I was leaning into the glow of my vanity light, curling my eyelashes and dabbing serum under my eyes, lost in the small rituals that feel familiar to me—rituals tied up tightly with confidence, beauty, and carefully curated appearances. I was in my twenties, bouncing between relationships as if testing out new shoes—excited by the fit, but always slipping out of them before they had time to wear in.
Then came a sound I’ll never forget.
Mid-swipe of mascara, the bathroom door across the hall opened just a crack. A groan—low, ragged, painful—cut through the hum of my routine. My father’s discomfort, layered with vulnerability, drifted into my room. I froze, brush in mid-air. Confusion fluttered in my chest. I hadn’t expected this kind of intimacy directed my way yet—so personal, so unsettling, so honest.
I heard the evidence of struggle—a clatter of something falling, possibly breaking. In an otherwise controlled world, a mess was now erupting. My mother’s voice followed: steady, gentle, full of unconditional warmth. “It’s okay, Chris,” she said, using his name—not as a label, but as a tether. “I’m here.”
The compassion in that phrase—simple, yet profound—pulled me out of my mirror-lens world. “I’m here” wasn’t about cleaning up a spill or administering medicine. It was about showing up, body and soul, without hesitation or performance. It echoed in me, nudging something deeper awake.
When I finished with my makeup—every curl, every coat—I sat on the edge of my bed, the door cracked wide enough to let in the echoes of humanity. The mascara hardened on my lashes, but tears pooled in my lap and slipped down my jeans—not because I was sad, but because I finally saw what I’d been missing. That moment, tucked between vanity and vulnerability, was where I found marriage.
If fairytales teach us to expect glittering proposals, candlelit dinners, or effortless laughter, then the real lessons often come in grit, in discomfort, in standing with someone when they’re stripped of ceremony and pride. My father’s prostate cancer had already tested their marriage—body, ego, identity—but here, in embarrassment and pain, unconditional love made itself visible.
I realized in that stillness that I had been searching for fulfillment in sketchy pursuits, in fleeting flirtations that shone bright but offered no constancy. But what I witnessed—a partner steady in crisis, a caregiver tender in humiliation—melded something new inside me. I wanted that: not perfection, but steadfastness. Not avoidance of pain, but attentive presence through it.
Years later, I would replay that moment during my own marriage’s tangled lows—the times when words failed and love had to slip in through small gestures: staying silent as tears fell, pressing cool water to a forehead, or simply whispering, “I’m here.” Because love, I understood now, is not a fleeting high—it’s the soft insistence of presence in our messiest chapters.
So I turned away from superficial bouncing and toward something more enduring. Mess-making, pain-bearing, beauty-simplified, vulnerability’s embrace—this is where I realized I wanted my own life to settle. It may not be glamorous, but it is real. And that’s worth staying for.