Imaginary Love: Being the Handmaiden

OK, you love your mate, you have a home and maybe a family. You have all the money in the world, well enough anyway, but you feel a little gap, a desire for humility but not humiliation. God forbid you're like me, and live alone, but even so.

Everything looks just about right to most observers. But there's a little something missing. The water-glass isn't beside your bed at night, full of cool clear water. The room isn't the right temperature. Your clothes, at least decent compositions of them, are impossible to find without effort in the morning. You wake up in the night to run downstairs and lower the thermostat. You worry about the electric bill. You wake up in the morning, and despite all your investments in supportive services and personnel, feel untended. You stop for the perfect cup of coffee, not at the kitchen table with an easy partner, but at the convenience store, where you know the clerk's quirks, and the clerk knows yours.

So far it's all ok. This is life. It could happen this way with no major mistakes. You're getting older, you understand things.You know that no one person can bring all your fantasies of perfection into this plane of existence where we are fortunate enough to abide.

But here's a game you can play, secretly, so as not to arouse suspicions of insanity: You pretend to be the gentle handmaiden for the love object of your dreams, thereby meeting your own needs by transforming your perception of the situation. You walk into your bedroom before the evening meal and you think "I am so sick of this s+++." But you change your tone and pretend to be the perfect handmaiden and you say "He likes it so-and-so. I will turn down these clean bedsheets and prepare the clothing for tomorrow. I will lay out a suggestion for the clothing for the morning, and the hairbrush will be close by. I will use the lint-brush and make sure there is no mark on the clothing from the dryer. I can take and update the beautiful leather Smythson year-long pocket calender that was a Christmas gift, and offer written suggestions on some pretty notepaper, or try to match the handwriting that drifted off before February, to mark the appointments he's been trying to remember from thin air.

I will make sure there are clean towels in the bathroom and that the razor's blade is sharp, and that the soap is sweet and fairly new. I will be sure that the magazine that arrived in the mail today is at the bedside,and I will rearrange into a more dignified position that book that was thrown into the blankets in a slovenly fashion late last night. I will try to reinsert the dropped bookmark into the most logical place.

I will be certain that the light will be appropriate when he returns from dinner to the bedroom, and I will lay the soft robe across the bed, in preparation for his coming there.I will be certain that required medications are in order and easy for him to find. Certainly a few Advil on the bedside table could come in handy. I will lay a pack of matches near every candle, lest the electric go.

I will try to lay a gentle vibe in the bedroom, and I will be certain to leave signature of my regard for all of his personal items. Then I will disappear gently. But if he starts to need me in the night, I will light a candle and I will be there, gently at his side.

It's still you. But it's the real you, you want to help your imaginary love, and there's comfort there.