bittyjane

When my son was in kindergarten, he colored a picture of George Washington. It was a simple connect-the-dot drawing of his hat and then a line drawing of his bust. Matt colored it orange and green. He looked like an Oompa-Loompa. My fiancé was thrilled when he saw it. Overjoyed. I came home from work one day and saw it framed and hung up in our bathroom on the wall across from the commode.

“Hey Andrew?” I asked as I came out of the bathroom. “Why is George Washington in our bathroom?”

“Well, there’s a rumor that after the Revolutionary War, Ethan Allen was in London and he was invited to dinner at some guy’s house. After dinner, he went to take care of some business and saw that the bathroom was decorated only by a picture of George Washington. When he was done and went back to the parlor or whatever, the guy asked him if he liked the picture. Ethan Allen said he did. The guy asked him if he thought the placement of the picture was appropriate. He was a little disappointed, you know, that Ethan Allen didn’t seem offended that the president’s picture was hung up in the bathroom. Ethan Allen said that he found the placement appropriate.”

He stopped talking and looked at me expectantly. He was waiting for me to ask why so he could deliver the punchline. I didn’t know (and still actually don’t know) who Ethan Allen was, but I obliged anyway.

“Because nothing makes a British soldier shit faster than the sight of George Washington.”

I rolled my eyes at him and walked away.

I am often amazed at how content I am with my life right now. And how that feeling doesn’t seem to go away. There are hard days, to be sure, especially now, but I am overall satisfied. Which is something I didn’t even know I had been missing in my earlier relationships.

I met Andrew through an online dating site. At the time, I had recently left Matt’s dad and was not looking for an actual relationship. Despite more unsolicited dick pics than I could possibly count and more than a small handful of completely unsavory proposals, I had been having some success in my quest to prove to myself that I was not a serial monogamist. However, in my online bio, I stated that I’d never had an honest to goodness first date, like pick me up and take me to dinner and drop me off kiss at the front door and I shyly ask if you’d like to come in for a drink first date. I did have a number of very memorable encounters, but no dates.

Conversation between Andrew and me was easy from the start. And after a week of texting far later into the night than either of us was used to staying up, he asked me out on a real date. Well, mostly a real date. He bought me dinner and drinks, but didn’t pick me up at my house. We did, though, share an awkward moment at my car as he said goodnight and I thanked him for a lovely evening.

And that, as they say, was that.

I see George in the bathroom every time nature calls. And I think about how excited Andrew was when he pulled the picture out of Matt’s backpack. And how proud Matt was that a picture he’d colored had ended up framed on the bathroom wall. Not just magnet-hung on the fridge, but framed and hung on the wall. I didn’t know that this was what I was looking for until I found it. And of all the places in the house to have such a realization, the restroom was certainly not where I expected to have it. But seeing George Washington in the bathroom every morning somehow reassures me that no matter where I have ever thought my life was going, and despite my best efforts, I have ended up exactly where I’m supposed to be.