My motivation to get up and go, got up and went. This is my current metaphor for my writing. Even my private journal is abysmally empty and then that becomes a bigger problem for when I do feel like blogging and can’t remember a damn thing AND have no place to reference. As it is, you get what you get and you don’t get upset.

I had a big birthday after my last post. Double nickels. It went quietly by. We had dinner at one of our favorite places. It’s also our anniversary. Twelve years. We decided to get married by a Judge at that time (though I chose the day because what better birthday present than THAT?) thanks to economic factors and also an upcoming custody trial.

It is notable that we’ve now been together 13 years – 14 if you count our high school romance. I celebrated this day as a triumph, that I have finally eclipsed that other relationship that sucked the blood from my soul. I know – it’s no longer important and that person is no longer a part of my life at all and truly never think of him (which is also a huge triumph) – but it feels good to say it.

Todd and I were on our way to a friend’s birthday dinner and I had that revelation and with it, an overwhelming sense of how far ago that period of my life is – almost like another lifetime, with a person who had no business living in it with me. I am failing horribly at the articulation of this; it came over me silently and yet the serenity I felt was physical.

Todd the empath glanced over at me and asked whatcha thinkin? I threw out some sparse words and said, you know. Our lives are way better today than they were four years ago. Four years of counseling for me and healing the festering wounds. In some ways my children’s absences have abetted and accelerated this process, though I’d much rather have not lost them to gain my peace and autonomy back. See? I still try to look for the silver lining.

Faith has driven me far in this process and, I believe, it will render justice when the time is right. I’m still waiting, because God knows I will celebrate that retribution and that’s not exactly what He means by “stay in faith and He will right your wrongs.”

Anyhoo, I don’t want to discuss that shit, really. I don’t even want to discuss the shit on my bedroom rug that looked like Yellowstone burst from Shuggie’s ass. Yes, REALLY.

I had a glorious vacation in OCMD while my husband worked the MSFA convention. The weather was positively gorgeous all week until the day we left, when the heat wave rolled in and down our spines with the tickle-y sweat that pools in your underwear. I spent several days on the beach reading, breathing the salt air, the sound of the ocean and the cool breeze washing over me. My happy place. I have a real tan for the first time in years.

My dearest and oldest friend in the world lives “somewhat” nearby and so we planned to connect while I was there. As teenagers, we spent two memorable summer vacations at the beach with my dad in Wildwood. Wildwood was the beach everyone went to back then. It was a rowdy and occasionally lawless place for families and young adults alike.

Holly and I had plenty of freedom back in the 80s – no cell phones and no way to check in with your parents. The only thing I remember was having a curfew, which we broke because the two boys we met and fell in love with in a space of two days were leaving the next day. We were literally making out in a parking lot a block away from the house we were staying in and just didn’t want to go.

When we returned an hour later, my dad was sitting on the porch and I tried my cutesy-est self to nonchalantly hug my dad goodnight and he sat there like stone. He was so pissed he wouldn’t speak to me until dinner the next day. Good thing he didn’t know what I was really doing. Only Holly does, and she’ll never tell. Hell, at this age, who’s to say either of us really remember the details anyway?

Like every young person ever, it never occurred to me that he was likely worried to death. One of the nights we were there – I forget which year it was – the Sea Serpent (rollercoaster on Morey’s Pier) got stopped upside down and dad was sure we were on it because he saw two girls sitting up there with hot pink shirts on. Spoiler: it wasn’t us.

Anyway, Holly and I saw a guy sitting on the wall on the boardwalk with these super short cutoffs on and….. his penis hanging down under the fringe. I mean, I was 15. I’d only ever seen penises in her sisters’ Playgirl magazines when we were, like, 8. Never a real live one. And THEN there was another guy on a balcony whose towel fell off and he was standing there dancing and flopping around. Lawless place.

Fast forward to our OCMD meetup. We walked out of my hotel to the boardwalk to go for lunch. Literally directly across from the hotel was a man standing by the wall that separates the beach from the boards, with his shorts unzipped. I burst out laughing and looked at her and knew she’d just had the same flashback. That is the joy of being with someone with whom you share so many memories.

What’s more, we spent the whole of nine hours together, catching up, and I’ve never been so relaxed and altogether tranquil with another human in so long. There is something to be said about having a friend who truly knows you. The safety of it. To live so far apart and away from the dailies, having seen each other last in 2017(?), and able to fall into our old patterns with each other. The enormity of this is monumental and I cannot adequately express how much I cherish this. I don’t have many close friends I would trust with my life.

There’s more to catch up on, but I’ll leave it for part 2.