Wouldn't it be a kicker....

Wouldn't it be a kicker if that was normal cold feet for me because with the Tourette's my body physiologically and diagnostically handles stress ineffeciently;
and what if all the intensity of the homesickness was because I was engaged so far from my family, and would have dissipated after the wedding?

To steal, as I often do, from a song:
We can't go back again, there's no use giving in, cause we'll never know
What might've been.

And:
I wouldn't trade one memory, cause you mean too much to me,
Even though I lost you (girl),
I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Nate.

Clusterf*%k. When I was 18 (long ago when my butt was firm and round) a new friend said this word and I had no idea what he was talking about. Now I know. Not only do I know what it means, I know how to make one.
In the weeks before leaving my fiance I was up and down and three times around why and why not, couldn't tell my head from my gut from my heart from my gravitationally pulled ass.
I left one morning while he slept because I was freaking out, I didn't want to put him through that any more, I didn't want to inconvenience 180 wedding guests if I decided to cancel after the invitations went out, and I knew if I waited until he woke up and was standing afore me I wouldn't want to leave.
Clue hammer(Jay's term) hitting head- foot kicking ass......
Maybe that was my heart- maybe that not being able to leave, that wanting to stay because I loved him, was my heart saying.........STAY!!!!!!!!
And after I left apparently I had a window of a few days in which he would have taken me back. Well, I didn't know that and I was too numb and shocked myself the first two weeks to know much of anything. It took me weeks to settle down, get my priorities straightened out, figure out that I wish I hadn't left. But it's too late.
He doesn't trust me anymore, and my chances to earn that trust back are gone. Done.
And now I can't believe how all that tenderness, love, joy has gone from I love you honey, how was your day, let me rub your feet, fix you dinner, go out and buy you pencils and a sharpener for your math class (typical sweet and thoughtful Nate) to ........ I forgot my toaster. The End.
This sucks.
Nate, I love you. I miss you. I miss putting on your music just right when you were sleeping unsoundly, rubbing your shoulder when you were stirring in a bad dream, feeling you smell my hair, watching you come home down the driveway in the morning, snuggling on your chest, feeling your body spooning me, sitting on your lap at your parents', riding places in the car with you, saying I love you before you left for work, hearing your stories, sitting at your feet watching movies while you played with my hair, hearing your I love you at the end of a phone call, fixing dinner for you, being there to wish you well on a karate tournament or test and congratulating you at the end, the smell of your pillow, sheets that were ours, playing with you at Irving's, taking walks, tennis courts, Yahtzee, our Tae Kwon Do days before I stopped going, the mornings of Cardio together and getting breakfast after class- the thousand and sixteen special things you did for me and you unconditional love and support.
I miss you and I love you and I am so, so, so sorry. I wish you could know all this and believe. I wish I could go back with what I see now and get us premarital counseling or at least go talk to Father myself. I wish I could get us back.

Fudgesicles make me feel better

Especially six in a row. (i rearranged the garbage in the can to cover up the sticks and wrappers and avoid the' You ate six fudgesicles!' confrontation. )
I hope there's chocolate on my face.
I ate some Oreo's before, too. Doublestuf. Man were the Oreo cravings kickin last night- must've seen a TV plug-
fed some to the dog; he hasn't barfed yet.

Puzzled

I'd gotten tired of seeing my neurosis in print- needed a break. I shouldn't have erased my reader's comments but did in my panic to erase the outbursts I didn't want to see onscreen any more- Afterwards, I owe you an apology for erasing your thoughts, too.
I can't imagine feeling stable again, though my subconscious, and my friends, say stability will return some day. I am caught off guard, but by different things all the time- which means each new thing that upsets me is handled and discarded; dealt with and I move on just a little.
I need to deal with myself, too - what to do with this person who left her fiance. Abruptly.
I remember our date at the movies, five days earlier- grinning with love watching his expressions, lying my leg across his, holding hands- flashing him on the way home, feeling great to put some silliness back in our relationship.
Dinner with his parents and grandparents the very night before- smiling at each other across the table after dinner, touching legs and hand-rubbing knees during. We spontaneously stopped for ice cream on the way back to our home, had sweet and good sex before he left for work.
We loved each other. We liked each other. And the next morning when he came home and got into bed and fell asleep- I had no idea in four hours I'd have an anxiety attack and leave.
I miss our dates- Just five days earlier, we sat at the movies- Us.
I don't get it. What must he think? (comments welcome!)

Finally

It starts inside a church- people sitting down in the pews- and being ejected out of them. A homosexual couple, a non-caucasion person, someone with facial piercings, a woman possibly homeless and apparently unwashed judging by the crawling away reaction of the man she sits beside.
Then;
God doesn't reject. Neither do we.(www.ucc.org)
Exactly.
I've never understood devotedly church going, prayerful people faithful to a God who loves all, who teaches us to walk in his image and not to judge;
who turn around and point others out of the Church and away from God because apparently God has given them the right to do His picking and choosing of whom He will love and accept.
(Author's intent to pass along, not plagiarize.)

what to do with it

I have been standing strong for two days on those words, the words that crumpled me, words of finality and untold feelings- I have nothing to say to you.
Doesn't that reinforce how hard it was for us to communicate? I ask myself. I left him three months before our wedding, and he has no comment. He loved me deeply, but he keeps so much inside- especially the problems.
Tonight I picked up the necklace he made for just me, his second attempt at crocheting during a quiet spell on his night-shift job ( the first attempt gave me a bracelet). I examine every weave, picture his fingers making them, and want deeply to call and hear his voice. I love the $200 earrings- both pairs- and $300 matching pendant he gave me, and I appreciate them; but I am in love with the bracelet and the necklace. His hands. Made them. For me.
I linger a while, on the tide line of remorse.
Then tell myself, Enough. I think.
When does enough become Too Much? What if it is Too Little?
Look ahead, I say. To what?
To your life! your whole life.
but it is spinning around my head in pieces.

Pitter patter of water buffalo

Light on cat feet? HA!- obviously not referring to an 11 lb Maine Coon persuing a 7 lb tabby through the living room, a sound more appropriately labeled as 'thunder'. Or that same Coon cat leaping four feet from the dresser onto my bed at 5AM- jack rabbit from the sky. THUMP!
Although seeming average size, Sylvia is indeed a petite feline- most notable seen parallel to Annie; it's like a watermelon and a zucchini. Sylvia pounced Annie frequently up until the first time Annie realized she could pounce back- I think I heard Sylvia curse.
(no one ever gets hurt, not even me...! they swat with nails in and the three times I've heard a cry like discomfort I've stormed in yelling quite effectively.)

dummies for romance

'...being real or just putting up a facade...'
A thought to shake me out of my fairy tale, a thought I've been shunning.
I like a good story, so I certainly like living one. And it is so nice to have someone (at least claim to) want and need my affections.
I was incredibly spoiled by Harold and it's often difficult to remember why I left- Fiance and I didn't sit up and talk, we didn't look into each other's eyes or ever mention being crazy about each other; we didn't kiss in public, or kiss much at all the last two years. Reminiscing was called 'silly'; no slow dancing; no meaningful songs, no letters or notes to me- twice a response to mine when begged for. No I miss you's. I love you's were down to the ends of phone calls, and before he left for work if I said it first. I'm sure there was something he liked about ME but he was never able to think of one, nor could he ever say why he thought we should be married.
He poured wine in my fish bowl, said not-nice things about my mom, made up stories to string me along about why we weren't getting engaged, cracked jokes when I was upset and needed someone to listen, made me cry three times in our first month of dating.
And I almost married him ... gullible, foolish, stubborn- I am not wise at directing my heart.
If I were any good at relationships I would not have lost Harold. Maybe I should finally put on the shawl, pick up the yarn ball, and start knitting sweaters for my cats.

Soon

Is it okay to have happiness in my life so soon?
I do- I have happy. I have someone giving me lots of happy.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

Do you ever feel like a song is playing just for you? I've come across Ain't No Mountain High Enough, or its come across me, maybe fifteen times since I hit the road home-bound from Maine. Diana Ross', Michael McDonald's- How do they know?
I know somewhere is a quote about knowing who your friends are when adversity hits- who will stick by and keep you from falling through the bottom.
The support I have is- absolute. Phone calls, words of encouragement, invites to visit, to live until I get it all back together. Quiet when I need it. Kudos for being strong and doing the difficult thing.
I hope Nate is getting all this support. It is certain his family, friends and coworkers have rallied around him and he does not doubt himself the way I can. Hopefully he will eventually decide I am gone and forget me except for those passing breezes of light memory.
He still wanted to marry me after all the doubts I expressed through our engagement- doubts often met with silence, sometimes with anger. Certainly that wasn't happiness for him. He'd use humor to say he hoped I'd show up at the altar. It can seem insurmountable to deliver a big hurt, but hurting someone over and over, like hundreds of hits just hard enough to bruise, can warp your essence and purpose.

One night I had an anxiety attack that lasted two hours- my hands and lower legs eventually went numb and it felt like I was going to pass out. So I had my doubts about the marriage.
But one day we had our regular grand old time together- dinner with his family, stopping for ice cream on the way, hitting the sack before he left for work; and 14 hours later I was on the road bound for New Jersey with only the essentials - which definitely includes my two cats.
From engaged and living together, to strangers. I expect it to feel odd. It does.
I miss sitting between his legs on the floor while we watched movies and he rubbed my hair. He found a way to quiet my Tourettes and he'd pause his sleep to rub my lower belly until I relaxed. No one else ever found a way to do that.
I miss the little things... isn't that what happens always?
In pop rock style Peter Cetera landed it- "Leaving your memory behind me, hoping that nothing reminds me, praying that I can forget." Okay, not healthy, but sometimes it helps me look ahead when I can't seem to stop craning my neck to stare behind.
Won't I ever get this relationship thing right?
I say I am no good for men, I should spare them from me. But I don't.
When I was 21 and visiting my cousin she took me on a baby sitting job with her. The mother was a woman whose husband was unable to handle the responsibility of two young children, and he split. That isn't the good part.
The good part, the part I've been chasing, is the relationship they had before he left. They were best friends, buddie, comrades. They were deeply in love pals.
The photographs were evidence to the tale. That's what I have been after.
And I think it might have found me.

My cats are nuts- and yours?

Does anyone else's cats have spasms? I mean sudden millisecond entire body flings into the air from a standard sitting or walking position- and then everything is fine again.
How about the I-just-pooped full throttle laps? Do they feel that much lighter and freer, or are they running from the hideous smell?
I used to laugh hearing my neighbor yell at her cat- I felt like part of a club.
"Get down!" she'd boom. I was pretty sure it wasn't her husband up on the counter.

The Apartment and the Procrastinator

Me- Hey, did you know the oven is grey inside?
Apt-Did you finally clean that thing?
Me- I've been wanting brownies. I almost tried cooking them in the microwave.
Apt-I remember the black smoke last time you turned the oven on.
Me- Yeah, I guess two years of turkey grease and overflowed casseroles aren't good.
Apt-I'm amazed you haven't lit me on fire yet.
Me- Whaddaya mean?
Apt- Smoking ovens, Christmas trees up until March... .
Me- I liked the lights!
Apt- That's a good thing- I think the strands were holding the branches on.

Two year itch

I hate packing- long gone are the days I could relocate all my belongings in two car loads. I hate floundering in strangers' mystery dirt, fighting the heebie jeebies with elbow long rubber gloves, hip boots if I had 'em, an illicit love for my Dirt Devil rug shampooer (please don't tell the mop-we're most touch and go.)
I love our back/den/family room (in a walk through with piece meal furniture, how articulate can ya be? have you seen the living/dining/computer/library room?) Unable to find a square enough carpet stray at Home Depot I jimmy-rugged for two vertical country-blue and one horizontal (the front 1/4)aqua- with pressed board pine color TV stand, white book shelves, cherry end tables, black metal futon with blue sheet, raspberry armchair massacred by the cats, and cream walls- but I've played off the blue and bright and it incredibly works. There's a photo of a sunrise over the carribean in Cancun, our last full day there- off to the left the rays are gold caught in the clouds and a sailing boat anchored down. Sometimes I accidentally take a great photograph. I blame it on the camera.
Plus my walking routes. Best times to walk- sunrise and after supper. Summer mornings while the dew is still droplets and I can smell the roses I pass, stop 1 mile from home for something to drink and read on the last leg.
So this stuff is great but it's been two years and I'm ready to go- redecorate, make new walks, gain different views, chance more windows, better daylight, bigger closets, a change of sleeping and waking sounds, try gardening another soil and suncover.
The Big N is careful with money- something about savings and having enough. I tend to answer others' concerns with I don't know how I'll do it - but I will . I'll be fine. So in the argument of We can't afford that! Sure we can- it'll be fine! he tends to win. And I tend to sulk.

Wonder Lost

I have never tried typing with one edge of my butt barely on the chair but my kitten is kindly sharing her nap spot so I will try!
Oh, it's been a long five days of wondering if I go through with this wedding.
See, one of the most fabulous words I've ever heard is 'wanderlust'. I get shivers of thrill when upon sighting a U-Haul. My dream auto is a mobile home. I dread packing but love to move somewhere new. Stagnation is my biggest discomfort and fear. I want to live in different states, work different jobs. Is that ADD or being unfocused, noncommital?
Or is it wanting to sense what I can because, as far as I know, I'm goin' around in this life just once.
But I love my fiance. And what's more impressive, he loves me. Unconditionally. (I ask what god he pissed off in a former life to get this gig.) He is willig to move, some. I will still travel and travel alone is good for the spirit.
The wedding is in 15 weeks. Last week the bridesmaids finished dress needs and the order went out and I dropped off my wedding gown for alterations. Then I had an anxiety attack. Just a little one. I think this was me going over the premarital cliff.
I've had major support lines - thank you Mom, Jason, Kelly, and Jen-and am slowly calming down.
15 weeks - Holy cows!!!

Talented Kitty

My fiance asked, did Annie do that?
Yes, I said. While I was sleeping she dragged this giant purple towel from the laundry basket, draped it over the chair, and made herself a tent. (She made a lot of noise hammering in the pegs, said my friend.) Wasn't I surprised when I got up and saw it!
He just smiled wryly.

I'll have the C cup with fries

My stepfather once told my mom how nice it would be to go to the Bar and Griddle Factory for lunch.
Maybe-
except it's the Bra and Girdle Factory.
Stuff get so much funnier misread!

http://www.sleeplittlekitty.com

2:30AM. Me and a bowl of broccoli and bags of wrinkles under my eyes. Fiance snoring in the bedroom. At least he was when I gave up on sleep two hours ago.
http://www.mum.org/catrules.htm This was cute! If you think kitties are adorable and amusing when being persnickety.
My little grey tabby, Sylvia, and I met six years ago. She was a kitty who'd grown up on the streets of Asbury Park and was picked up by a family run pet shop in Sea Girt. The day I met her was her third day off the streets. Her spay stitches were still fresh. Hers was the second cage I looked into- she let me snuggle her , I fell for her face, and two days later she came home.
It's difficult, literally, to remember our first months together.
The Sylvia I know now is the kittie who spent a week lying on the bed and staring at the floor the first time I went on vacation and left her (at home with my live-in boyfriend whom she knew well.) This is the kitty who leaves my side just long enough to nibble, drink, and litterbox any time I am sad, or sick, even if the sick lasts for days. The kitty who climbs on me for snuggles, keeping all her nails tucked in, even if she has to teeter on the side of my leg.
But in the beginning she would have none of snuggling. She'd climb up my leg for her food. If I got down to play with her she'd swat at my face claws extended. All this was okay.
I assumed she had never lived in a house with a human and that my getting down to play was to her an attack. If she hit my face I backed off and we tried again later. In baby steps we learned each other.

Oops!

I changed a phrase in my first post from rotting muscles to rotting mussels-a little difference there!

The Graceless Me

I've been around people with a grace so honest and smooth it's brought tears to my eyes. Me? I'm the type to knock your sandwich on the floor and step on it when what I wanted was to help. The girl who calls out the answer to the other team in Charades. One of my two historical moments among my friends was asking So how's Katie? to the man just dumped by his girlfriend of three years. Eliza Doolittle at high tea with the Queen? Yes, those anti-social skills would be mine! I'm quite familiar with the silence that follows a guffaw; I've caused many.
Harold once gave me his dog doo analogy. You step in dog doo and lift your foot to scrape it off, but stumble and put your other foot in it then step in it again with the first foot while trying to clean the second, and so on. I remind myself of this story when I have made a mistake and the harder I try to fix it, the worse and worse it gets.
Have you ever had a day you're so tongue tied or clumsy it becomes fun because of the crazy situations and phrases your befuddled mind creates?
How much more tantalizing are headlines when you read them incorrectly? The governer did what with four crayons and a sheep?


Do you know aside from the getting married part of my wedding day I am looking forward to the cake part the most? Actually, to the icing part. I hope the cake will be good but to me cake is a crap shoot. Sometimes the cake is really worth eating- but the icing is always good!
One more good thought for the day- Maybe it's a 2-for-one special.
I grew up and lived most of my first 28 years within 3 miles of the beach (dried seaweed and rotting mussels are two of my favorite scents). Other favorites of the beach? Watching this skinned peach globe of a sun skirt the edge of the ocean and rise upward lighting the boats and the sea in pinks and golds.
Feeling the urge and the fury of grey rushing waves in my wind burned sand stung flesh standing counting lightning bolts traveling swirling skies up the coast.