it's the first time i really felt sad.
i've missed things. i've missed people. oh i've missed people. i've missed mexican food and to-go boxes made of compostable material instead of styrofoam. i've missed walking instead of driving. i've missed people that not only eat, but know what kale and arugula and quinoa are. i've missed reusable water bottles. i've missed my school and all its wonderful, honest, involved parents. i've missed a mean temperature of 67. i've missed my mom and dad being a drivable distance away. i've missed making actual money, feeling valued for what i'm working so hard to do. i've missed knowing where i am, being able to summon a girlfriend for a beer in a matter of moments, visible water from any perspective, people filling the cherished scarcity of outdoor space, infinite hugs per day, and simple familiarity.
there are many, many things to miss within this move, having made such a big change.
there are also many, many new and incredible things i relish about being here on a daily basis. some of which i've enumerated, and others i quietly cherish.
mostly, i love nic. i keep sitting down to write about that and i feel silly almost somehow. i feel overwhelmed by it. i feel obnoxious saying it. i want to say, i stand at the end of the bed or the counter at 8:09 am every morning and still feel mushy and transparent and totally encompassed as i kiss his stupid face that spent the last 30 minutes singing some obnoxious song on repeat at full volume, while making me breakfast. that we bother each other like we're either eight years old or eighteen years married. that sometimes i pick fights, because i'm crabby or sad about something else or scared about loving someone real and all the way for maybe the first time and that makes me totally, utterly panicked. that we're both kind of, totally lost, but i still would never, ever choose anyone else to be lost with. that sometimes i come home after a terrible day at school and cry and cry and make nic feel like it's his problem, because i've decided the problem is definitely totally him, since he's the only thing i actually love here, and instead of chastising me, he says, let's get out of the house you silly girl, and that's all i ever needed.
that i love the way we communicate, even when we're upset with each other. i love his big hairy face and the slightly less big clean face that hides underneath. i love his always perfect body temperature, his endless ideas, his music choices, his rants on anything from racism to theology, his coffee, his insistence on taking the perfect picture. i love the silly dance he does to make me laugh. i love his buns. i love that he makes me breakfast and dinner every day. that after he does it, every cupboard is open and the floors and counters are covered in debris, but whatever concoction he made out of the almost decomposed scraps i stock the refrigerator with was so worth it. that he does something funny until it's so annoying that it becomes funny again. that he can admit when he's wrong. that he kindly tolerates that it takes me twenty times longer to much less gracefully admit when i was wrong. that i'm wrong a lot and he still loves me. that he loves me.
it feels good to be loved and seen for who i actually am.
i mean, i also have plenty of complaints. i complain all the time. i bitch and moan about things like we've been married a hundred years and i am the queen of female perfection, deserving of all things just as i want them, exactly when i want them.
i make cartoons like this, illustrating the apparent misery and discontent that is my life:
i'm a handful and i know it.
i'm really lucky to have found a person i can see myself being myself with-- in whatever future incarnations that self might entail-- for a very, very long time. i can see myself loving and complaining about nic for several lifetimes and i'm thankful for that.
you know what? i started writing to write about how sad i was. because i was feeling pretty sad. i miss something, not that ever even really was, but something i'm looking for. i'm missing some future thing that involves elements of my past, but is definitely not my past. that's all very vague. i was feeling vague. sad.
i'm just missing direction and satisfaction and fulfillment and drive in so many facets of my life.
but not with nic.
i started writing to moan about those things and then i ended writing about what i loved and appreciated and now i don't feel sad anymore. what a surprising turn of events that gratitude allays our discontent.
i was going to try to loop back around and fulfill the opening of these words with subsequent words about how sad i felt, but now it would be inauthentic so i won't. i thought about editing them out entirely and just leaving those words about nic, but then it would lose what's so great about this teeny moment of my life.
it's an analogy for my current life experience. it's hard. and i complain about it. and i'm sure i'm miserable in certain ways. i'm sure that if you asked what i needed, i would look down at the floor in the other direction and pathetically mumble, everything.
but then i look at what i've actually got, instead of longing for those that i want. and what i've got is pretty damn good. nicholas b kaniasty, you're pretty damn good. and i love you. you have a stupid face and a big, warm heart and you make me totally crazy and i love you. and you know it. i look at you and smile at 8:09 every morning and you know it.
you say, "you've got it bad."
and i do.
this is what i've got and it's good.
i've got it bad and it's good.
"of course you like that one. it's so generic." -nic.
