Unexpected Lives

In all fairness, I really hate it when people write vomitously unrealistic crap about their relationships, when they tell people they are made for each other when they fight all the time. Or when they are sure they have met Mr/Ms Right two weeks after they met (and one week-three-days after they start sleeping together) and they ramble on and on about how great this person is in a public forum, only to rip them to shreds a week later when they break up.

This isn't one of those moments.

I'll instead relate that I live with someone that I can laugh at, laugh with, and who is probably the only person I will allow to laugh at me within strict guidelines. Somebody I can talk about poop with, someone who knows when I am off, and someone I can feed my food experiments to. Someone I can actually sleep next to (this is rare) and someone I don't mind driving me around. (Also rare and there are days I am a pain about it.) The only person I have ever wondered what I'd do without...then answered that it woould probably involve a lot of sticky notes with directions and a lot of sad music. I would brood, I expect. I would be a workaholic and an entirely too serious person, for even when I am yelling that I want to go home sometimes it's not the best idea anyway and maybe she's smarter than me when it comes to that kind of stuff.

And yes, I am the yeller in this relationship. Most of the time it's play-fighting that defuses the real stuff, and sometimes it's the real stuff and thank god it only lasts about a minute. That's about the time her face changes and I feel like maybe I should really think about whether or not its really worth yelling about. And before you think that's an act of fear, think again. It an act of self-control and maturity. Back in the day I would have ridden whatever horse I was on until it died, regardless of how petty it was. Now I think a little bit more (sometimes belatedly) and realize that it really is ridiculous and often has nothing to do with her at all. She's just a vent for something else I can't get at and how fair is that really?

It comes down to balance and she is mine. She makes me laugh, shooshes me when I am out of line, and makes me melt with a look. I love her, and I want to stay this was a long time. It's been two years, not two weeks, and I think we're doing pretty well. We've had three fights we can remember, and they were mainly unrelated to us and more related to everything and I think that's an important distinction.

I guess what I am saying is that I really wish there was some way I could quantify what it feels like to be in comfortable, passionate, friendly love with. To actually want people to meet the person you love because they are fun and they bring out the best in you instead of the worst. Too bad they really haven't invented a proper word for it, really...

Magic Tree

It's funny how easy it is to give advice without ever really acknowledging that you are talking to yourself.

I remember telling someone that they had to decide where they were going to be. That they could not perpetually be in two places, trying to hang on to a place that was irrelevant while never quite committing to the place that could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

I think I exempted myself, saying quietly that I didn't count, that mothers can't make that choice and that my situation is different.

But it's not.

I think I chose, and I think that its a choice I am going to question perhaps all of my life. Instead of desperately stretching for that next plane ticket, that next visit and living in a dangerous place and being broke every day had become an untenable situation for my mental stability. At some point, I have to look next to me and the person whose presence in California I am solely responsible for and ask if she deserves better. And ask if maybe I do, too.

So the focus became on getting out of here and improving the every day quality of life as much as possible. Going to see Emma is now something I will do if I can instead of always scrambling to get back there as soon as I get off the plane. It was time to focus on where I was instead of always looking somewhere else. I have always looked somewhere else because it's easier to spin it in any direction you choose--what's in front of you is there in sharp relief and reality.

Damn reality sometimes...lol

So I am packing boxes and putting away a year's worth of acquired objects and stories. This will always be our first home in California, the place we didn't have to leave. The first place that was ours ever, and the place where we learned who we really are as a couple. That in itself makes it a special place, despite the trash in the yard and the broken glass in the streets.