As my husband and I took our seats at the Walter Kerr Theatre last fall, I knew he deserved the truth.
I leaned over my red velvet seat. “I’m afraid I might leave you for Bruce if I could,” I whispered. He nodded, half-smiling, and did not look up from his Springsteen on Broadway playbill.
My husband was not concerned by this newsflash because he is a reasonable, mature adult. I, on the other hand, was battling a soul-wrenching desire for a man that had been in the shadows of the entirety of our 24-year marriage.
I understood that millions and millions of others shared my feelings. The difference was, Bruce Springsteen was actually interfering in my marriage.
What do you do when the angst-ridden, lovesick teenager living inside you refuses to grow up? When art and fantasy sometimes make real-life love feel kind of lonely?
My inner-teen had followed me into my 20s, right into the cramped Greenwich Village dive bar where my husband and I first met. Like a homing pigeon, my gaze landed on his deep brown eyes, his dark, tousled hair and a face that was past-life familiar. Two margaritas in, I figured it out: He reminded me of my first love, the man whose voice had been the soundtrack of my life since I was 15.
“Isn’t he cute?” I said to my friend.
“Yeah, he is,” she said. “So talk to him!”
“No, you talk to him.”
One second later, she leaned across the bar and did. After staring at my boots for awhile, I worked myself up enough to talk to him. He was in medical school. I wrote for a magazine. My family was loving and opinionated. So was his. He was funny, wholesome and handsome. Things were looking good.
“So what kind of music do you like?” he asked, pushing up the sleeves of his grey flannel shirt.
I didn’t want my answer to sound like a litmus test, but it was.
“Springsteen.”
“Springsteen.” His eyes flashed. “There’s no one like him.”
It was the goldmine of shortcuts, the dog whistle we both heard that meant we were both deep, sensitive and appealingly tortured.
And now, a quarter-century later, here we were in the fourth row mezzanine waiting to see our favorite musician. But instead of being ecstatic, I was feeling strangely despondent.
THIS COMPLETE STRANGER STILL SOOTHED THE PRIVATE PAIN OF LIVING IN A WAY THAT MY HUSBAND COULD NOT.
Gradually, I realized why. Even after all these years, a complete stranger backstage still soothed my private, unarticulated pain of living in a way that my husband could not. Yes, I had built a small civilization with my husband. We were bound in body, heart and home, honed by the miracles and partial messes of two children, two dogs and 27 years in one queen-sized bed. I loved who he was, the way he fathered, and the way he drummed his fingers when he was happy.
And yet, time had cast between us its unmistakable matte finish. Our love was like the giant oak tree in our backyard, with its roots sunk deep and entwined, its trunk immovable, its canopy giving cover from life’s winds. But, I still longed to feel in my husband’s company more like the way I felt in Bruce’s—enveloped in the raw essence of life and desire.
Here in the muted fields of our middle place in life, the prospects were looking a little dim.
Exhibit A: Springsteen to his girlfriend in his song
“Born to Run”
Wendy let me in I want to be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs ’round these velvet rims
And strap your hands ‘cross my engines
Exhibit B: My husband to me
Hon, the puppy puked on the rug again
We should clean it up before it dries
Still feeling fat from date night
Maybe just salads tonight
The love between Bruce and me? I imagined it like this: He was an aspiring rock star from Asbury Park, New Jersey. I was a frizzy-haired eighth grader from Prairie Village, Kansas. But we shared a language. We shared a soul. How could my husband possibly compete with the secret longing for Bruce that seemed as strong as it was a lifetime ago when I used to stare at The River album cover so long and hard that, in the right light, it looked like Bruce was looking right at me?
On the other hand, unlike Bruce, my husband backs up my computer without telling me. He sticks his thumb into just the right place at the base of my skull when I feel a migraine coming on. When I’m up at 3:00 a.m., he’s up with me, ready to help solve world and family crises. And at the end of the day when he walks through the door in blue hospital scrubs, mail in hand, my heart still sings.
HOW COULD MY HUSBAND POSSIBLY COMPETE WITH THE SECRET LONGING FOR BRUCE?
And then there’s the other other hand. At the end of those long days caring for patients, my husband is often out of words. There are fewer cards, no more poems. And although we are blessedly compatible, our several go-to fight topics are so exhaustingly predictable that they’ve been assigned numbers, invoked in order to spare us the actual conversation. “Fight number 4, Hon! Fight number 4!”
So what was a teenaged/middle-aged heart to do? How could I shake myself loose from my age-worn yearning for a fantasy love? I looked at my husband sitting next to me in the theater, brow knitted, scrolling through his emails, his brown hair threaded with silver. I had no answer.
The lights went down and the crowd erupted. Springsteen walked onto the stage in his usual black jeans and boots, guitar in hand, every bit as raw and sexy as he was when I first saw him at 15 years old. My heart raced. “You’re looking a little older out there,” he chuckled. We were.
The experience was transcendent. I flashed back over the years. Camping out in the Ticketmaster line on the floor of my college student union. Watching Bruce play through decades of his life—and mine. The thrill of bringing our kids to their first show, and how within 30 minutes they were asleep and drooling on their overpriced concert t-shirts.
The audience sat in rapt silence. For two hours, Springsteen talked, laughed his gravelly laugh, told stories. Every song was an anthem, a prayer in rapture of life’s wonder and loss. He put down his guitar and sat down on a stool.
“You know, all my life I wanted to create something. Something that could last. Something I could give to you, something that would get passed on to my children and maybe even your children.”
I WANTED SO MUCH TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN THE LOVE I FELT FOR BOTH MEN IN THE ROOM.
I choked down a sob and looked over at my husband. I wanted so much to bridge the gap between the love I felt for both men in the room.
I leaned over. “Hon,” I whispered. “Hon.”
“Yeah,” he said, but he was avoiding my gaze.
In the light of the stage, I saw he was crying.
I took in the beauty of his face. Its map was my daily bread, lined with the years of us and our life together. It was a face I loved like no other. I looked at my husband’s hand in my lap, always ready to hold, his fingers drumming against mine. I felt his warmth and strength. I felt our oak tree-solid love and devotion to one another. I felt the tapestry of our history, the years of fun and growth and discovery we’d shared, how we’d helped each other grow up, and hold up, through the losses and joys of all of our life’s passages.
What we have, of course, isn’t perfect. But what I realized that night was that maybe that’s where the grace lives. Because in that rich, invisible space between relishing all we have and longing for what we don’t, we have the chance to keep trying to make things more right—more beautiful—right here in real life.
I looked at my husband next to me—generous, imperfect, devoted, human. I wiped away my tears. Something clutched inside me, then let go. The lovesick girl grew quiet and small, peaceful with a new understanding. I squeezed my husband’s hand and he pulled me to him, kissed my face.
We made our way down the stairs, hand in hand, carried forward by the other man in both of our lives.
Outside the theater, the fans squeezed around ropes that cordoned off the stage door, hoping to catch Bruce leaving, hoping for a glimpse, a smile.
We walked on.
This article was originally published in The Oprah Magazine.
