我爱你，但是我们五年后再见吧（下篇|纯英文）

Let’s Meet Again in Five Years

By Karen B. Kaplan

Published Aug. 23, 2019

Updated Oct. 30, 2019

She had to work that afternoon and evening, so I was (quite happily) on my own for the walk from the Upper West Side to Midtown. A few minutes before 4 p.m., I found myself standing across the street from the library, scanning the small crowd in front, when suddenly I saw Howard heading toward the library's steps.

It wasn’t immediately “happily ever after” for us. I had to extricate myself from the relationship with the other guy. Howard and I also had to figure out how we were going to live in the same city.

That fall I moved to the Bay Area for a couple of months on a work assignment. A few months later, he moved to Minneapolis, where we stayed for two years before moving to New York. And, yes, once we were back east, we married.

I still resisted calling our story romantic. Friends who had heard the story tended to exaggerate the details, saying things like, “And you didn’t see each other for 10 years?”Actually, it was a five-year plan. And it was only three years that we were fully out of touch.Or they’ll say: “And you always knew …”

No, that was the whole point of the agreement. We didn’t always know. Even after the meeting, it took a while for us to move in together. When we moved to New York, we agreed we would have to see how things worked out with jobs before making any promises.

What is true is how the story has helped sustain our relationship through times of trouble. I would have hated to end the story with, “Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.” With a story like that, of course we had to stay together. A romantic past, we’ve discovered, can help keep you belted in place until you find equilibrium.Still, I insisted the story was about foresight and prudence, not romance. I only shared the story with people who wouldn’t think I was trying to live my life like a movie — who would know the story was about being smart in love, not starry-eyed.

For years, I ended the story with: “I thought I was just being practical in giving us a second chance. It turned out to be a good plan.” “Well, the plan may have been practical,” a friend said recently. “But the fact that you both showed up: There’s the romance.”He was right. It was our complete faith in the other person — despite others’ cautions — that defined the romance. We showed up for each other.

We now have been married for 35 years. Howard still shows up for me, and I show up for him. The torn dollar bill is in a frame on his dresser.