Peaches, Exit 15

Seeing the signs

The peach signs are servicable, no-nonsense advertisements—large cuts of plywood painted white, then scrawled on with a glowing, red-orange spray paint. Exit 15. Peaches. Fritters. Pies. Jams and jellies.

They were back along the interstate for the summer, just in time for me to realize that they’d been gone during all those post-peach season months. It was a Saturday morning in July, and we were driving to our final-for-now couples therapy appointment.

We started last peach season, before we moved in together or got engaged. It was something we said we’d wanted to do because it was something we both wished we had done in the before years—in other marriages, with other people. Having more skills probably wouldn’t have radically changed the outcomes, but what if it had meant there’d be less suffering?

We saw it like going to a nutritionist or hiring a personal trainer: the goal was to get healthier and stronger.

Because our therapist’s office is in the suburbs, it meant setting up appointments on Saturday mornings. Month after month, we’d rush through showers and breakfast, dumping coffee into to-go cups and speeding down the interstate to make it in time, often tired and sometimes mildly irritated that this was the way we opted to begin so many weekends. Sometimes we left in tense silence, needing the drive home to metabolize the conversation before speaking again. Many sessions involved laughing and crying. Talking about our childhoods and our parents and fights with past partners. Trying to put into words our respective “whys” and how they added up to who we are today. And then what that all means when you blend it into the “us” we genuinely want to tend and see grow.

The first two years of our relationship felt like so much waiting: waiting to feel less guilty about my life moving forward after my divorce, waiting for leases to end, waiting through all the pressure tests and pre-checks to ensure this relationship was right and ready to proceed to the next step.

Now, instead of Randy living out of tote bags and dividing his week between my apartment and his, we have the luxury of a side-by-side life: sinks and toothbrush cups, coffee mugs, laundry baskets, work bags, to-be-read piles. After a fair share of trial and error, we’ve fine-tuned the household rhythm of playing to our strengths and properly sharing the load (highly recommend Fair Play).

After weeks that’ve felt like decades of waiting and wondering, we’re gearing up for more changes—in work, in where we live, and getting married. It’s a lot of joy and luck mixed with more than one logistical spreadsheet (example: today we picked up a bedframe we bought off Facebook marketplace, then I drove across town for a bridal makeup trial session). I think about what we were like just 12 months ago, or when we first met four years ago. It doesn’t seem possible to have come all this way, let alone experience the miracles of finding each other and figuring it out together.

I’m always quick to worry that as soon as life gets good, the pendulum will invariably reverse course. The rational part of my mind knows that while the universe likes to offer us balance, there are more often shades of gray than hard cuts of black and white. Trying to trust that happiness can withstand steady footing has been another thread connecting all of those Saturday morning conversations. There will be another peach season, and another, and hopefully many more.