A Story Of Two Gifts
A couple weeks ago, Patrick woke me up with an early Christmas gift.
Keep in mind, my boyfriend is not one for grand romantic gestures or surprises. We have long discussions about love as a social construct and arguments about whether the institution of marriage is more a tool of capitalism or patriarchy. We “celebrate” Valentine’s Day by making sure we have enough groceries, so we don’t have to actually go out and brave the crowds. Patrick’s idea of a heart-to-heart involves the words, “I do not find you fundamentally irritating.” Translated into Normal People Language, it’s supposed to mean something along the lines of “I can tolerate you for long periods of time, so let’s indefinitely live together in sin”. That may seem far-fetched given the original statement, but I assure you it’s the intended sentiment. (It’s taken me nearly four years to figure out how to decipher the man. Perhaps one day, I will write a translation guide to Patrick.) This isn’t to say that Patrick doesn’t have his own particular ways of showing that he cares, but at this point in our relationship, I’d probably be more bewildered than touched if I came home to roses and a candlelit bath.
So when he informed me that he had a surprise for me, I was intrigued … and a little confused. We don’t always exchange gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, or holidays — at least, it isn’t expected, since neither of us is very good at planning things that far in advance. My confusion was compounded when he presented me with the very old and soiled laptop pouch that used to contain my PowerBook G4 (which was near-death by the time I retired it). Inside it, he said, was my surprise.
It was an external hard drive. It contained the recovered contents of the aforementioned laptop, which I used from 2005 to 2008, during my first three years of college, when I was writing Sex And The Ivy. That laptop, long inaccessible due to wear and tear, had moved with me from my Harvard dorm to Patrick’s old Beacon Hill apartment to our current residence in the Back Bay. For reasons of cost and inconvenience, I never managed to get the data recovered. I figured I would do it if I ever got serious about writing a book but I instead left it forgotten in the back of a closet. He apparently dug it out without me noticing (not such a hard task), and four years later, I am finally able to access all the emails I sent, all the instant message conversations I had, all my old writing, and a more-or-less complete list of every person I slept with prior to meeting Patrick. (Perhaps fittingly, that was the first document I pulled up and his name was the last entry.)
I don’t think it’s possible to convey just how much this means. In some ways, I feel like he gave me a part of my memories back (which might seem like a strange sentiment to all but the most hardcore of record-keepers and diarists). But more significantly, I was struck by how he simply knew that this was what I needed most at this very moment. No one else would have thought of this. No one else could have thought of this, because he is the only person who understands the full extent of the writer’s block I went through during most of 2011. He watched me struggle to finish a book proposal for a memoir I’m no longer writing. He saw me become increasingly drained by freelance assignments that didn’t creatively challenge me. He talked me through my fears and frustrations and reassured me that I had not, in fact, forgotten how to write. And just as I started to make a slow but promising recovery, he gave me this gift. So that I could remember the person I used to be.
Four years ago, I couldn’t have fully appreciated a gesture like this. I didn’t really know or understand him at all back then. When we first started going out, I was taken aback by Patrick’s less-than-expressive tendencies, and as such, I was constantly wondering whether he considered this a serious relationship, whether he felt the same way I did, whether he felt at all for anyone, period. (And before you say, “It’s a German thing”, I assure that it is not, in fact, a German thing but a Patrick thing.) It’s funny how I don’t really need or even want any of the old reassurances anymore. People ask how I can be confident of the longevity of our relationship if we’re not going to get married or have kids or do any of the kinds of things that normally tie you to another person for the rest of your life. And the thing is, I’m not confident. I’m not at all. I don’t know who he or I will be when we are older and graying, and even if I did, I’m not sure there’s a point to promising each other “forever”, when everyone knows that promises like that get broken all the time.
This uncertainty used to bother me, but less so as time went on. Besides, none of the traditional expressions of love could have made me feel more certain of our relationship, because they weren’t him and by virtue, they weren’t us. So I didn’t want a ring or the ludicrous image of Patrick on one knee. I didn’t want a formal ceremony or legal document. I didn’t want a promise of forever. I didn’t want any of it, not now and probably not ever. This hard drive, on the other hand, was something I did want. I just never expected to get it, never even thought of it. And the fact that he knows me better sometimes than I know myself, the fact that he realized how desperately I needed this - it is more of a declaration than anything I could have asked for.
And that, I suppose, is the other gift I didn’t expect to receive.
