, are only so because of the feelings one feels. ‘There are no perfect moments in life,’ he thought. ‘You make them perfect’. So he went straight to her, held her hands, and she let him. They smiled. And breathed almost in synchrony.
"Emi," she broke the silence, "I hadn't realized how much I've missed you". Tears of joy and freedom rushed to his face. She started crying too, but differently, because she had already cried a lot in the last months in confusion. He hadn't, he didn't know how to cry as much as her.
"I have missed you since the day you left. Didn't dare tell you, but I am so glad to hear you say this. I have felt regret for all the opportunities I missed to be with you. Would you give us another chance?" he adventured asking, readying his heart for another break in case she said no.
She laughed. Not a funny laugh, but a relief laugh, which confused him for the long moment she took to reply "Emi, thank you for asking. I think It would be awesome to give us another chance."
They left the café for a walk in the sun. And thus we are back in the beginning, finding our divorced couple wondering how to proceed, how to tell everybody. They did what a modern couple would do. Posted a picture together and let her family and friends wonder on social media what was going on. She received many messages from her friends asking what the hell. He only got a message from his parents, separately. His father sent him a "cheers!" and her mother an emoji heart. And then, a dozen other cute emojis.
They walked while the world continued turning and asked about each other's life plans, and planned the logistics for the next steps. Moving back together might be messier than the first time. But they were happy planning all this, determined to start a renewed life as an undivorced couple.
