It Bears Repeating

The playlist I made you many months ago.

I haven’t listened to it in a while.

Things were hard.

Strange.

Sad.

Oh god were things sad.

I listened to the music and cried.

I stopped listening to it.

But today.

Tonight.

Well.

I dipped back in.

So good.

So damn good.

Just like you baby.

Stolen kisses in the car.

Your head leaned back against the headrest.

The look in your eyes when you look at me.

Oh the magic.

Damn it baby.

You are the best.

I belted out the songs coming home in the car.

The Christmas lights still up, the traffic still slow, everyone still out of town.

Holidaze.

Sweet love.

My love.

My dear.

Dearest, dear.

I felt like I floated home, drifting down towards the sea with all its love gathering in the passing moonlight.

The songs make me goosebump.

I really love you.

It still boggles my mind that I have had you in my life.

I don’t question it.

I don’t have to know why.

I just know that you love me.

And.

I love you.

What will happen.

I don’t know.

I don’t have to.

I just know how I felt tonight.

Song mix on repeat.

Making me smile.

My heart swelled, pushing against my ribcage.

My heart big, swollen, full of this music.

All the songs about you.

I have never made another man a playlist.

Or a mixed tape.

Just to date myself.

I have made you, though, many.

This one is dear to me, though they all are sweet.

This one special.

My first attempt at letting you know musically how much you mean to me.

I think I did a pretty good job.

I had forgotten what songs were on and when one faded and the next came on.

I just smiled harder.

Sang louder.

Felt my love for you grow again.

How is it so?

Extraordinary.

This expansion of love, like the universe.

On and on and on.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

Penny and the Quarters.

Aretha Franklin.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

The Cranberries.

Carly Simon.

(You really are the best)

Barbara Lewis.

The Ronnettes.

Bill Withers.

Peggy Lee.

Stevie Wonder.

And last, but oh so not least.

Etta James.

Had to end with a bit of punch.

Like how I feel, knocked down drunk with love on you again.

Smitten kitten.

Me.

Again.

Who knew?

So.

I guess what I am saying.

Well.

It bears repeating.

I am happy.

I got to see you today and there will be more of you to come.

And.

Baby, this bears repeating too.

I’m yours.

Baby.

Sweet baby.

I am so yours.

Now.

And.

Always.

In other words, until eternity.

 

11 Months Ago

Today.

You kissed me in the door way to my heart.

The threshold was crossed.

I have been altered.

Changed.

Irrevocably.

Fast forward.

Today.

Your face.

This morning.

When I said.

“Happy eleven months.”

I had no idea why.

It just.

It just.

It just popped out.

It’s not been a happy eleven months.

Has it baby?

At least not the last few months.

It’s been roller coaster months.

Up and down and side ways.

Kisses in the dark corners of my heart.

Tussles in the sand dunes of my soul.

Tears on my pillow.

Tears on your shoulder.

Tears in my car.

How I have gotten home sometimes I still wonder.

Bleary eyed and heart sore.

Tender in places and spaces inside of me that I did not know existed.

You are so interwoven in me.

Sometimes there is comfort in this, closeness, interconnectedness.

Sometimes.

Pain.

The heart pulled and ripped and torn.

The love though.

The love.

Oh.

The love for you my sweet, sweetest, sweeting love.

So much.

I thought I knew every chamber and echo cavern in my heart.

Then you kiss me, again, here, there, and everywhere.

And.

There is more, there is more space, my rooms, more places.

You engulf me.

I am filled.

Your words in my ears.

Your love like a swaddling comfort to wrap myself in when I am tender.

Sore.

Tired.

“I sure love you,” you said to me, as I lay curled in your arms, adrift on the rise and swell of your breath in your chest.

You don’t remember saying it.

But I do.

Oh.

I do.

And it comforts me when you are not here.

My eyes.

Now.

Full of tears.

My throat choked with love.

Love that hasn’t gone anywhere.

Love that only seems to grow bigger.

Despite being boxed in, held tight, reined in.

Bounded in boundaries.

It slips past and swells into the sunlight.

Rises with faith and hope.

Rises like the uptick of your ribcage underneath my head.

Rises like the words from my mouth

As you drifted off to sleep.

That one night not so long ago.

“I sure love you too.”

 

Slow Down

He said and patted my arm as we were heading up the stairs to the MOMA’s membership desk.

Then he did a mimicry of me and my busy self.

Oh shit.

I had someone else do that to me recently.

I was a bit abashed.

And as I sit here, having slowed way the hell down today, after the MOMA and lunch out with my friends, I came home, and read.

I didn’t nap.

I was actually a little afraid to nap.

Who the fuck is afraid of naps?

I am.

If they are past a certain point of time in the day, then I get afraid I wouldn’t get out of the house again if I lay down (and I did get out for a little while this evening to do the deal, which was super handy).

So I read.

And that was relaxing.

And I roasted a chicken and that made my little studio warm and cozy.

I posted up the photographs I took at the MOMA and I just hung out at the house and was chill.

I am contemplating a yoga class in the morning, but truth be told, I may not go, just let myself rest, sleep, lay about.

Even if it kills me.

Because it won’t be for always and there’s a good chance I will still go out and deal with a few things.

I have been in intermittent communication with the mom in my new gig and we have been trying to figure out a time to meet and talk about the job and sign the contract.

Said job starts on Monday.

But.

Mom is pregnant and due December 30th.

Today is the 28th.

So.

Like any second now she could be going into labor.

In fact, a couple of times I thought to myself today, we’re not going to end up being able to meet, she’s in labor, or she’s about to have the baby.

But I got an email this evening asking if I was available tomorrow or Friday.

I have an appointment downtown that is going to take up some time on Friday, so I said tomorrow.

I will skip yoga, rest, and await her time frame.

I am not about to get pushy with a mom who’s due to deliver at any second.

She gets to set the time.

I get to be available.

And yes, the cold is lingering and it felt improbably worse tonight then it has in a few days.

I think it’s gone and going away and then it’s back.

Annoying thing.

I have things to do.

Places to be.

Ugh.

Shut up brain.

Let it go.

I did my FAFSA renewal yesterday, for my federal financial aid package for grad school next year, and I had this tremendous anxiety over come me when I started to think about all the things I needed to do and how I was squandering my time off and I should be working on my practicum cover letters and applications and arranging to go to open houses and get my resume written and my letters of recommendation.

Boy howdy.

My brain knows so well how to sabotage me enjoying a day off and getting a massage.

Thanks brain.

SHUT UP.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a really sweet day today and saw some yummy art and hung out with two of my favorite people and then got treated to lunch at an amazing Zagat rated Chinese restaurant.

Which was nice.

Since i got a fucking $81 parking ticket on my scooter.

I plugged the meter!

I swear.

I used my debit card, it registered as having charged me for $3.40 cents, hours of time, and I happily traipsed off to the museum with my camera.

I came back and there was a ticket.

For 12:45 p.m.

What?

I paid long in case we decided to stay at the museum and have lunch in the cafe.

I should be covered until 2 p.m.

I used my card, it charged my card, I wrote it down and balanced my check book.

Because that’s how I roll.

I don’t have a credit card, everything by cash and I tally as I go and I also keep a running log in my checkbook register.

You know, those funny little things in the back of a check book.

Yeah.

I use them.

All the time.

I checked, yup, I had put a notation down for $3.40 and then I thought!

Oh hey!

I’ll check my bank balance online and I’ll contest the ticket!

I checked my bank balance.

The charge had not gone through.

What the fuck?

I don’t know if it was user error or meter error, but there was nothing left for me to do but get out my check book again and pay the ticket.

Can’t contest it if I don’t have evidence that I paid.

Because if it didn’t pull from my account, then technically, I didn’t pay.

Sigh.

Cost of living in the city.

Grateful I got a couple of cards from family with cash in them this Christmas.

Oh well, really, I’m not too upset about it, I really had such a lovely day, I don’t want to focus on the negative.

In the grand scheme of things, one parking ticket is not going to break me and what a gift that I had money, disposable income, to pay it off within hours of getting it.

That is something to be happy about.

So too, the option and availability to rest and not push myself.

Sleep in tomorrow.

Don’t set the alarm.

Rest.

Read a book in bed.

Chill the hell out.

And if the mom gets back to me, yes, I’ll venture out and I’ll have a coffee with her or tea and see how I can help and be of service in my new job.

If she doesn’t, it’s all good, I know that I will show up and be ready to go on Monday.

Everything is alright, I didn’t drink or use today.

I didn’t smoke a cigarette or eat a big pile of donuts.

I spent time with two fabulous men who I dearly love and got to see art and eat amazing Chinese food.

I have a blessed life.

Really.

I do.

And I am allowed to slow down, to feel the feelings that need to be felt, and to rejuvenate before the busy gets well, busy again.

Everything, I gently remind myself, is exactly, and I do mean EXACTLY, how it should be.

It always is.

Seriously.