this is all true.
but i am also THRILLED. because i am going to be with this boy:
this is nic. nic is my boyfriend. nic is the boy i love so much i think my mouth will tear off my face from smiling so big. nic is the boy, who makes me feel funny and smart and naturally beautiful and comfortable and calm.
this photo is from the second day we ever spent together. we ate chinese food and i ordered mu shu pork. when said mu shu pork arrived, i realized that it is essentially a heaping plate of cabbage. aka a pile of shredded sulfur. i looked at him and said something to the effect of this may have been a bad choice. we laughed. (as it turned out, i was right.)
there are many ways to become comfortable fast and, for the simple reason that nic is nic, i was immediately comfortable with him. i basically decided i loved him without ever having met him, set about manifesting my love, tricked him into loving me, and now am rapidly descending upon him in his hometown.
it has also come to my attention that many people don't know how or why i acquired a kentucky boyfriend. for them and for all posterity, i will commit the words to writing here.
about a year and a half ago, my dear friend was dating a boy. that boy went to pilot school with nic. that boy and dear friend said, you should totally meet our friend. i realized a long time ago that, despite people's best intentions, i never want to meet their friends that i should totally meet. they are nice people with whom i am incompatible and then feel awkwardly required to romantically entertain, because i am too nice/ wishy washy/ unassertive to reject them. nic lived in new york at the time, so it was easy to pretend the set up was a good idea without ever having to meet him.
being children of a digital age, at some juncture in our prescribed non-existent courtship, we became friends on facebook. social media affirmed that nic is very attractive, which gave him an edge on all of my other potential suitors. i looked through his pictures and ever so occasionally, he would send me a song and we'd exchange a few words.
some ten months later, it was january 1st of this year. i was a bed ball of pizza/ doughnut/ beer/ love hangover after my best friend's wedding (the nuptials of my actual best friend, not the movie), and i was trolling facebook for the pictures of mistakes other people had made the previous night, when nic sent me a message. i almost came to your city for new years.
apparently he'd tried to get on a standby flight to san francisco to come see our mutual friend. the skies had denied him and he went home.
having nothing better to do, we chatted online for the better part of two or three hours. an actual exchange revealed that nic was funny, smart and a normal human being. someone that i could talk to and understand easily. this becomes increasingly rare as i get older.
this interaction combined with his obvious adorable face led me to start thinking about him more. one night i was out with my friend, val, and found some cursory way to incorporate him into conversation. i had a crush. and, just like any good crushor, i wanted to talk about my crushee as casually and frequently as possible. we came home late from our shenanigans and looked at pictures of his face online. while we were deep in the recesses of his photos, i was gushing over some particular picture. val instructed me to "like" it. i said no, because that would mean he'd know i was stalking him.
(i sound like a teenager! i am basically a teenager. for the non-facebook inclined, all you need to know is, by marking this photo with my "like," nic would simply know that i was intentionally looking at pictures of him late at night. obvious.)
i did it anyway.
basically i was insisting that he notice me. and he obliged.
the next morning i had a message from him that said stalker. i laughed. we had witty exchanges.
and then it exploded. we exploded. facebook exhanges turned into texting all day. day texting turned into texting all day every day for two weeks. texting turned into me finally calling him, uninvited, quite late one night. late night phone call turned into more frequent phone calls. phone calls turned into long phone calls.
one day i talked to nic for six hours. it was a sunday and i hadn't eaten or showered or left the house. we ended up on the phone and before i knew what was happening it was dark. it was 10 pm. i still hadn't eaten or showered or left the house. i hadn't moved; my body hadn't asked for anything except to hear him. i wanted to know what this person had to say. i wanted to hear his stories. to agree or disagree with him. to tell him about myself. i wanted to hear his voice. i wanted to wait for his laugh. to incite it myself. i wanted to revel in our similarities. to talk about our differences. i wanted to just keep hearing him. i wanted to know what he thought about everything.
at some point i asked, who do you tell when you're happy?
i wanted to know who that person was. the person he turned to. he responded, no one. and then, my sisters, i guess.
we talked about things people talk about when they want to know each other.
this kind of communication spanned, in all, about a month. i had basically already decided i needed to marry nic. nic, upon later revealings, was not arranging our future together, but sometimes boys take a little longer to figure things out. i pouted about not seeing real life him; he dissuaded my hopes and efforts by noting the sheer number of doors between us, until finally, one day, he conceded and bought a ticket to see me/ mutual friend.
a few days before he came, it was his birthday. he was having a good time at a dinner party, and he texted me to tell me about it.
i'm happy and i'm telling you.
this was more or less the beginning of the end for me. here is a boy, who makes connections. here is a boy, who's willing to open himself up. here's a boy, who wants to tell me when he's happy.
the plan was to stay with mutual friend and visit with me as well.
that did not happen.
i picked nic up from the airport and confirmed that he was the boy i wanted. he dropped his bags, twirled me to take a look at me, and hugged me tight. i was done. he would not be staying with mutual friend. i would keep him.
a day and a half later, i ate all the cabbage. and about one day after that, i told nic i loved him.
i did not know if he would love me back, but i did know that, even if he didn't, he would still keep my heart safe, talk to me kindly, and not shrivel in fear. i met a man, who could hold up my wild and saturated heart. (it turns out he loved me too. success!)
none of this is typically me. despite being a girl with an exploding heart, i have traditionally being very, very reserved and weird and unwilling when it comes to relationships. though i've wanted for many years to hurtle my heart into loving someone, i never came close to finding a person with whom i could comfortably allow it.
but then i saw that face and suddenly i was the girl, who was rapidly making plans for a future together,and blurting out immediate confessions of love. he stayed for a week and we decided we had no idea how to make it work, but we would be exclusive.
to restrict this story to only half a lifetime instead of an entire one, i will edit out each of the million, endearing, wonderful things he did/ said/ showed me in the course of the ensuing months, but suffice it to say that this was clearly my person. (burlap-wrapped flowers delivered by bike messenger at work? a package with polished red rain boots and his favorite book? all the best words? ALL THE BEST WORDS?) i visited nic in kentucky. he came back and stayed for two months in san francisco. and now i am moving to kentucky.
that's that.
now his face looks like this:
he shaved his beard and finished his potsticker. this will denote the passage of time, which has been filled with my ever-growing love. in the time from that cabbage ingestion to my now imminent departure to louisville, about five months have passed. just five little months.
i know i'm leaving a lot here. i know i am scared shitless. i know i don't have a job or a settled place to live or any idea of what it will be like to live in another state. i know i'll miss my friends and i'll be sad to miss watching all my newest baby people grow day by day. i know it will be an adjustment and it will be hard at times and probably now and again i'll ask myself, what on earth have i done?
but i also positively, totally, certifiably know that there is no way i could not do this. because i want to be with this man. i want to see what unfolds. i want to sit next to him while he studies and i want to clean up his hair and toothpaste from the sink. i want to come home to his face. i want our skin to touch in the night. i want to talk about what we're going to make for dinner. i want to be tired of making dinner and order pizza. i want to go for a run. i want to paint walls and hold hands and worry about money and sweep the floor and get sick and do the laundry. i want it to be tuesday. i want it to be sunday night or wednesday morning. i want it to be any day of the week; i want it to be any old thing that a person would do. i want it to be the most unmiraculous moment in existence and i want to spend it with him. i want to do it with a man named nicholas kaniasty, whom i immediately and voraciously loved.
nic is the boy. he's funny. he laughs at his own jokes, which, to me, makes him even funnier. he holds my hand and plays with my hair. he makes me oatmeal and coffee every morning. he says what he thinks. he thinks about things. he's blunt and he's right and when he's not right, he admits that he's wrong. he's gregarious. he gesticulates. he'll sing a song for any old thing. he makes every baby smile. he loves my mom. he'll draw the most perfect picture for a sick boy that i love. he lets me cry. he calls me silly names and he remembers important things and he uses the best words. he has the most handsome face. he wants big and amazing things. he believes i am also big and amazing things. he sees the very best version of me. he is easy to be with. he'll go for a run and pick out some fruit at farmer's market and share a sandwich in the sun. he leaves flowers in the car. he is the boy. he is my boy.
this is a blog about moving for a boy. this is a blog about the boy that makes me the happiest, wildest, bravest girl on the planet. this is a blog about me being the luckiest girl for finding this boy all the way across the country and getting to choose him. this is a blog about me and the boy.
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