This Is Marriage

We had been looking forward to this day for days.  See, that’s what happens when you have a baby…you’re foresight is reduced from anticipation spanning weeks and months to a very narrow span of days.  Because, you see, there’s a baby.  And babies don’t generally allow you to plan things, or follow through with said plans once they’re made.  It’s like they have a radar.  A PLAN SIGNAL is shot into the air the moment you even THINK about doing something non-day-to-day related and they’re like “NO, SIR!  You will NOT plan!!!”.

I think I just saw a spider run across the floor.

Anyhoot.

Point is, there was the max amount of anticipation permitted while being primary care givers of a minor child.  We had the babysitters (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) set up, we had the train looked up, we had even spent the better part of the day prior on a mission whose sole purpose was to purchase a silly big hat.  That’s right…we were going to the races.

Brian has gone to the races many, many times.  Brian also has just as many stories for going to the races as the trips themselves.  Probably more, actually.  It’s a tradition of sorts that he finally invited me into.  I was excited.  Nay, WE, were excited.

The day came and with it an earlier-than-normal wake up time for me.  In hindsight, I probably should have planned the morning better as far as timeline goes, but I refuse to grant him any leniency for what follows that’s really besides the point.  I was running mostly absolutely on schedule.  I had completed the shower portion of the morning and was moving on to the face painting.  I knew better than to fly by the seat of my own timed pants, so I yelled into the other room: “What’s the latest we can realistically leave here?”, to which he replied “10:15″.

That answer was nonsense.  Small crowd, that answer is what I refer to as “Vanity Timing”.  Just as stores label their sizes at least a size or two smaller than what the size actually measures (FACT) to make women feel smaller than they are [because psychologically it's much more beneficial for us to wear a vanity sized 6 (or 26 or 27) than it is to wear a realistic 8 or 10 (or 28-31ish)], that answer is given by the man who knows I will fail to meet the time required of me and so adjusts that time to make me, by default, on time.  Simpler: if we really need to leave by 10:30-10:45, he’ll tell me 10:00-10:15, knowing I will be late but therefore on time.  Vanity Timing.  Nope, it’s not a direct correlation to the clothing thing.  I know.

Point is, projected leaving time of 10:15 was nonsense and me being aware of his MO, was completely prepared to leave the house at the appropriate 10:45am – dress and silly hat included.

We left.

We arrived at my parents and dropped off the baby.

And this is where things get awesome.

We were supposed to meet the train in Anaheim at 11:49.  As we pulled away from my parents house and boarded the sketchy looking 91 freeway, I pulled up the traffic information on my magic iPhone machine.  Here’s how that conversation went:

“Looks like the 91 is mostly yellow and red.  Probably should take La Palma.”, I said, having seen that the proposed alternative route was a glorious shade of green.
[some sort of noncommittal non-response as he continues playing with the ill-advised 91 monster]
We pass the point of no return called Wier Canyon and 5.4 seconds later the traffic, as predicted, has ground to a halt.
“Damn it”, he says.
“Yes.  Yellow.  And.  Red.” I retort, with absolute love and sincerity.
“But La Palma wouldn’t help us.” He declares.

I know better than to argue with a man who is driving.  It serves little purpose until said man has been proved ridiculously wrong by irrefutable evidence.  Once this has happened…open season.  The way things were going, such proof was just around the corner.  Enter a little game call Race The Train.

“Hey, will you pull up the Amtrak website and see what the schedule is”, he asks.
“Yep”, I respond, very warmly.

I fiddle with the interwebs and click on the link that promises an interactive schedule.  Turn out that promise is BS unless you have a Flash enabled device.  Thank you, Steve Jobs.

“You didn’t find it?”, he says after, I kid you not, 10 seconds.  By this point I had found it, examined it, clicked on two different links, the last of which was laughing at me because I’m an iPhone user who CAN’T VIEW FLASH.  I explained the situation while I was locating the specific schedules for Anaheim.  And as a side note, we were still sitting in the yellow and red colored traffic.

“Ok, look up Irvine”, he requests.  I do.  I tell him the time it leaves.
“Now we race the train!” he says with feeling.  While sitting in the far more accurate red colored traffic.

Eventually, we amble along the 55 freeway, which isn’t looking so great either.

“Ok, look up Orange”, he says.  I do.
“It doesn’t pick up at Orange until 2:53pm”.
“That can’t be right!  It’s on the way to Irvine!”
“I assure you.  That’s what the web site says.”
[man grumbling]
“What about Santa Ana?” I ask, aware that Orange and Santa Ana are two different stations.
“Maybe that’s what they call it!” He exclaims, a glimmer of hope now back in his eyes.

I look up Santa Ana.

“Ok, that picks up at 11:59″ I state.
“Ok”, he says, while merging to the right hand lane.
“Do you know how to get there?” I ask, map with complete directions in hand.
“Yeah”, he says, while exiting Chapman.
“Honey, then where are you going?”

Friends, Chapman is two if not three exits too early for the Santa Ana train station.

“This is completely the wrong way for Santa Ana”, I say.
“I’m not going to Santa Ana.  It has to pick up in Orange!”

Smack.  Head.  On.  Palm.

Repeat.

I sit there quietly, probably seething, if we’re to be honest.  He pulls into the Orange train station – on the wrong side, I will add – only to find that the correct side of the tracks has parking only available to Ruby’s patrons.  We cruise slowly by the station office while he figures out what to do.

“Why don’t we park in Ruby’s parking, run in and check the situation, then we can either move the car if necessary or leave.” I suggest, quite rationally.

He ignores me and continues to the parking lot two blocks away, where he parks.  He suggests grabbing all of our stuff and heading back to the station.  I say I don’t see the point.  He repeats that it HAS TO PICK UP AT THIS STATION!  (No, he didn’t yell.  He just had such conviction behind this statement that it deserved all caps)  Enter the logic:

“If you consider the time that the train picks up at Anaheim and the time it picks up in Santa Ana and Irvine, it’s not surprising that there’s no stop here – there’s NO TIME”, I say with emphasis.
A moment, then: “You’re right” he concedes, and I’m pretty sure I heard the audible pin drop.

As we leave the parking lot, on our way to I have no idea where, I did what all good communicators do.  I communicated my feelings.

“I’m getting frustrated because you’re asking me to pull up information, then you’re ignoring ALL OF IT, and then you can’t figure out why things are different than you thought even though I just told you exactly what to expect!”
“That’s fair”.

Yes.  That is fair.  What’s also fair?  The ironic mass of road construction he hits on the very next turn off the course.

“I can’t win!” he exclaims.
To which I, though laughing through the entirety of what follows, lose it.
“Of course you can’t win!  ’Hey, I’m going to ask Natalie to navigate while I drive…but I’m going to ignore everything that comes out of her mouth and the magical information box she’s holding in her hand!’  ’Hey, I’m going to go to a train station that doesn’t have pick ups I like, just because I think it should!’”
“You’re right.  I pretty much deserve this.”

And it continued.  It did.

Especially when he asked me to look up Fullerton’s schedule, and as I did, I noticed that his effing clock was slow in the car which means that even if we had made it “on time”, we wouldn’t have really made it at all.

Clearly, the clock is not Vanity Timed.

As we journey up the 57 Freeway towards Fullerton and the eventual feasible train, he begins to veer towards the entrance to the 91 Monster.

“You’re planning on using the 91 freeway to get to the Fullerton Train Station?” I ask, quite neutrally.
“Nope, I’m NOT going to go on the freeway my wife told me to avoid in the first place and again five seconds ago.” Then, having veered away from the wretched 91 and it’s now red traffic, he continues on course for the 57.
“No, it’s ok.  If you want to go play on the 91 you can.  I mean, we know it’s an EVIL MONSTER, but if you want to play with it again go ahead.”  I say, still quite jovial.
“No, I don’t want to.  I want to go on the 57.”  And then he asked me the correct exit to take.

He later took us on a tour of the completely and completely predictably full parking structure, to which I joked that it was cool: we still had time to mess this one up, too.  Eventually we found parking a couple blocks away.  We poured champagne and orange juice into our water bottles.  By the time we made it to the train station on time for the late train, the frustration had been laughed away.  The day continued and was quite enjoyable.  We made new friends.  We watched the ponies.  We laughed.  And we loved.

Always, we love.

The Blog With Tragic Nonsense

Today I woke up sad.

A few months ago, this wouldn’t have been a surprise.  Even a few weeks ago, this wouldn’t have been terribly shocking considering that pre trip-to-Minnesota every moment that led to another seemed terrifying and unbearable.  I had reached a point where I held intense disdain for each progressing second for not halting before it could produce another in succession.  Then…I went away for a few days.  I didn’t find what I was searching for, per se, but I did re-discover a friendship which I sorely wish I had been able to call close these past few years.

I dreaded coming home for the fear that things would resume as they were before I left.  It wasn’t the situational details, it was the state of mind I had been in.  There aren’t strong enough words to color the picture of terror I felt boarding the plane.  A few days after I got back, I was still around and not completely resentful of this fact…something new, considering the weeks prior.  He returned from the East Coast on the Monday and we were together that night.  And I was happy.

Deliriously, contentedly, I have no clue what to expect nor if I want to expect anything but for this moment life doesn’t suck…happy.  The weird part?  I stayed happy from that moment on and really, though his company was an added bonus, it wasn’t him entirely that was the cause for no longer wishing for a tragic automobile accident every time I ventured out of the house.

The above was started weeks ago, and I’m not really sure where I was headed with it.  The funny thing is, it’s almost fitting today, still.  I remember at the time feeling the sadness.  I also remember getting past said sadness and entering another stage of happy.  In truth, the last couple weeks have been awesome.  There have been a couple moments of suck, but the greater portion has been counted on the positive.  From where I sit right now (which is at work, to be literal) I’m at a loss as to what I should feel at the knowledge that the happiness since that momentary sad was to do with him.  I don’t know what I should feel because today, yes, I woke up sad…but I also woke up hurt and feeling something I don’t really have words for.

The previous “Moment” dialogues the scene that changed things.  It’s funny (in that not at all way) that I had spent the past few weeks pointedly and purposefully letting my guy issues go – something requiring no small amount of effort and determination.  I chose to trust, even when my paranoia said otherwise.  I chose to love (not necessarily like that) even when he was kind of a jerk.  I could say “I’m not sure why”, and in fact, that’s exactly what I was about to say…but that’s not entirely true.  I do know why.  I’ve been in several relationships over the years, but none of them I’ve actually tried to hang on to.  That probably sounds awful, but in the past I’ve had no trouble letting guys go and moving on – whether it be moving on single or moving on with someone else.  This time, I’ve gone both ways on the situation.  I’ve been hesitant to let go, and I’ve been very eager to do just that…until a few weeks ago.  I can’t pin-point the moment the change happened, but somewhere along the line something horribly tragic happened – I began to care.  I began to care a lot.  Those deep fuzzy feelings which in all honesty had only fleetingly and faintly been there during our actual relationship, suddenly appeared.  That tug I’d wanted to feel when I saw his name on my phone happened.  The rush I felt before an evening together – it was there.  Those moments of stupid girly happy nonsense…guilty.  And the ridiculous thing?  It may well be too late and all folly on my part.

Last night’s fight left me rattled.  We’ve never fought before.  When we returned from the movie we were going to see, I was a breath away from dropping him at his curb and calling it a night.  Knowing this would accomplish nothing, I chose to go with him into the house.  Once there, I still was at a loss for what to do with myself.  We sat on the edge of his bed – me cross-legged and facing him – and stared at each other.  I have rarely felt so likely to spontaneously combust and so at a loss for coherent and linear thought.  I knew mostly what I felt, and all of it was awful.  I was hurt.  I was angry.  I was tired.  But mostly, I was afraid.  I was afraid because for the first time, I was willing to put something on the line – me.  I was willing to get down and dirty and fight (in the metaphorical, non-fighting way) through whatever this was and get to the other side.  You see, I’ve never had a relationship where an argument wasn’t the kabash on the relationship.  I’ve never been in a relationship where I could mess up, or he could mess up, and there was discussion and forgiveness and moving on to the next level of the relationship.  I’ve never known that sort of safety.  In reality, I have nothing of the sort and of this I am aware.  After several snippets of conversation, none of which accomplished anything but him more firmly planting his foot in his throat, we concluded that sleep was probably the best bet.

I waited until all was quiet in the apartment before I got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.  There, I sunk to the floor, wrapped my arms around myself and my folded legs, and sobbed.  My mind went over and over everything in the last year leading up to now.  Maybe I should have been more suspicious.  Maybe I should have been more absent and less available – less transparent.  Maybe I should have ended things when they almost ended all the way back in January.  And when I cut the title back in September.  Or when we had an almost fight back in October.  Maybe everyone was right and I was being foolish and letting myself be used.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  So many questions, and since I am unable to crawl inside his head and heart and gain any information worth having, none of those question got answered.  I waited until my eyes ran dry before going back to bed, where I slept fitfully and not without dreams – vivid, torturous dreams of ambiguity and confusion.

Morning came far too early, and I left for work a ball of confusion.  I’ve run through all kinds of possible conversations, imagined all kinds of outcomes, and at all of them but one my head shuts off and my heart closes down.

Damn it.

Again, life has presented me with another kick in the ass for something I once pitied in someone (or rather, someoneS) other than me.  Again, I have proven to be just as much of a girly romantic as I hoped I wouldn’t be.  Then again…a part of me DID want to be that girl – but only if that girl had that guy.  Life is unscripted, and I don’t know where the next scene is going.  I’d be lying if I said I was excited.  I’m not really.  Life, family, friends, guys…none of them are especially stable at the moment.  A friend of mine reminded me that I should be focusing on the only constant there really is – God.  I know she’s right.  Knowing she’s right, however, doesn’t make it any easier.  It doesn’t make my heart beat any easier, and it doesn’t make my head much clearer, but somehow…she has to be right.

The Blog That Lets Go

I was sitting in a folding metal chair in a classroom that wasn’t much more than an expanded hallway.  We were beginning a Runway class and it was early in the evening – people were still scattering here and there with few ready to settle down.  As things calmed and nomads disappeared, I looked around the circle of chairs and saw a boy.  Dark hair, tan, green eyes, great smile, and gorgeous.  I was 14, awkward, and I’d just laid eyes on someone I wouldn’t really meet until five years later, and who I wouldn’t really know until five years after that.  Back then I couldn’t have known that this one would be something more than a teenage crush, someone more than a co-worker, and something more than a fling of nearly three years ago.

I’ve been in relationships before.  Some of them meaningful, some of them not.  I’ve shared, I’ve listened, I’ve learned, and yes, I’ve loved once.  Make that twice.

I’ve never left someone because I loved them.

Until now.

It’s been there – real quite – for a while now.  The kind of thing that you don’t really talk about, or fight about, or define.  It’s a slow creeping awareness that lies dormant until something lights it’s fuse and it struggles to keep its self under the surface.  I’ve tried to keep it under the surface for longer than I’ll consciously admit.  I’ve hinted at the subject, played around the edges of the issue, and tried desperately to find a way around facing it’s awful quiet truth.  Two nights ago, I bowed my head and accepted the truth.  Nearly seven hours later, I left the arms of a man who’d become my best friend, my lover, and who’s heart I love ever so dearly.

I won’t go into the details of everything that happened that night, though in truth there are parts of it I never want to forget.  If ever there was a tender and loving breakup, this was it.  I didn’t leave because he did something wrong, or I did something wrong, or there was any wrongness to be found.  Our relationship is ours – mine and his.  The details don’t need to be shared.  I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to hoping one day our paths might cross again.  To what extent, we don’t know.

I loved, and let go.

The Blog That's Past Due

Today is a bit of an odd day.  Well, really, it’s been an odd week.

And it’s only Thursday.

Maybe I should be a bit more specific.  Today isn’t so much as odd, as much as my mind is all over the place and no where near work or anything now-related.  My on-off relationship with work is something that lends its self to brief spans of intense displeasure and frustration.  For the most part, I’m apathetic.  Thankful, don’t get me wrong – I’m quite thankful to have a job that pays well mostly pays the bills.  The point really isn’t about work anyway.  It’s the lapse of demand on my time that gives my mind permision to wander, and wander it does.  Today I was thinking about a few key characters from a few years ago.

I had someone in my a few years back who was pretty close to Best Friend status.  Actually, there were two.  One of them I met through acting, the other I met through a friend.  They both became incredibly important people in my life and were either responsible for, or at least witness to, some of the most life-defining moments I went through in my late teens/early twenties.  I loved each of them so very much.  The one I met through acting I lost when he got Married, and though I didn’t get it at the time, life has taught me exactly WHY that relationship needed to end.  The other one I’m really not sure why I lost, but I did – and overnight.  I’ve done some questionable things in this life and am highly aware of my own blunders…this one wasn’t as a result of one of them.  Both are missed more than they know, and even now should they re-appear, I know I’d gladly welcome them back into my life.

Like jobs, homes, and amber colored leaves, people too are somtimes only in our lives for a season.  The two I mentioned above I look back on with affection, and there are others I don’t remember so favorably.  It’s not about grudges or anger, it’s about trying to find the redemption even when there seems to be none.  There are only two in the past who fall into this category.  Even now, as I’m dreading a meeting regarding one of them on Sunday, I still hope there is something positive to be found in all this.  Otherwise…why?  Why did they happen to enter my life and forever leave it changed for at least the immediate worse, if not the thereafter merely salvagable?

I may never  know the answer, and I suppose simple trust in the Bigger Picture of it all may have to suffice.

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