It's Beginning To Feel...

I put up my tiny wee tree yesterday! And by put up I mean take out of the antique trunk I keep all my holiday decor in. It was my grandma's little tree. There are little felt santas, and little angels made out of netting and plastic. I'm pretty sure the ornaments are painted with lead paint, because they have this sheen to them now that they're over 30 years old. My ornaments are older then me.
It's my birthday in about a week!
24. Twenty four! Years old.
That is not so long. Sometimes it astounds me how not very long I have existed. Comparatively. Sometimes I like to make lists of things that are older then me.
Like the building I live in!
The car that's parked outside (It's a '72)
This neighborhood!
The space needle!
My Christmas tree!

I wonder if you ever wake up and feel like a grown up. I'll keep you in the loop; if I wake up on the 16th and want to do my taxes and not order Pagliaccis (cheese pizza with gorgonzola cheese on top) every Sunday at 11:00 PM, I'll let you know.
I get to watch my baby niece tomorrow while my sister takes my other two nieces to the Nutcracker.
God I love her. I love all three of them. I remember the night my oldest niece was born; I cried like my heart was breaking because I didn't even know her, but I knew I couldn't live without her. She was the tiniest, ugliest little thing I had ever seen, and I was overwhelmed with love for the tiny stranger.
It was so strange.
And I wonder if it's nature doing that; just to make sure that our little babies survive. Instilling a dramatic, instant love in the hearts of their relations.  I think I saw how tiny her hand was, wrapped around my thumb, and I knew I was responsible for her, in a way.

Now I make her pancakes in the shapes of 'L's and throw her in the air even though it's freaking killing my back. But I remember when people stopped throwing me in the air and it broke my heart, thinking that something had changed and coming to the conclusion that it was me.
So I will never stop throwing her in the air.
That will be awkward on prom night.

I think I'm going to paint a self portrait today. It seems appropriate at this point in my life. I have one from when i was about 16. I'll have to find that. It will probably be embarrassing, but what isn't from when I was 16?

It's just so wee! 

And Then He...

We sat across from each other in the bright restaurant. There were so many things to say, and so many things that had already been said. Everything was robotic and sterile and serious and wrong. Technology had stunted the healing of the relationship; facebook and text messaging made it to easy to proclaim 'i'm sorries' and 'i miss you's.' And now we were left with the real physical fact of our bodies that used to move closely and with familarity, now moved jerkily around one another's, not sure where to rest. Even walking to the restaurant had been tense with unfamiliar movements: a nod when there should have been a kiss, hands held inches apart when walking that used to clasp warmly and with confidence.
So we sipped water and watched others in the place smile warmly and woodenly. We hoped to do the same, but time was not on our side, and neither were words. Sentiments easily voiced through the vessel of a computer or a phone are so hard to work through the lips. Lips and tongues are easily hurt; to bite ones tongue, to bite your lip: to take back what you wish you hadn't said. Harder without a delete button.  We sat there and it felt like hours when it had only been minutes.
It was fucking uncomfortable.

"Do you want to go somewhere else?" I wanted to go somewhere else. I didn't know how to exist here. I felt like smiling crazily, which is always a sign I am uncomfortable. I have the weird tic of smiling with teeth when something horrible happens.  "Like... a bar? Somewhere... Not here."
Here was bright and clean and neat and somewhere a couple would go if they had a celebration. If they wanted to drink a clean white wine with their quince.
"I don't want quince."
"What?"
"I mean...We can stay here if you want. But I... Um. We should go to the bar next door. And drink."
"Okay."

We ordered a pitcher in a dark bar and it felt the way I felt. Guilty and worse for wear. Dark and frequented by dark people and dark thoughts. But comfortable. The bar didn't put on airs; it fucked up and it regretted things. But it existed and woke up every day and started again.
I am the bar in this metaphor.

We drank a lot, we talked less then I thought. We didn't need to talk as much as I thought we would. There was not really anything left to say. He held my hand and it felt perfect.
Later when he kissed me, I would hear music.