Fairytales of love and reality.

Years ago, when I was a little girl, I used to imagine of the days when I would have a relationship like my mom and dad's. A relationship where you're so close to the other person, it feels like you are each other, like nothing can separate you. Ever. I guess that's why I lost my cool when dad left her. Dad said he'd love her forever - that's what those vows were all about. Promises. That through thick and thin, no matter what happened, you'd love each other, no questions asked, no obstacles to stop you. You ask each other permission before you do anything, you tell each other where you are going before you leave the room, you tell each other you love them without saying one single word. That's what love was to me.

I guess as a child, I was naive.

When I grew up though, I knew love needed nurturing. I guess I realised the arguments surrounding them - the petty squabbles and snippy, harsh remarks they threw at each other. An comment over a hard boiled egg turned into a fight over incompetence and battle over who was right and who was wrong. I thought all parents went through it. All my friends told me at school about the stupid arguments they're families went through. One of their parents divorced over a broken spoon in a cupboard. The rest of us knew it was something deeper then that, it was something that the spoon represented, but we just nodded, comforted and laughed when it was appropriate.

I started to worry about them though - only a little. I was a teen though, I had other things to worry about. Boys, my hair, my friends, grades. Dad started looking older, tired-er, but so did mom. It just seemed....normal. Fitting. We were all growing up - Graham had moved out and was working. Chris and I were in sophomore year and Laney was in middle school. It was only natural that time caught up with my parents too - that sometime soon, age would make them look older then the pictures of when Laney was only 5.

I guess I didn't realise that it was the strain of appearances and the lack of love that gave them wrinkles and sags under their eyes.

When I did hear about dad's affair, it killed me. My thoughts of trust had evaporated. I'd been already hurt by my break up with one of my best friends - Leon and I dated for a while, but it never really worked out - and my thoughts of true love had been crashed my the downfall of my parents marriage. I thought that it was my dad's one moment of weakness - he started seeing some woman on the side. I wasn't home to realise it - by that time, I was in L.A, studying teaching and translating - so it was poor Laney that had to watch the bickering and arguments until they both we left dull and broken. Until my father confessed his adulterous ways, and claimed that things had changed. Mom was just to tired to disagree. She knew the marriage had died long ago. We were all just to blind, young and in denial to accept it.

It was hard for me at first. I didn't understand that....love changes. That it doesn't just grow, it withers too. And sometimes....you have to stop it's struggle to grow out of mercy before it dies. Of course there'd always be some place in their hearts that the hold dear for each other, some things that made them love each other no matter what - being together for just under 30 years does that to you, but that space just gets squished up so much, and when you have no other steps to take, no more forward progression together - what do you do next? I'd always thought Dad cheated because of that, because he needed something new, because the love just wasn't the same between my parents. They were together, but they didn't want each other, they never needed each other. They were simply....being there. Together - in the same house, sharing the same bed, mere...shadows of who they once were. Dad wanted to feel wanted again - and I get that. But talking, communication would have fixed that.

I guess I was wrong about that anyway.

So now, when I go to my dad's new wife's for thanksgiving, I find out something else that shatters my world. Mom cheated on him first. For months after the divorce, I blamed Dad ruthlessly. He wasn't the one left alone in all this. He caused the destruction and was able to sweep off into a new life, a new job and a new wife in a new house. He didn't have to face the destruction, the thought of being betrayed by the one that you loved, the thought of being hurt and harmed by someone who promised to be with you till death parts you both. He should have had the decency to at least tell her, after all those years, that it was over for him, before he went out and done the dirty deed. And it turns out, that I was wrong. Mom had done the dirty deed too.

It was strange - I looked up at her as an idol for that time. She was the strongest amongst us then. She'd pet mine and Laney's hair and tell us it was ok, that these things happen, and some times its better soon rather then later. Whilst all the time, she knew it was later. She knew that she had 'caused the death of the relationship, she'd crippled Dad emotionally in a way that he had to cut himself off from her. They may have shared the same bed, but from when my father knew the truth, they could've been on separate Islands. Knowing that it was my mom that killed it....just changed everything for me.

Love needs goals.

And that's what's panicing me right now. I have no goals for me and Spike. We've done them all already. The biggest and furthest step we could've gone to, is where we are right now - moving in and meeting the parents. We can't get married - we need proof of ID, and being over 100 years old might look weird on his birth certificate. We can't have kids. We can't grow old together.

I was going to grow old alone. In two years time, I'd be older than Spike was when he was turned. And after that...I'll just keep looking older, wishing I had a family to surround myself with. The fact was....I was going to die sometime, leaving Spike behind me. And I can't do that. I couldn't bare to think of leaving him behind, unable, unwilling to move on. And I couldn't have him thinking he was the one that kept me back from having children. I love him so much that the thought of him being in pain makes me physically sick. So I guess...pushing down all of this till...till later will have to do. I'll talk to him soon. Explain to him that on my 30th birthday, we'd have to be over. Because I can't keep him back.

Something's nagging me though. Something in the back of my head. A little niggling feeling that I can't put away.

If I know when the relationship's going to end, is there any point in being in it?