Old Friends Are Gold

To the ones I can sit for two hours with or twelve and we never quite get to the end of the conversation:
You Are Awesome. 

When did we grow up enough to be married, to have children, to have careers, and aging parents?  Hell, when did we ever get old enough to drive, or vote, or drink, or rent a car? 

And yet here we are, sitting at the bar (the fancy one with tablecloths and candles over bottomless margaritas and buckets of salsa) talking about our few grandparents that are left, our parents that love you like you're their own and me like I'm the daughter that got away (that's a longer story isn't it?), and checking the time in case one of us needs to get home to nurse. 

I love you old friends.  I am so blessed, or lucky, or smart, or however one decides is most appropriate to describe someone who gets to have friends that knew them in their awkward stages, who knew them at their highest and loved them through their lowest, and still wants to drink bottles of wine and figure out the problems of the world together.

Tick Tock

Who knew?  The maternal clock is not a myth.  I always thought it sounded a little far-fetched, maybe an excuse for women who wanted to settle (sell-out?).  This may sound uncharitable, but it was so foreign.  Until very recently I was not sure I ever wanted kids of my own.

I just spent five minutes crying over photos of my dear friend (and ex-boyfriend) and his girlfriend and their newborn baby.  The way they looked at each other and they way they look at their baby was overwhelming.  It's not that he once loved me, and it's not that I want a baby now, but something inside me twinged...   I want that one day, and I want one day to be not so far away.

I spent last week in a house on a beach in North Carolina on vacation with a family that I've known for a long time.  We adopted each other when I was a girl and the neighbor girl decided we would be friends, and now that we're grown I'm getting to know the neighbor brother I grew up with in a whole new way.  He has two kids with whom I spent days playing on the beach and nights reading books to these beautiful blondes, and it makes me sad to not know how much they'll remember the next time I see them.  I feel drawn to their father in part because I see him as that, a father, a loving and devoted father.  I see in him how I want the father to my children to be.  Until now, this is not a quality that I ever would have looked for or particularly valued in a man.  But now it seems so inherent to the quality of the person as a whole I can't imagine not taking this into consideration.

So what now?  I guess for now I make sure to be really careful about birth control and start thinking more than a year out, so one day soon I can not be careful about birth control.

June Was a Big Month...

Which should explain why I only published three blogs over the month.

I was my best friends maid of honor and shared a magical weekend with her family, mine, and a group of some of the most wonderful people on the planet.  I loved taking charge and knowing what needed to be done without her having to tell me, I loved feeling like I was really helping her marry this man, whom I love too; I loved being around all the people, I loved the ceremony of it all, I loved the kids, I loved staying up until sunrise every night with her brother who became a man and a father in the eight years since I had last seen him, I loved all the music and drinking and food, all the quotations that only those of us who were around all weekend really get ("that's what she said"), I loved my sister being such a help to me and everyone and my parents being able to celebrate with us, I loved being around my oldest and best friends for days straight, and I love being included in everything this family that invited me in 20 years ago did.

I spent about 36 hours in Virginia for a wedding that most of this country would consider invalid.  The 'best-of-times-worst-of-times' year of my life was survived because of a small group of friends, a few of whom have survived in this group we call the Jager Girls.  (Yes, that Jager.)  That year in Fayetteville we drank a lot, we fought a little, we never got arrested, and together we survived what was for most of us the most difficult year of our lives.  They are the ones that didn't ask but just showed up after Brendan died; they cooked and brought liquor (Jager, duh) and cigarettes, distraction, tissues, hugs, and so much love.
Around that time two years ago Mel was about to leave the job she had held and excelled at for most of her adult life because they said she couldn't love Dawn and still do her job.  (They are proof, by the way, that that rule is bullshit.)  Dawn and Mel live together in Virginia now and as of early June are happily (and legally, thanks to the District of Columbia) married.  I got to be there to celebrate, help with a garter, drink a lot, cry a little, laugh more than anything, and love some of my favorite women (and some of their children) in the world.

My sister spent the last three years, arguably the most difficult of her life, working on a masters degree from a very important and very expensive school.  She'd argue the ivy is bullshit but damn if it doesn't have a nice ring to it.  She finished in May.  In June (the day I came back to Madison from VA) we had a nice little party for her.  Our sister from another mister gave us the theme, my mom and I brainstormed the map as guestbook, I found Dora napkins, and we had enough sparkling goodness that Megan had a full glass the whole night.  It was lovely.

The day after Megan's party was the day before the 2-year mark of our brother dying.  This year it rained, and there were fewer people, but it was just about perfect.  There was printing and drinking and crying and laughing.  Brendan was remembered, and toasted more than once.  This sting is so much less now than it was even a year ago, yet the absence is larger than ever.  It's been that much longer since I heard him laugh, since I heard him say "HI sister...".  I have some new shirts, and Solve has many more fans.  He'll never be gone, but my life will never be whole.

A few days later, I came back to California.  I wasn't as happy as I should have been to come home, but seeing Aunt and Uncle and the dogs (who helped Uncle pick me up from the bus stop, along with a cold beer hidden under an ice pack) made it warm and loving. 

Now I am moving forward.  Spending lots of time on things that feel good and spending enough time on things that I have to.  I am making decisions and sticking to them.  I am practicing trusting myself.  I am feeling loved.  I am feeling hope.  I am so excited for what's to come.  I am 10 days in to being 29, and it's going to be a great year.

Country Song

We did burn brightly didn't we?

We were a beautiful story, a true romance you only read about. 
I changed my curvy wandering path to nest where you had to be.  I played a roll because I wanted to be the most you could love.  You wrote me love songs because you wanted me to be enough, but really you hadn't yet found the bottom of the hole that you needed to fix before somebody else could fill it.

We knew we were going to love each other the second time we ever met.  I knew my children would have your humor, your eyes, your fingers.  I hoped they would have my humor, my honesty, my politics. 
I felt what I never knew I could feel, a faith in the unknown, an exhilarating fear; awash in my new-found adulthood I said I would follow wherever you needed to be - I was willing to make my life fit the shape of yours, and I almost completely convinced myself I wouldn't be giving up too much.

I heard the rose song tonight and I feel a heaviness in my chest.  When it was good, it was so good, wasn't it?


Even at the end there were moments when delusion outweighed sadness, and I could envision us making music and love and babies, and living the fantasy that had shined so brightly not but 18 months earlier.  You would sing a song you had written for me, or the everything song, or the rose song, and for that moment love softened misery and I didn't want to run away.

I learned to take care of the rose bushes at our house together.  When we moved in they were neglected and ugly.  When we moved out, at different times and each with our own scars, they were gorgeous.  That's another country song right there, isn't it?