1. Roll out of bed.
2. Get in car.
3. Be at work.

But life is about choices, and when we moved to Cville, we chose a bigger, more affordable house close to Seth’s work and about a half an hour from mine. So I became the commuter. It seemed only fair.

The only thing is, a good portion of my commute takes me straight down 29, which is possibly the stupidest road in town unless you count University Avenue, which I actually do, so okay, 29 is the second stupidest road in town. It is full of weirdness and random accidents and drivers who have some kind of particular, unique blend of stupid. I think it might be because so, so many of our area’s residents are transplants from other places, so they all bring the driving habits of their other places to Cville and then it becomes just a big fucking mess.

So. Route 29 is basically Frogger in real life. The other day, my drive in forced me to choose between driving directly behind the following: a tractor, a dump truck, a cement truck, and a logging truck full of logs, and dudes, I saw City of Angels so you’d better believe my ass was not behind the logging truck full of logs. I went with the cement truck until I realized that the cement truck was going approximately 21 mph in a 45 zone and so I did some fancy maneuvering between the other trucks in this toddler boy traffic fantasy so I could get OUT OUT OUT.

Today’s obstacle course was brought to us by the friendly folks at VDOT, who decided to mow the grass. All the grass. But not in like a consistent or helpful pattern, oh no. You’d be driving along, la la la, and then BAM! your lane ended, completely without warning, because they were mowing there. So then you had to sit there along with all the other stupid people who got stuck until you could get over into the other lane and continue. Until it happened in that lane too. So my brakes got a good workout today.

Oh! Oh, but then! Hey there, random girl in scrubs walking out into traffic all randomly and shit! That was so awesome how you did that!

And hey there, Mr. Disabled Plates Guy. That totally wasn’t dangerous at all how you just changed lanes 7 times in five seconds without signaling and also cut me off twice. Are you recruiting?

This week has been on my mind for ages, a huge obsidian block in the middle of my springtime, a chasm of sadness that I know I must navigate each year. I dread it and yet it feels important to me to do it – as if I had any choice. Of course, I would much rather have Frank here.

So I’ve been really apprehensive about this week’s arrival, counting down in my head the events leading up to his death. Today he was at Gregg’s. Today he talked to Maria. Today he is decomposing. It’s kind of horrifying and brutal to contemplate and I’ve worried about its ability to stop me in my tracks when what I most need to do is keep moving.

The week approached like a tidal wave, inexorable and crushingly destructive, and I braced myself for its impact. This year, maybe, I would keep my head above water.

And then, against all odds, a series of events stacked up that have caused this week to become what I can only describe as spectacular.

Several weeks ago I won tickets to see David Sedaris do a reading here in town. He’s one of my favorite authors and our budget just couldn’t justify the cost of the tickets, so I was moping. And then I won them on the radio, and off we went, and it was exactly as funny and interesting as I hoped it would be. We waited in line for an hour and a half to have our book signed afterward. We arrived at his table at 11pm, near the end of the signing, and the first thing David Sedaris did was welcome me to his golden okra chest. And then he laughed and wrote that in my book. And then he offered me some of his fried okra, and I’m actually kind of sorry I declined because I was freaking starving and that looked like some killer okra. And a love for fried okra is among the most Southern of my Southern qualities. Then, David Sedaris astutely observed that I’d dragged Seth along, but that he was very patient about the whole thing. He asked if we were married, Seth said, “not yet,” and David Sedaris whose whole name must always be used as far as I’m concerned asked why the heck we weren’t married yet. Then apologized for being awkward. Then asked again. And we stuttered out some excuses and he kind of leaned back and, even though David Sedaris doesn’t know us from anyone, he said something like, “You guys are good together and I can tell you’re going to make it.” It was completely awesome and we thanked him and told him our dirty nun joke, which he rewarded with two of his own dirty jokes, and we were on our merry way.

That alone would have made this a great week. But then Tuesday came, and you guys, Tuesday was seriously badass.

Old 97s were in town. I freaking love Old 97s, I’ve never seen them live, and the minute their new album dropped I told Seth that this meant they’d surely be touring and I felt Charlottesville was a likely stop and that WE WOULD BE ATTENDING NO MATTER WHAT. I mean seriously, they hadn’t even announced a tour yet and I already knew there’d be a Cville date. Because I’m magic. So Seth was like yes, whatever, and then the announcement came and I squealed louder than I did when Mom surprised us with New Kids on the Block tickets in 1990. EEEEEE OLD 97S!!!

Then we looked at our budget.

We were broke broke broke, broke as a joke. We kept putting off the tickets in the hopes that our next paycheck would have more wiggle room, but alas, car repairs and vet bills and optometrist visits just blew massive holes in our “discretionary” fund over and over again. And since I’d won tickets to David Sedaris, I wasn’t eligible to win again from our local radio station. So I moped.

On Monday, the morning host on our station of choice posted a thing on Facebook telling people to email him if they wanted a chance to meet Rhett Miller. And within 30 seconds I think I had written a novel-length plea and fired that bad boy off to Brad. A few hours later, he responded: we were in! We’d been put on the list for a private acoustic studio session with Rhett. I figured it’d be a good consolation prize for not getting to go to the concert.

So Tuesday afternoon rolled around and we headed to the station for the session. I hadn’t been to their studio before and expected we’d be with 20 or 30 people on folding chairs outside the booths where the sound engineer and the artist would be. Imagine my surprise when we and 6 of our newest friends were ushered into a very small studio…and Rhett Miller was a foot away from us.

He played three songs and bantered with the hosts, and it was completely awesome to be up close for the session, which you can listen to here. We hadn’t been told much about what would be allowed, so I didn’t think photos or signings or anything would be cool. But they were!

After the session, we got to take photos and a professional photographer was in taking photos too. Rhett signed CDs and such for us, and then he asked us if there were any songs we’d like to see on the setlist. HOLY CRAP! I asked him to play “Murder (or a Heart Attack),” one of my favorites. And he wrote it down along with the other suggestions. We left the studio basically floating through the air, and the minute we hit the parking lot, Seth and I were like, “okay, now we have to go to the show.”

We made a quick huddle and an agreement to skip groceries this week and get by on Ramen and PBJ, and I ran down and bought the tickets.

That night, we drove to the concert through a torrential thunderstorm, and when we arrived, we snagged a spot on the front row. Seriously. I told you this week was freaking awesome, didn’t I?

So we’re on the front row, along with some of our friends from the session. And the band comes out on stage and they are exactly as awesome as I thought they’d be, and Rhett Miller actually recognizes us from the stage and kind of waves and raises his eyebrows at us while he’s playing, and we’re in the front row at an Old 97s show and Rhett Miller just waved at me from the damn stage and I’m pretty sure I’m going to die of the awesomeness.

It was way better than that NKOTB show. My parents were right about them.

So hey, is this long enough yet? We went home, and we were happy and half-deaf and exhausted. And then yesterday I continued the awesomeness by giving a guest lecture on arts fundraising at the university.

Today is kind of what I think of as The Day, when it comes to Frank. Today, he is gone. And I miss him still, and I will always miss him. But I can’t help but notice the timing of this fantastic, surreal week I’ve been having. Frank had a novel in progress he called The Architecture of Coincidence. Despite a general lack of belief that he and I shared, this week has been different for some reason. And I’ve wondered if maybe, just maybe, there is an architect after all.

So I have this weird habit of buying something and then, only after plunking down the cash, going online to look up its reviews. I have no idea why I do this, but it happens all the time. Like maybe I need to have my life choices validated. If only I could look up online reviews on the friends I choose and whether or not I said the right thing at the right time, although I fear the answer in both cases might make me feel bad.

I happened across some really great ankle boots at Target toward the end of last summer, and while I was validating my choice by reading reviews, I saw another boot on the site that I might have liked even better. And those reviews were STELLAR, frequently comparing these boots favorably to a certain style of Frye boots that retail for over $200. These boots? $50.

The cheap boots are on top.

So I immediately snapped up two pairs, in brown and black.

And then I was all nervous about how to wear them so I left them in the closet for like 4 months.

And then, gradually, I started to break them in. And I freaking love them. I only rarely wear the black ones, as it turns out, but I wear the brown ones several days a week with a skirt or a dress and a little sweater or something, and I might look like a total douche in them but every single time I wear them I feel stylish and comfortable and I’m pretty sure I rock it.

So here I am, all awesome, feeling trendy in a pair of boots when for heaven’s sake I’m freaking surrounded by UVA students wearing much more stylish and expensive boots, but these boots fit my fatty fat calves and they were fifty bucks. Therefore, I am cool.

A month or so ago I went to do a site visit at a place where I was hoping to plan an event, and the very very nice and sweet staff member assisting me was about my age, and wearing the boots. At some point in the visit, I decided to both compliment her and bond with her by complimenting her on what a great deal the boots were, and how excited I had been to find them at Target, and so on and so forth. So I’m gushing about our shared love of $50 boots, and she gets kind of red and kind of quiet and says, “I didn’t get these at Target.”

Oh shit, I think. She’s wearing the $200 Frye boots and they look freaking exactly like mine.

So I immediately and quite awkwardly and unintentionally diss her very expensive designer boots by telling her, out loud, that they look freaking exactly like my shitty Target knockoffs.

And she’s like, “Normally Target is way more my speed, but I’m getting married and wedding planning has been really stressful and I wanted to do something nice for myself, so I saved up and splurged on these boots.”

And now I’m an even BIGGER asshole, because I have unintentionally dissed fancy boots that she SAVED HER MONEY TO BUY AS A STRESS REWARD TREAT THING. Also, she was very cute and nice and had very nice thin calves. And I made her doubt her designer boots.

I tried to make some little joke about how her boots would probably last her ten years and mine would fall apart by next fall, and later on she emailed me to say that we needed to do a boot check every now and then to see how they were holding up. She was very gracious. But boy, did I feel stupid.

When I was thinking about resolutions, the one I kept wanting to make was along the lines of “work out more, lose some weight, etc.” I even told some friends that my single resolution for 2011 was to run the Four Miler. I was training for it last spring and I had to stop because my eardrum exploded and then I got mono. So I thought, I’ll get back to that goal and do that and it’ll be fine.

I might still run that race. In fact, I hope I do. But it’s not as big a deal anymore because the decision I’ve replaced it with turns out to be far more important.

As my life has become busier over the past few years, I have become a casual reader of blogs at best. I cruise around daily or so and skim some regular sites, but I am not nearly so active a reader and commenter as I once was. So in my blogosphere rounds over the last few days, I ran across this guest post about body image at C. Jane’s blog. And I skimmed it just like I skim everything lately. I didn’t give it any extra attention or read it with any extra purpose, but somehow, that post really got under my skin and seems to have begun putting down roots. And if what I’m going to attempt ends up working out well, I will have Janna and C. Jane to thank for it.

This year, I’m going to try a radical departure from every approach I’d ever tried before. This year, I am going to love the body I have.

I know, I know. It goes against everything we know, everything we’re taught. I’m fat, after all. I’m fatter than I’ve ever been. I should count my calories. I should schedule a workout regimen so ferocious I want to die. I should hate and hate and hate this body until the only reasonable option is to change it to a better one. But fuck that.

I have pretty, thick, dark wavy hair that glints red in the sun. I have eyes that shine gold in certain light. I have pretty pale skin that flushes pink sometimes. I have really soft hands. I have strong legs and a fantastic rack and curves that won’t quit. I’m dead sexy, and I’m not going to waste another moment looking for things to dislike about myself.

I am going to buy clothes that fit well and make me feel and look beautiful, and I don’t give a shit if that means they come from Lane Bryant. I am going to walk the dog because it’s fun to explore the world with him. I’m probably going to run that race because this body is strong and can totally do it, and if it turns out I feel like doing something else that weekend, I will. I am going to continue to refuse to buy reduced-fat cheese and sour cream because the real thing is ten thousand times better. I am going to dance more because shaking my ass makes me feel awesome. I’m going to take pictures and be in pictures with my friends and family and put that shit all over Facebook, and you know what? I’ll probably have double chins and weird facial expressions and unflattering poses, and I’m not going to care anymore.

So many things about my life are so good right now. I am surrounded by people I love who love me back. It’s high time I started to love myself, too.

1. I am not the dog’s actual mother.
2. The dog, in fact, shares none of my genetic makeup.
3. In fact, the dog is not even of the same species as I am.
4. If nurture beat nature, then no smart, involved parents would ever have dumb kids. But it happens.
5. And really, science should tell us that there’s no reason whatsoever that my dog should be smart just because I wish it were so.

So yes, these shall be the points we have agreed to ignore. I, for my part, was staunchly ignoring these points in early October, when I waltzed into Petsmart’s Beginner Dog Training with my blindingly intelligent brown dog, the perfect outer reflection of my perfect inner self, the one who would ace the shit out of that obedience class simply because I wanted it more than any of the other eight dog parents in the ring.

About ten minutes into the class, I had dropped my inner confidence that Bean was the most likely to succeed in favor of a desperate wish for Bean to at least not be the worst dog in class. Please, don’t let Bean be the worst dog in class.

And thank the sweet Jehovah above, Bean was not the worst dog in class that night.

He was the second-worst.

The honor of worst dog went to Chopper, a little rat terrier or something with an extremely laid-back, friendly dad who had no damn clue what to do with his incessantly barking, aggressive maniac of a dog. As Bean stole other dogs’ toys and drank other dogs’ water, I didn’t even care because at least he wasn’t as bad as Chopper.

So imagine my deep dismay when Chopper dropped out of dog school a few weeks later, leaving my sweet idiot Bean to claim the worst dog honor all by himself.

I knew loose leash walking would be a challenge for Bean. I knew that if I stopped every time he pulled the leash, we would probably finish our three laps behind the other dogs. What I did not know was that we would only make it through 1.5 laps of Bean dragging me sweaty and teary-eyed and exhausted, stopping only to hike his leg on a stack of cat litter and then to eat something random off the floor. We got back to the ring, where all the smart, obedient dogs and their owners were waiting, and Bean pranced in looking like an Olympic gold medalist. I, dragging behind him, looked like a Cathy cartoon.

I freaking hate Cathy cartoons.

So let’s call the next few weeks a trying time, to say the least, in my relationship with Bean. The next week, we walked into Petsmart for training and he promptly hiked his leg and peed all over a display of Beggin’ Treats. Somewhere in that time frame, I took him to the dog park alone. He obsessively chased and humped a little dog named Claire, whom I swear to God was asking for it, while I tried in vain to keep up with him so I could correct him every time he clumsily mounted her shoulder or the side of a picnic bench. Finally, Claire’s owner said something snippy to me and I dragged my idiot dog out of the park in tears, him whining all the while because if I could just give him one more chance he was SURE Claire would like him back this time. As he dragged me around the sidewalks of an outdoor shopping center one afternoon, some little kids claimed in giggles that he was “just like Marley” and I fought the urge to punch them right in their adorable little mouths.

And not a single Tuesday went by where I didn’t consider skipping dog school.

Bean loved every minute of dog school. He loved dragging me around the store and he loved when he and current dog crush Jack would whine adoringly at each other from across the training ring and he loved stealing toys off the shelves and rolling on his back right in the doorway of the store while I meekly asked the cashier if her scanner would stretch far enough to scan the stolen toy in his mouth. As person after person stopped to compliment his shiny coat and his sunny personality, I began to evaluate their clothes and what they were buying to see if I could send him home with them. I wouldn’t be the first person to abandon my dog in Petsmart, right? It’s full of dog lovers. Surely someone would take his dumb ass home.

The other dogs learned “leave it” and Bean barked at ceiling tiles. The other dogs trotted obediently beside their owners while Bean dragged me around and tormented the aquarium fish and small pets. The other dogs came running when called, while Bean stopped off to raid a display of stuffed reindeer. The other dogs “stayed” for minutes at a time, where Bean had no use for anything that required his attention for more than three seconds. In fact, when he realized that sitting to stay meant no treats for a while, he also decided that “sit” was an obsolete command. I dressed for embarrassment and failure, and counted the weeks until I would never have to set foot in that store again.

And then, on week 7 of 8, we had a new teacher – our third, at that point. We filled her in on what the second trainer had been teaching us and she asked us to go out into the store and practice having our dogs sit for greetings. About five minutes later, she realized Bean had no intention of sitting ever again and the poor patient shopper-volunteer was probably wondering if he’d ever get to go home that evening. Trainer #3 took me and my failure of a dog aside and worked with us for twenty solid minutes, made suggestions about a better training harness, and stayed with us after class to fit him for the new harness and walk around the store in it.

It was the first time in seven weeks that I really felt like we were being assisted and not just left alone to suffer. So I screwed up my courage and asked her what to do about my dog.

She talked about how smart and willing to learn he was, and said that she could let us graduate from the class next week, but felt it would do a disservice to both of us if she did. She said we could take the class again for free, that she would be our trainer, and that she would work with us consistently until he had the skills he needed. She might have been telling me Bean was smart just to make me feel better, but it worked, and I went home feeling more hopeful than I had in weeks.

I had decided to let my dog fail obedience school and I couldn’t have been happier about it.

Of course, I still had to come in for the graduation test in the eighth week. As we sat there reviewing concepts and preparing for the test, I looked up for maybe the first time in weeks and realized that of the nine dogs who began the class, only four of us remained. The other five had dropped out week by week while I was busy keeping my head down and plotting my dog’s demise. And of those four, only two passed the test.

Stop right there. This isn’t a movie. Bean failed the shit out of that test.

But it’s okay. We’re going to go back and try again in January, and Trainer #3 gave me some stuff to work on in the meantime, and I think maybe this time we’ll do a little better.

So last Tuesday I found myself with a rare couple of hours to myself with absolutely! nothing! planned! and somehow I spent a great deal of that time making a fatter version of myself for Rock Band. We’re really into Rock Band, see, and lately it had been bugging me that my little rocker girl was just way too skinny. Sure, I’d like to be skinnier but the fact is that I’m not, and plus my little rocker girl had no boobs. So I made a new one, and I made her fatter, big and curvy and luscious. And then I had to make some money to buy some better rock clothes, so I queued up a song list of full chick rock because Seth wasn’t home to make me do boy songs, woo! and we were off to the races.

How come I’m always doing something really loud when bad news comes in on the phone? Seriously.

So my cell phone rang, and I ignored it, because I was way too busy wailing on “Spiderwebs.” Seriously! That’s ironic, right? So then our newly-installed, can’t-quite-remember-how-to-use-it landline rang, and it was such a foreign concept to have a landline ringing that I ignored it for a second, and then I was all like, “A LIKELY STOOOOOOOOOOORY BUT LEAVE A MESSAGE AND I’LL CALL YOU BACK,” and then it kept ringing and I thought, hmm, I’d better get that. So I paused the game and dove across the couch to snag the non-caller-ID-enabled corded $5 cheapie phone and one of my sisters was on the line, breathless, scared and sad.

“Ginny called and Dad’s in the hospital and Mom’s in Richmond and it’s something with his heart and I don’t know what to do I’m supposed to teach a class in fifteen minutes and what’s going on? Do you know what’s going on?”

I was too far away. I was useless, utterly useless and helpless and impotent. All I could do is work the phones, so that’s what I did. I called Mom in Richmond, I called Ginny at the hospital, I called Sammi in class, I called Jamie in Westover. I got all the data I could and tried to calmly relay it and help everyone feel calm and empowered and then I made the rounds again, sitting hours away on my new kitchen counter with that crappy phone in my hand.

And as my mother blamed her business travel and Ginny paced the hospital halls and Sammi and Jamie worried separately then together, I sat on that counter and blamed myself. I have placed so much of my confidence in my ability to know what to do, to help my family when they need it, to help with planning and staying calm and details and logic and order, and due to what seemed like a completely selfish decision, I was sitting on a kitchen counter three hours away and there was, quite literally, nothing else I could do. I felt awful. I felt like I had abandoned my family.

Dad definitely had a heart attack. His main coronary artery had a 90% blockage, and two other arteries are also blocked. Ginny and the hospital staff saved his life. I sat on the kitchen counter and made useless phone calls, probably more for my own peace of mind than for anyone else’s. He had an angioplasty, they used a stent to open the blockage, he spent a couple of days in the hospital, and now he’s at home. I’ve talked to him a few times and he sounds great, says he feels twenty years younger. They will be scheduling a double bypass surgery for the other blockages in a few weeks.

Everyone else went home, but I haven’t yet. I’m so torn because I love them and want to be with them, but I have no time off from my job yet, I’m scheduled up to my eyeballs for the next few weeks (mostly work, but other things too), and it feels like there’s nothing for me to do. I’m getting conflicting messages about whether I should be there and it’s hard, because I’m far enough away that the trip is kind of a big deal, but not so far that it’s unreasonable. And yet, though I’m calling a lot and checking in and thinking about them constantly, I haven’t gone. Instead I sit here feeling useless and making excuses.

Spring was lousy. It was miserable and awful and I don’t even really want to talk about it, but I’ll need to talk about it a little bit so you know how it laid the foundation for what was to come. I used to be really into establishing superlatives – my worst birthday, my best year, my worst season, my best month, and so on. I can’t do it anymore. Spring sucked, but I don’t really know if it sucked more or less than the previous spring. Nobody died this spring, so in that sense it was better. But on the other hand, this was the spring when I realized I was drowning. It was not a sudden realization; in fact, it came up so gradually that by the time I could give it a name, it was nearly too late. I was out so far that no one could see me. My feet couldn’t find the ground, my legs were too tired to keep kicking, my arms were leaden weights, my lungs and ears and eyes were filling with water and it was rapidly closing over my head. Maybe no one knew. Maybe everyone knew. It doesn’t really matter now.

So among a million other sucky things, I came down with mono, which is stupid in the one sense because hello, I’m thirty years old and that ought to be too damn old for mono. But it isn’t. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it was absolutely debilitating for me. I spent nearly a month at home, isolated and lonely and miserable and more exhausted and sick than I’ve ever been in my life. I had a lot of time to think. And as I came around the corner and began to recover, I slowly realized that I was drowning. Mono wasn’t the cause – it was a symptom.

And once I finally got it together enough to realize I was drowning, the answer was simple. Find solid ground.

So I did.

It would make a far more dramatic, better story if I told you how hard it was to find solid ground, but seriously, it wasn’t that hard. The answers were right in front of me the entire time, and once I could see them, it was fairly easy to choose them. And though those choices happened to also be beneficial for others, it’s important to know that I made them for myself.

I talked to the people who matter and support me. I quietly stepped out of the way of the people who didn’t. I found a new job and a new house in a new city, and all the other pieces began to fall into place.

I am calm and centered these days. I am effective and productive at work. I am happier than I’ve been in a long time. And I can’t wait to tell you the rest of the story.

I’m still writing it, and I hope you’ll be here to read it with me.

This is me, waving.

Before I had a multi-species household, it was simply an interesting article. But now that I’m a mama to a dog and two cats, it’s a struggle I see playing out on a daily basis. We’ll have to eliminate Marco from this observation, as he is somewhat atypical. He might be a cat on the outside, but on the inside he’s one part snugglebug, one part lap dog, and one part wusspuss. So we’ll just talk about Abby and Bean.

I am pretty sure Abby and Bean would like to be friends. Ever since we brought Bean home, Abby has made a point of putting herself in his general vicinity, which in Abby’s world means she’s probably interested in a friendship. Bean, of course, would like to be friends with every single living creature in the entire universe, and so OF COURSE he wants to be friends with Abby. He wants to be BEST BEST BESTEST FRIENDS FOREVA OMG.

But they just can’t seem to get on the same page about things, no matter how hard they try. And of course, in addition to the dog-cat misunderstanding, Bean is still just a puppy and is kind of still learning how his legs work and why it’s not good to walk across people’s faces and stuff. So when they’re trying to hang out and make friends, Bean’s laid-back ears mean he’s feeling submissive and gentle. Abby’s mean YOU BETTER NOT FUCK WITH ME, MISTER. Bean’s waggly tail means he’s alert and interested and friendly. Abby’s twitching tail means she’s wary and feeling a little dangerous. Bean shows his belly to indicate submission. Abby shows hers to indicate she’s ready to fuck you up. And so on.

Poor Bean either gains points for tenacity or loses them for stupidity, because Abby has actually clawed his face on more than one occasion, and he still approaches her every single day as though maybe today she’ll want to play with him and hang out and be pals. And every day, she mistakes his friendly overtures as threatening acts, and reacts accordingly. And then Abby does what Abby does when she doesn’t like or understand a situation, and she peaces out. And of course while she’s running off to show she’s had enough, Bean thinks that means it’s time to play chase and he’s finally won himself a friend. And so on.

I tend to let them try to work it out themselves because seriously, it’s not like I can fix it. But it’s been something I’ve been paying attention to and kind of thinking about a lot lately. In life I sometimes find myself in a situation with other people where one of us is a dog and one’s a cat and we’re trying to form a friendship but we keep misunderstanding each other. And it’s rare, but when it happens, I really struggle to figure it out. Is it possible that, like Bean, I just don’t have the right communication tools to make myself understood?

This year was supposed to be so much better, right? I remember the end of last year, swaying with the crowd, singing “Start Wearing Purple” like it would become the anthem of 2010, the very essence of our hopes and dreams. You were across the room from me but I didn’t feel lonely or left behind. You were checking in, we made eye contact, and I thought of how much I loved you, how lucky I was to have you, and how much ass we were going to kick this year. You’d fought your way to the front of the stage and the Gogol girls were pouring champagne into your mouth and I stood back, to the side, and I was happy there. It was fine. It was as it should be.

So this year, it’s not better so far. I am not sure if it’s worse. It has certainly been a test, or perhaps a series of tests – a gauntlet, I think sometimes, that I must run at full speed if I am to survive. The problem is that I’ve never been a very good runner, and though I try my very best, I am so slow, and so weak, and so scared, and so unsure of my ability to make it through to the end. Sometimes I think I will never catch up to you, much less keep up with you. Sometimes it is very hard to see to the end.

I am not easy to love on the best days, and these have certainly not been my best days. I know what it costs you sometimes to stick around, and you know I fear that I can never repay that debt. I worry that by the time I am better, by the time I am able to be the partner you need, that it will be too late. But through all of that, through the nights when I keep you up coughing and feverish, the days when I drag you down with my worries, there is this:

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you in a way you have never been loved. It is a love that carries no conditions, that does not judge, that does not depend on good behavior or a positive attitude. It is a love that persists through the worst weather and the most infuriating challenges. It is a love that is patient and pure enough to watch from the back of the room while those Gogol girls feed you champagne. It can embrace that effervescence, can give you the time and space you need to enjoy it, can even share it at parties sometimes. Those girls won’t build a home with you. Those girls won’t take care of you when you’re feeling bad. Those girls won’t fold your underwear, won’t carry your babies to bed. Those girls won’t be around when money is tight, when you hate yourself and the world a little, when you’re angry with them, when you feel frustrated and powerless, when nothing seems to be going right.

This one will. This girl always, always will.

Somehow, over the past year, I’ve trained myself not to talk about you. And it’s not because I don’t miss you or I’m totally over it or I’ve forgotten about you. It is none of those things. But still, it was something I subconsciously felt was necessary, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever adequately explain it to anyone, but somehow I know you would understand it, if you were here.

I feel kind of bad, though, because not talking about you so much means I haven’t done the job I should have done when it comes to helping support your people through this. Jeramy, Maria, Chris, Jared, Gregg, your sister, your parents…I planned to reach out to all of them frequently. I planned to help take care of them in your absence. But I found I couldn’t talk about you much, and it was strange, me at a loss for words, me having trouble expressing my emotions, and so I withdrew and I barely talked to anyone about how I felt. I am sorry I didn’t do this for you. I hope, if any of them reads this, that they sort of understand and aren’t too disappointed in me.

I’m doing okay, mostly. On balance, my life is pretty good these days. But I miss you terribly. I miss celebrating the good stuff with you. I miss talking through the hard stuff with you. I miss the last ten-plus years of knowing you were never more than a phone call away, through my late lonely nights, through my musing early mornings, through my triumphs and my challenges. I never had a close friend for as long as I had you. You, who didn’t need my backstory, who didn’t need to have things explained, who could tell how I was doing by a mere change in my breathing or the pitch of my voice. I miss your strong scarred hands and the graceful arches of your feet and your deep eyes and your mischievous grin and your stupid occasional beard. I miss you more than I ever thought it was possible to miss anyone.

But every day I get up and I go to work and I take care of my people and I try to be the person you insisted I have always been. I keep doing it and sometimes it hurts a little less.

Of all the songs on all the mixes you made for me over the years, the one that touched me the most was “Colorblind.” It could have been written about you, and kind of about me, and I know you know that and that’s why you made it the first track on that disc. But I don’t think I ever talked to you about it. I’m listening to it now, and I’m letting myself cry for you for the first time in a while. I wish you were here.

I’ll write you again next year. I love you forever.
xoxo,
lah