created to propagate our species.
R: Two words about that: throw pillows.
K: Throw pillows?
R: Dudes learning to properly arrange throw pillows on the couch because that’s how she likes it.
K: What do you mean by that?
R: There’s a direct connection between primal mating impulses rooted in biological survival instincts and the intentional organizing of decorative cushions.
K: In other words, our species has an astonishing ability to adapt.
And then there’s the Jagger Theory (as in, Mick), which states in a very straightforward manner that monogamy isn’t our natural inclination so why do we keep torturing ourselves with this outdated and antiquated custom that shackles two people to the constricting notion that they must remain exclusively and faithfully committed to each other with no other experiences of a similar sort until one of them is left standing over the grave of the other?
That question leads to another question, one many people have about marriage: Has any institution/idea/arrangement caused so many people so much agony? Is there a greater ache than giving your heart—not to mention your life—to someone, only to have it collapse and fall apart on you?
Some say the expectations are the problem. If people just lived together in peace and harmony without all the legal obligations and wedding rings and assumptions that come from having a public ceremony in front of your friends and family with cake and an eighties cover band, then there would be a lot less heartache if things don’t work out. But sharing your life with someone—whatever that looks like—always involves challenges, and if you part ways, that kind of pain is always heartbreaking.
But whether there’s a ceremony or a ring or a legal document or not, whether it’s biology or cultural conditioning or simply pressure from the relatives, there is an enduring human longing to share our life with someone.
For us, it started in a pickup truck.
It was an early eighties Mazda pickup with a cab on the back and black stripes down the side.
R: I bought it from my neighbor, Dr. Dull.
K: It had a cassette player bolted under the dashboard with the smallest speakers you’ve ever seen.
R: That’s what you remember about that truck—its tiny speakers?
K: What I remember most are the butterflies I had in my stomach the first time I got into that truck. I was living in Arizona at the time and Rob was living in Los Angeles, and when I was accepted into a master’s program at USC, I called him and asked if he would help me find a place to live.
R: Which sounded a little suspicious to me because it was January and her program didn’t start until June.
K: I could say I was just planning ahead—but the truth is, I wanted to know whether this was something more than a friendship.
R: So as I pulled up to “Arrivals” at the airport, I had the strong sense that there was something else going on here. I thought it was better just to get it out in the open, and so when she got in the truck I asked her, “What percentage of your visit is actually to look for a place to live?” She smiled and said, “Well, it makes a great excuse.” I will never forget the BOOM!!! that went off in my heart when she said that.
K: Maybe we should back up for a moment. I grew up in Arizona, Rob grew up in Michigan, and we met on a tennis court our freshman year at Wheaton College.
R: To be honest, I knew who she was before we met on that tennis court. During freshmen orientation they gave us a book called Who’s New, which was filled with pictures of incoming freshmen. My friends and I spent hours poring over that book. One of those first days of college, sitting in my room in Traber dorm, I came across Kristen’s picture. Wow, I thought. I should meet her, so that we could, um, study together.
K: I don’t remember Rob studying much, but I do remember once during that freshman year having a conversation with him about cactus. He was fascinated with cactus and couldn’t imagine that I came from a place where we had a large cactus in our yard.
R: Fascinated with cactus? (Cacti?) Really? That may be the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard for chatting up a girl. I suddenly developed an interest in cactus? Did I know how pathetic that must have sounded at the time?
K: Apparently it worked because that summer I sent him a letter (remember those?) with a photo of me standing next to a very large cactus.
R: I remember that photo. And I remember those letters. Our friendship was like that for four years—inside jokes, letters back and forth, having a meal together every now and then, going out as a group with my friends and her friends.
K: I’d go watch Rob’s band perform. He had written one song in particular that moved me. The fact that he’d written those lyrics made me wonder what else was in there.
All of which brings us to graduation.
K: I was headed home to work in Arizona.
R: And I was moving to California, which meant driving through Arizona. In one of the first conversations Kristen and I ever had, we talked about waterskiing, and she said that her family had a MasterCraft, which to me was about the greatest boat a person could own, so I said, “Well, I ought to stop by sometime and we could go waterskiing.”
K: Which I thought would never actually happen. But then at graduation he reminded me of that conversation four years earlier, and he said, “Can I stop by at the end of the summer so we can go waterskiing?” A few months later he showed up at my parents’ house and stayed for several days. When he left, I hoped I would see him again. But I had no idea how that would work.
R: And so I continued on to L.A.
K: And I continued on with my life.
R: And I moved in with my eighty-two-year-old grandmother to take care of her while I went to seminary.
K: And then I got the early acceptance letter from USC, and I called him to tell him I’d be moving to L.A.—and the next thing I knew I was getting in that truck and saying, “It makes a great excuse.”
R: Which was a great line, by the way. Classic.
K: Thank you. But I think there’s an important point to make to here. I knew what I was getting into, and I’m not just talking about the truck. I already knew his friends, his family; I’d seen him in all kinds of different situations—there weren’t any surprises. I was ready to see whether this was headed somewhere.
R:
