I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath for 2 weeks, but I was.
She asked me the other night, after the oxygen returned…
“How did you fall so fast.”
“I just did.”
There is more to it than that. I was waiting.
2. When you meet him, outside the grocery, along the boardwalk, beneath the overpass, you will not know what he is. He will be neither too charming, nor too handsome. Not thunder*. Not Polish
There was something though.
One of my favorite Stephen King quotes ever is “the ecstasy of perfect recognition.”
It’s a little fancy, but it fits.
He said “I knew what you were the first time I saw you.”
24 hours later came the first ‘my girl’. I found it when I was scrolling back to establish a timeline, and because I miss him.
6 hours after that (and this is hilarious) I was on a work call at 2:42 am tryna calm my drunk girl down about a wall block, phone in one hand, and his cock in the other.
It was a Tuesday.
I slept in his bed alone that night, safe in the knowledge there was a monster on the couch guarding me while I slept. Woke up, politely excused myself, refused his offer of cooking me breakfast, left him to sleep.
Expected nothing again. This is the island of lowered expectations after all.
Lower…
Nope, lower than that.
Even lower…
There ya go.
But…
6 days later he said I was an angel.
Then came the forehead kisses.
Forehead kisses are how men absorb all the sense in your brain. Stay woke sis.
Ya, I am totally not gonna do that.
Fell asleep in the same bed, and an hour or so of me lying awake, sore and sated, he rolled over and wrapped himself around me. And it was good, amen.
4 days later we were out at a sports bar with all of his friends watching UFC and his every muscle and movement made me feel like a well-protected queen.
I am the queen of many things, one of them is doing things backwards. I don’t know if it’s backwards per say or if my intuition is this many splendored thing, that if I leave her to her own devices leadeth me to green pastures.
I do speak of parts of myself in the third person, creepy as it is. I am a collection of factions all driving this body and mind of mine. And it is a glorious thing when they are all in agreement.
We are.
I now have the luxury of my laptop back, so a) I can write again, and b) I can look at my fortune cookie on Facebook.
Today’s was “every flower blooms in it’s own sweet time.”
It does. I know this.
Maya Angelou — ‘Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.
Maybe I am stupid. It’s entirely possible, considering the things love has done to me. But in my 45th run around the sun, I doubt I could change if I tried. And I don’t really want to. I like me this way.
I am not saying it’s love, it’s too soon. But there is something and it feels good.
I owe Sarah this 3rd chapter, left her hanging long enough.
No, not that Sarah, and not me either. My sweet cheerleader Sarah who supports me in all my folly.
I didn’t realize the weight on my chest until it was lifted.
I exhaled as I hung up from my 3 minute phone call, I was afraid it wasn’t going to be enough, but, as it stands there was reverence and respect in his voice. I thought I was underprepared, but he didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already researched and figured out on my own.
“Already ordered the pictures and bought envelopes, just waiting for you to get where you’re going.”
“That’s my girl.”
If he’d have said “that’s my girl” one more time my vagina exploding would have been audible from outer space.
I already am that. I decided this.
“You’re going to be my best friend for the next 4 months aren’t you.”
No question mark, just a statement.
“That’s the plan.”
As if I planned any of this.
There is a quote from Four Weddings and a Funeral that always stuck with me.
Tom is talking to Charles after the funeral, and he says “Unlike you, I never expected the thunderbolt.”
I did.
And I do.
And it was there, and it was good.
*Jeanann Verlee was wrong about just that one thing. There was a low rumble of thunder, like a vibration in my chest. “Who is that?”
She also says, “you were made for this.” And I am.
Oh wait, she was wrong about 2 things…
8. When you find him in his room, thrashing the sheets, pressing his palms into the wall, howling. His face a river. Close the door.
He fights in his sleep. He warned me. And the first night we slept in the same bed, he fought. I put my hand on his forehead and said “hush baby, it’s okay.” He giggled in his half sleep and held onto me tighter, and for a long while, he hushed.
Something so empowering about being able to calm a monster.
Not tame mind you, just soothe.
I’ve had a lot of practice here, on this island. A small army of boys and men who would do just about anything for me and who listen when I tell them to stop. Breathe. Come back from the edge of madness and just be here with me for a minute.
“Baby stop.” and they stop.
you were made for this
122 days
There is a funny story about my Nana and Papa wherein when he came back from Europe after the war there was a pact made by his family to NOT tell my grandmother he was home because, and I quote, “Once Neva knows he is home we will never see him again.” It was one of those half jokes soaked in truth.
There is another story about my parents where in my dad disappeared to California and my mom drove 3 days to go get him. Sharrie boiled water in the mountains to make spaghetti at a campground somewhere out west. I love both these stories.
I‘m on the list to go visit while he is away, he reminded me, like he had to. Not thought about much else. 2 day drive, but still.
I doubt he will disappear from the world and into me when he gets back, but I know I will get a good 24 hours here and there.
“Its so weird to see him settling down, I’ve known him forever.”
“I doubt that.” I said.
“No honey, this is as settled as he gets.”
That’s enough.
So, not training a lion, but calming a bear. I think that is a better portent for the future.
I have a strict ‘no training’ policy. Do what you do and it’s gonna work for me or it won’t.