I got a panicked call from Lucky Bastard this morning. His computer was messed up and he wanted to drop by to use mine to check his email and look up directions for an important interview.

But there was more to it than that.

So, he blew in looking wonderful in his overcoat and muffler, wearing a holiday tie and his dark brown worsted suit, well-groomed and smelling wonderful. He hugged me and when I thought he would let go he didn't. I knew he wouldn't let go until I relaxed into his arms and there was a warm, melting sense of compassion between us.

Nothing was really wrong, but he was nervous. This interview was a big deal for him--an excellent well-paying job that didn't require he move to another state. He gave me all the details of the company, and explaining the position he'd be interviewing for.

I tried to tell him about the interview I had earlier in the week for a full-time job at a law office, that I was most concerned that the social milieu of the place was not dictated by hen-house mentality, that I was willing to put grad school on hold for a bit so that I might take care of the two young lawyers who seem to need an office mom....

and I realized he wasn't listening.

But it was no big deal. He was focused--to the point of goofing up my computer. I restarted it and looked up the directions he needed.

We said our good lucks and merry christmases, and happy new years, and goodbyes. Gentle kisses on the cheek, another good strong hug. And as I watched him on my back stairs, still talking about where he would be going, time seemed to collapse, I saw the little boy off to his first day of school, the teen-ager on the first date, the young man leaving home for college.

I'd been aware for awhile of the way he fathers me--encourages me to do things to improve my employment, tells me how he would like me to be living in a better neighborhood, how he brings treats from time to time. Today, though, I realized how much I mother him--how I support and nurture him, provide a safe place for him to go where he does not need to be the head of a household with the weight of his domestic world on his shoulders. He can come home, so to say, and talk, unload, shine in a way that would be inappropriate in his own home. No matter how adult we are, we all still need that parent we were closest to, the one who gave us love, guidance, and a foundaton for our futures.

Sometimes that foundation becomes the template for our marriages. Sometimes, though, it doesn't--most likely because to pick a spouse that resembles this parent would injure the delicate balance between ourselves, our future spouses, and our parents. Perhaps it could be called "covert incest"...but that's making too much drama of it. Daddy's Girl and Momma's Boy have completely negative connotations that also add far more drama and angst to our personalities than is necessary and sells far short the complex dynamics that exist between two mature adults.

Simply put, Lucky Bastard has my father's blue eyes and buoyant yet annoyingly demanding personality. I think I have his mother's pale gray-green eyes (he has commented about them often), and I know I have a flashing temper that was more than likely one of her personality traits. Between each other we confront the things about his mother and my father that we could not change in them, the things that troubled us and we were powerless over. In the crucible of our little "thing" we say what we could never say to that parent. But there is more to this than personality. I think we all long to merge and resolve that Oedepal complex that dogs us. And sometimes this is the purpose of "affairs"--we need desperately to resolve our feelings for our parents, to feel complete, to be the lover to the forbidden one.

It is powerful stuff...and in the midst of all this we must always keep in mind that we cannot marry this person who is father-lover or mother-lover. It isn't necessarily that it is still forbidden-- just that, over the long haul, it probably wouldn't work for the best. The next generation always surpasses the parent, and to marry the parent archetype would be almost a step back. Someone would always want to be the child, the other the parent, and things would stagnate. And to bring all of it out into the light, to acknowledge that our dynamics are of parents and lovers would be way too creepy to live with on a regular basis....not to mention that the humdrum mundainity of everyday life, and the baggage of divorce and child support always manages to destroy the gossamer archetypal otherworld of lovers. Lovers, though, can improve one another, and within the complex dynamic, launch one another on to better things.

So, here's to better things....I have shopping to do, and marketing for Christmas dinner with Steady Eddie...and Lucky Bastard, today anyway, has the world to conquer.