nothing at all

my romantic history being what it is, i've never had the privilege of transitioning between long-term serious relationships before. prior to the ex, i only had small, short flings. my longest-lived dating experience before him was three months long. before that, it was seven weeks. i wasn't a "dater" in high school, and then i launched headlong into the whole ex thing.

so it's a learning curve of, frankly, biblical proportions these days. this is something that most people figure out in their early 20s, i think, the renegotiation of expectations, of behavior, etc. enter the man, who is a very different kind of guy from the ex. that is a wonderful thing on a lot of levels, but it poses a new challenge for me. i have to learn to read, to understand, to know what's being shown to me by my new love. it's not always easy.

i am accustomed to hearing a lot from the man in my life. i got really damn used to hearing "i love you" as often as i wanted. more so, really. and no matter what happened at the end, it was always nice, ALWAYS, to hear that. i got to a point where i craved it. now i've moved forward, into a new place, but the old habits have died hard. i want to hear it now, even still. but as demonstrative as the man is, and he is distinctly that, he just doesn't speak those words. i find myself applying the rules of the old game to the rubric of the new one. that just doesn't work. it's not even close to the same situation, and it's not fair to hold him to the old expectations.

getting frustrated by that old expectation also gives short shrift to the amazing things the man does for me, too. leaving all fairness aside, it's stupid as hell to get so hung up on one little thing that's "lacking," when really, there's nothing missing at all. it's a difference in expression. the ex talked. the man does. that's all. he really does say it best when he says nothing at all; the words are unnecessary. the quicker i learn that, the better state of mind i'll be in, and the closer to really appreciating the amazing thing i have in him.

under the wire

oops. almost forgot to check in today. let's just say that wine is a deterrent to memory. sigh. :)

anyway, it's been a decent day, without much to report. but nablopomo is a demanding mistress, so here i am. two things to contribute:

1) the man is amazing.

2) my friends are too.

more elaboration to follow. enjoy your friday nights. :)

happy

the man was so happy last night, y'all. we crawled into bed and watched the original back to the future, as remastered for blu-ray. it's one of his all-time favorite movies, and to see him just genuinely enjoy something was nothing short of transformative for me.

i'm all the hell over the place all the time nowadays. i'm up, i'm down, i'm all around. the concept of simple happiness is one that eludes me. between stress, anguish and generally being busy, i am rarely if ever still enough to just rest and take in the moment. i've also developed this really nasty habit of flying into deep negativity at the slightest provocation. the man is always trying to encourage me to slow down, relax, stop thinking and just be for once. last night, through him, though, i was finally able to do it. i let his satisfaction, reveling in one of his favorite things, wash over me, and lo and behold, it finally hit me.

bruce springsteen sang, "i don't need that sky of blue, babe; all i know is since i found you, i'm happy." the man, i'm discovering a little more each day, is the master of this feeling. he doesn't need anything other than his confidence in how things are. he tells me i should have more faith, trust a little more, be still, believe. funny how it took curling up and watching a movie to finally have that message driven home.

i'm listening, love. i promise.

fidelity

i did it - i'm sworn in. i'm allowed to go to court and represent people now. that's a pretty damn exciting achievement, not gonna lie. the ceremony was 99.999% made up of people reading off names - there were upwards of a thousand little baby lawyers birthed here today - but the rest of it focused on responsibility, duty, etc. we all took an oath of fidelity to the constitution and to the commonwealth.

fidelity. now there's a concept with which i've danced pretty much constantly for the last two years or so. it seems that the only way i could maintain fidelity to myself was to shatter it as far as certain others are concerned. and there's a tragedy in that, to be sure. but there's also a sense of hope, of possibility. today was the first day of the rest of my career. it was also a nice reminder about what loyalty is, and what it should be.

the man was with me today. (thank the gods he was, too - i was so nervous this morning that i nearly committed a serious wardrobe faux pas that he caught.) the loyalty we have to each other is the calm stream through my core that sustains me. there was also the support of my parents, the love of my friends far and wide, blog and non-blog (thanks, y'all - love ya back!), and the confidence of the HUGE legal community i've joined to sustain me.

but conspicuous in its absence was the stalwart of my old life. i mean, it's not like i didn't think about him a little today. how the hell could i not? this day was going to be totally different. but the thought that crossed my mind when he surfaced was, hmm. he's not here. this feels... right, actually. i had the correct dramatis personae locked in for this play. and as we raised our glasses to each other over lunch today, the oath of fidelity took on its real, true meaning for probably the first time in a long, long time. i took a sip and thought to myself, i promise to be true to you. "you" meaning him, but also meaning me.

so help me god.

change of the guard

tonight i'm in a hotel room, waiting to get sworn into the bar. i can no longer say i'm gonna be a lawyer when i grow up; i'm gonna be one tomorrow. that's deep enough. compounding matters significantly is the fact that this ceremony happens in a place that is thoroughly chocked to the gills with memories of the old life.

so how do i handle this? simple: by replacing bad thoughts with good ones. i drive the streets with a new companion, writing a new future over the old, dead past. it's largely successful so far, except for the weird gnawing sensation that i am nothing more than jimmy stewart in "vertigo," dressing the new love up to look like the old one.

my rational mind knows that this too shall pass, that the old life holds no dominion over any geographic location, that tomorrow will be one of the proudest moments of my life. but the man by my side will be different. there's a new sheriff in town. it'll take just a little more time, it seems, to fully grasp what that means.

walking with a ghost

the strain of the windup of my old life is really starting to show in me. it's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain an even keel through all of this. the cracks are a little more obvious, and it's really getting challenging to keep the rage and disappointment from seeping through and spattering themselves all over innocent bystanders. i truly believe that even those people who offer themselves as support, as comfort, during difficult times should be spared unnecessary emotional fallout (exhibit A: the man). but it's really getting hard to hold back the worst of it.

making things strangely, cruelly WORSE, though, is when things get a little better on that front. it's not that i want things to stay bad between us. far from it. i would love nothing more on this earth than to stay friendly with someone who used to matter so much to me. i can't express that strongly enough. but the savage nature of the way things are ending have cast so much doubt on the possibility of that ever happening. i am almost 100% resigned to chilly silence on that front.

but then, every so often, things like today happen. we had a real, honest and friendly conversation about mutual friends and recent events. good god, it was almost like the old days again. y'know, except for that whole severed ties, bitter arguments thing. to have things be so pleasant, so nice, so fun, knowing how angry and hurt he's made me time and time again, was alternately so amazing and thoroughly painful. i really can't react to this. i want it; i don't. it's violently bipolar.

the silent, angry path would be easier to walk now. it would hurt, but it would be simple. but there are dashes of good, pleasant and nice here and there that make this so much more complicated. his parents did the same thing: they fought bitterly, but then they danced like nothing changed at their son's wedding. is that my future with him? i don't know. i don't know if i want it to be. i have so much going for me down the road i walk alone. i have my dream career to reach for, i have the man i was meant to have. but there's this last vestige of... something. he's haunting the peripherals of my life, sometimes benevolently, sometimes malevolently. i don't know if i can manage what this means. all i know is that this makes the situation infinitely more complicated. is that what i want?