My grandmother told me that love lasts for exactly two years. I thought she was out of her mind. How would she know, when she didn't have to stand up and get food during parties because my grandfather got it for her. How would she know, when my grandfather never made her worry about anything at all. He bought the groceries, went to the market, cooked, took care of the kids, etc. When La Vista had a ladies club and my grandmother refused, it was my grandfather who took her place and attended the meetings. When my grandfather gave me my first diary, he wrote about the day he met my grandmother and fell in love. It was always "Lulu this," and "Lulu that." My grandparents' love was something out of books.

Two years? When, even at his deathbed, my grandfather's first thought was his wife, and how she shouldn't worry.

Rereading "Middlesex," however, I came across this paragraph.

... Dr. Luce introduced the concept of "periphescence." The word itself means nothing; Luce made it up to avoid any etymological associations. The state of periphescence, however, is well known. It denotes the fever of human pair bonding. It causes giddiness, elation, a tickling on the chest wall, an urge to climb a balcony on the rope of the beloved's hair. Periphescence denotes the initial drugged and happy bedtime where you sniff your lover like a scented poppy for hours running. (It lasts, Luce explained, up to two years -- tops)

Hmm. I know it's fiction but it's quite an uncanny coincidence, at an uncanny stage of my life.

I'm 23 today.