I can't explain what this year has done to me.
This year has felt like ten on a bender
This year has felt like a half second in heaven
This year has run me through the mill
the blender
the wringer.
This year has sent me over the moon,
to the stars
to happiness
to fright
to loneliness
to sorrow
to anger
to the edge
to peace
And suddenly, surprisingly, delightedly, depressingly, wholeheartedly, half-heartedly, rejoicingly
to thirty.
I'm hanging out here alone again. Ben's getting overtime. Sometimes I get overtime. When we get overtime at the same time, it's ok. When my week is over and he's stuck at work so long, that gets lonely. In seven years, it's going to be pretty sweet, but right now, it's tough.
When we're together, it's beautiful. When we're apart, it's so hard. When we dated, when we were engaged, we were together; we were inseperable. We went almost everywhere, did almost everything, decided almost everything together. He took me to my doctor's appointments. We cooked together. We went to afternoon movies. We walked in the park and saw the baby turtles. We held hands and helped each other. It was a lovely life. It wasn't perfect--he worked nights; I worked days. But it was a lovely, lovely life.
We had so much time.
Don't get me wrong. I'm relieved and pleased that we are both working. That we sometimes get overtime. That we can have things again. That all is well in the world. I'm happy. But that doesn't mean it's not hard.
And then I am here alone and confronted with the fact that I now have to figure out who I am again. I didn't expect to find love. Or happiness. Or a man who would love me for who I was, in spite or because of all my flaws. I had a plan, and I was on track to complete it. It involved paying off debt, going to graduate school, writing in my little apartment by myself. Possibly I would have a cat. Possibly I would go home. Possibly I would farm the wind.
Impossibly, I found Ben. Or Ben found me, I guess. On Craigslist.
And now I'm someone else. And that's good, but unexpected, and I'm not sure what it means for me, the individual. I was never one of those little girls who dreampt of weddings or babies or husbands. Love was not part of my ten year plan, maybe not even part of my thirty year plan. So now I have a new ten year plan, and that's part of why it seems so weird. I was fiercely independent. Now I'm fiercely what? I'm fiercely Ben's. I'm fiercely mine. I'm fiercely something different than I intended to be. And it's better, but what is it, exactly? Am I the kind of woman who cooks every night? Am I the kind of woman who goes to graduate school? Do I want to be a mother? Do I want not to be a mother? Can I even be a mother? Am I a gardener? An accidental cook? Do I do laundry for two? Do I do laundry for one? Do I work full-time? Do I want summers off? What kind of car will I drive? Am I kind? Am I funny? Am I tough? How much am I willing to say to the world online? What kind of things will I do in my endless, endless free time? What do I dream of becoming?
I thought I had no surprises left. Apparently, I was wrong.