Free write…

Friday was my last day at work.  I received almost twenty emails from coworkers congratulating me on my courage and wishing me well.

TG brought over the keys so P and D can watch the cats while I’m in Ireland.  ST was also here.  Neither tried to pee on me, so I’ll call it a success.  (Actually, I’ve mentioned it before, TG is the type of person anyone wants to be friends with.  The person the most stressed and threatened was me.  It’s been a few years since I’ve had multiple guys who’ve seen me naked in the same room.  (A groomsman, the preacher, and my date.  And really, once you’ve done that, shouldn’t it all be cake?))

Friday was pretty special for me and ST, even if all we did was nap, watch Failure to Launch, and eat crappy food.  He had to be off at 5am.  He showered, dressed, and came to curl up next to me one last time before leaving.  Sigh.

Saturday at the sanctuary kicked ass.  I highly suggest you gather fifteen friends and strangers, find a fell twenty-five foot tree, and move it via rolling logs a few hundred feet.  If you are all alive at the end, you’ll know the psychotic high I felt.

Saturday night MC and I gathered a Mediterranian feast, sangria, and some blankets to watch Crowns.  Neither of us had any expectations; we just liked the idea of the play at the park.  Since I like gospel, it was quite a nice evening.

I headed to church this morning.  The music wasn’t gospel, but P and D’s little boy was walking.  A halleluiah all on its own, but the real miracle was that this once fussiest boy alive sat happily on my lap letting me stuff macaroni elbows in his mouth one at a time.

The rest of the day?  Nothing.  Cleaned the litters.  Nap.  Reading.  Laundry.  Whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  No stress over schedule; I have nothing to do tomorrow but the start the rest of my life.

The reason for the title of this post?  I don’t want to jinx myself.  I can’t believe my life is going this well.  That I am this happy.  From all the phone calls, emails, and dinners, that I am this cared for and loved.

I want to be careful.  Mostly, be careful to not take it for granted or miss one minute of it.

Everything I want to write is so clichéd.  Except for my surprise.
 
I didn’t expect to feel like this again.
 
My relationships from the past two years have been (mostly) fun.  But they haven’t really been relationships in my mind.  It’s what you call something when fuck buddy gets stuck in your throat.

Emotions were exchanged for pragmatic.  Wants forgotten for needs.  I don’t regret it.  I doubt I’d understand the difference between wants and needs in a relationship so well otherwise.
 
But I had started to wonder if I had somehow broken myself.  Perhaps the record had skipped one too many times.  I am both relieved and annoyed to find that isn’t the case.
 
I’d forgotten how scary it is to give someone my heart.  How exhausting it is to be hurt by little things because I want him to understand me better than that.
 
How wonderful it is when he shows how thankful he is that we met.  How breathtaking it is when he soothes the hurt and makes me better understand myself.

When you interrupt major fooling around with, “I have something important to tell you,” there is a limited amount of acceptable ways to follow it up.  These include:
 
1)       I love you.
2)       I won the lottery and will keep you in school tuition for a dozen Ph.D.s in return for that cute way you scrunch your eyebrows.
3)       It was a false positive.
4)       My parents decided not to visit.
 
I suppose we could think up some more.  But more importantly, there are phrases that are strictly prohibited.  Such as, oh I don’t know, off the top of my head…
 
I didn’t bring any condoms.

“I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone as attractive as you.”
 
What I should have said: Thank you, how sweet.
 
What I said:  You don’t get out much, do you?
 
“You are welcome to come along [and meet my aunt/cousins].”
 
What I should have said:  Thank you, how thoughtful.  Unfortunately, I am busy that day.
 
What I said:  AHHH!  Are you INSANE?  NO!  Why would you SAY something like that??
 
“Is everything alright?”
 
What I wanted to say:  No.  I’m completely overwhelmed here.  We can barely see each other more than once a week and show up for dates hours early or late depending on traffic.  You also seem to possess real emotions and I am evidently a robot with the emotional maturity of a six-year-old.  How the fuck can this work?
 
What I said:  Yes.

I’m sitting in the spare bedroom of my grandparent’s apartment, loving an unsecure wireless connection.

I don’t know if I ever told you, but my grandparent’s helped raise me and my brother.  We spent the summers at the cabin with them.  My grandfather was a prominent law professor and would write rather than teach during the summer.

It is well established in my mind that if one of them should die, or something should happen and they needed more care, I will be their caretaker.  I think the rest of family believes this as well.  Grandmother knows this; we discussed briefly how my returning to school creates a more free schedule and allows for interruptions.  We have many frank discussions about death, but the state at which they might arrive there is a delicate subject.  Death they don’t mind; it’s the possible decay beforehand.

One of the reasons I am here right now is because of how they let me help and care for them more than other family members.  It is a great burden on them to do even the simplest tasks for company, and George thought my coming would help.  I’ve done the dishes, fetched the wine, shown George and Francesca where they would be staying (an on-site rental), held canes, made coffee, cleaned the kitchen, and perhaps most important, given Grandpa the chocolate wafer which comes with the bread pudding at the Stonewood Grill.

I don’t know why they allow me the priviledge of helping above others.  (Although I suppose Grandpa would allow random strangers to accost him with chocolate.)  Part of it is perhaps because they see me more frequently.  Grandma feels I know the place; I can be trusted to put things away or fetch something with minimial instruction.  But it’s not really any more true here than a friend’s house I’ve visited a dozen times.  Perhaps it’s just in my personality to be like that.

Part of me wonders if it is perhaps because I am the youngest female.  Someone, in an earlier time, who was expected to wait on and care for the family.  My grandmother was the only girl with two brothers and flappers for parents.  She raised the whole household.  My grandparents are rather progressive people, but perhaps unconciously it feels more proper to them for the granddaughter to clear the table and plate the dessert than anyone else.

I am not complaining about this.  I like it.  It makes me feel a connection to family that I normally don’t.  There are few people I feel so comfortable and in sync with.  My grandparents have supported me throughout my life and all the decisions I’ve made.  I do not see it as an obligation I must repay, but an honor to return the support they’ve shown me.

In case you have ever wondered exactly how much progress I’ve made since a child, at dinner tonight my grandfather fake-scowled, “You were a rather ornary little girl.”  To which I did not drop a beat to retort, “I’m a rather ornary big girl.”

(Please excuse the ramblings, mispellings, and lack of point.  Often my family gets me a writing kind of mood and I think I will capture the ideas later but they seem to vanish when I am once again alone.  This is at least a start.) 

She was happy to bring them the check.  She wanted them gone.
 
Not their fault of course, but they had turned into her toughest table of the night.  The kitchen pulled their entrees before their appetizer.  Then the woman had found plastic in her pasta.
 
They had been polite and congenial about the whole matter, but it didn’t help her fluster.  She wanted to close out their ticket, wipe the table, and be one order closer to closing.  Her mascara was starting to weep from the heat.  Every time she spread her hand wide for a tray, pain radiated in an almost delicious manner up her arm.  It felt decedent, to spend energy and attention noticing such a minute issue.
 
She was about to plop the check right in the middle of the table – company policy, plus she wouldn’t be surprised if the woman was paying as she was the one to speak up over the kitchen errors – but found herself blocked by their arms.
 
She stepped back.  They hadn’t noticed her.  They were holding hands across the large blond oak table.  The woman had to lean almost out of her seat.  Thumbs were stroking and their eyes were locked.  The smiles on their faces were naked.

She started to tear up.  Her hand went to her mouth.  All of a sudden they looked so much younger to her.  And she wanted to keep them forever, in her pocket to take out and look at on days she was blue.

That’s the best I could do with a title.  Which is the best I could do if you asked me how I was right now.

(In fact, I just got off the phone with Grandma and that was exactly what I said.  She asked if I was sure.  “No, not really.”  “Oh, OK then.”  Heh.)

1) Sheba is fine for now.  X-rays every six months.  It’s my understanding it’s inevitable, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

2) She did though have an infection at her suture site and the vet said she had popped a stitch.  One thing I hate about this practice is that they do not give you an exam room for drop-off appointments.  So, the thing is, they gave her back to me like that, with the missing stitch.  And the vet had mentioned he had tried to build up the skin in the area he removed the mass.  So I looked at the area that first night, decided he SUCKED at suturing/reconstruction, and moved on.  I wasn’t about to take her back and see what other fun things they would do.  So now basically I feel bad for not speaking up and wonder if I should have done more while also I am wary of the vet - not because I doubt his skill, but doubt the environment allows for the best care.

3) Francesca and George are coming Friday.  (SIL and brother, for those without cheat sheets.)  I will pick them up and we’ll drive to Gainesville for a weekend with my grandparents.  I get to see George very little and Francesca even less, so I’m looking forward to this a lot.

4) Already I have been up in the air about a pet sitter.  ST offered, but it seemed ridiculous to have him drive two hours for some kibble.  I have ordered some automatic feeders which I thought might squeak by for durations of less than 48-hours but I don’t know if they will get here on time.  Gah.  I hate doing the friend roulette.  Which is why I put it off like this.  Which probably makes it worse that I don’t give anyone any damn notice beyond throwing keys out the window as I leave town. 

5) Regardless, Sheba now is coming to Gainesville.  She needs medicine twice a day and however sweet and luvey she may be to you, it all changes once you are in possession of an eyedropper full of ickiness.  Grandma has said it is fine, but I know she will worry about it.  In hindsight, I should have not said anything and just been like, “She stowed away in my bag!  Imagine that!  And she packed food and her favorite bed!”

Does this look like a girl worried about her x-ray to determine if the carcinoma has metastasized into her lungs?

No.  Sheba says to cancer, Step off Bitch.  Or I will cut you.

“Have you started to dye it?”
 
“Um, no.” 
“It just doesn’t seem as noticeable these days.”
 
I struggle for an answer then realize the cause, “It’s because I’m back at the sanctuary.”
 
“The sun.  That would do it.”
 
“Sorry.”
 
“That’s OK.  I have a picture in my mind’s eye.”
 
“You are the only man I know who wants to imagine more gray hair on a woman.”
 
“I can cause a bit more too.  Just give me time.”

“I bet it would be nice to date a woman who is showered when you pick her up for a date.”
 
“I guess.  I wouldn’t know.”  At least both things were said with a smile.

 
Remember the picture of my dirty ankle from a few weeks back?  Well, the last two weekends that has been the state of my ankles when I opened the door for ST.  Scheduling volunteering and dating on the same night is proving a tad difficult.
 
This week I did slightly better.  At least the rug did not have a week’s worth of cat hair ground into it.
 
In my mind, dating a woman who can’t seem to schedule basic hygiene would be a bit off putting.  But he seems pretty content to grab a book or watch TV (I’ve introduced him to House.  My exact words were, “Here.  This is my ideal man.  Consider it research.”) while I make myself presentable.
 
But let’s face it, a lot can be forgiven for a girl who’s dirty in the way everyone thought reading the title.