Plural

"Well, I mean, Kelly is plural now and we have to start taking that into account."

I start laughing and end up with beer up my nose. It's been a really long week, and I'm--we're, I suppose--hanging out and having pizza and beer with one of my old roommates. She's tired and a little frazzled, talking to her husband about how we need to see one another more often and the difficulty of coordinating schedules.

After coughing the carbonation out of my lungs I say: "What a funny way of thinking about it."

She shrugs. "I always thought it was kind of nice."

***

I'm going to be sad to see 2014 go.

It feels like a selfish sentiment, given the general fucked up-ness of the past twelve months. But the truth is that grim global realities aside, 2014 has been the best year of my life. 

Independent of the whole ohmygodLOVE thing, this year has been fantastic. I celebrated a year in the Twin Cities, packed suitcases, took cross-country flights, and crossed finish lines and things off my  my 30x30 list.

This has been a great year. 

Here's the funny thing. 

All of those things felt really good. I love marking things off of to-do lists and travel is always deeply satisfying. 

That's not what made this year wonderful. 

During the course of the past year I've felt less and less like I was waiting for the bottom to drop out on me. Work has felt manageable, my family is healthy, I live in a city I love surrounded by people I cherish. Things feel more stable now than they have in a long time. Until this weekend, I had a really hard time pinning down what, exactly, was so different about 2014.

***

I'm happy. 

That's it. There are no qualifiers or addendum to the statement. That's what changed in 2014, and it's such a simple thing, I feel like I should be embarrassed that it took me so long to figure out. But I spent so long with depression and anxiety that I forgot what it felt like to live without them. And even in the process of getting better things were still kind of bad. But over the course of the past year, my worst days have become roughly equivalent to what my best days used to be. 

Happiness has stopped feeling tenuous. 

Partly, I expect, from therapy and sorting out any number of things that I had repressed for awhile. Partly from learning triggers and healthy coping mechanisms and any number of the other tedious grown-up things you learn to do in therapy. Partly from falling in love.

Being plural has a lot to do with it. 

Not just the simple being plural of being in a couple, but the complicated, beautiful, crazy feeling of having a group of people who love you and have your well-being in mind, people who bring you pho when you're sick, let you cry on their couch when you're sad, celebrate your successes and milestones and let you be a part of theirs.  

They make happiness feel like maybe, this year, it might be permanent. 

Grace 2.0

The theological gears in my brain have started spinning again.

It was sort of inevitable after the weekend. We went to go see a play called The Whale on Friday night. I spent most of the week looking forward to it. The boyfriend told me that it was a beautiful show, and he hadn't missed with a recommendation.

Most of the time I know what (and how to avoid) things that I find profoundly upsetting. I flatly refuse to see shows or movies with sexual violence. Ditto domestic violence. Actually, I consume very little violent media, at all. My favorite video games are puzzle based games rather than first-person shooters.

Aside from violence, I tend to do pretty well.

The Whale, though.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I spent most of the play crying. Or that it impacted my mood through much of the weekend. I went to bed sad on Friday, teared up a few times thinking about it Saturday, and spent a solid chunk of today writing and thinking about it.

One of the most interesting parts of the show completely opposite ways the boyfriend and I saw it. For me, it was a show about watching someone commit suicide by tiny increments. For the boyfriend it was a show about redemption and the ability to see grace and kindness in other people, even when they are verifiably rotten.

Either way, the show was a lot to process.

In theology, when we talk about grace, we talk about God breaking into the course of human events. For Christians, the major example would be the Incarnation, but also through sacraments and the liturgy.

One of the things I loved best about my theological education (especially graduate school) was the idea that moments of grace would break into our daily lives, without the sacraments, without liturgy, we could find these little moments of God's love in the everydayness. But more than the in-breaking-of-the-Divine-into-the-world, what appealed to me most was the idea that everyday grace could be transformative. 

The accessibility of God in those moments, or the idea of it, always appealed to me. 

It's been . . . awhile since I've thought about anything even tangentially related to theology. But our differing reactions to a play that was about depression, loss, and redemption, has me thinking about grace throughout the weekend. 

Relationships are such grace-filled things. 

Not in the big born-of-a-virgin or the slightly-less-big-consecration-of-the-Eucharist kind of way, but in the everyday way that has always meant more to me. The chance to see yourself in a different way is no small thing. Particularly when seeing yourself in that different way makes you want, quite simply, to be a better version of yourself. More than that, it's the other person's ability to look past who you are in your worst moments and say "I believe in the person you want to be and want to help you get there." 

That kind of unflappable belief in another person and the transformative power of grace is, I think, what The Whale was about. And it's something I would have missed, had I not had someone there to help me see something that wasn't colored by my own experience. 

Like I said, perhaps not the Incarnation, but in my worst moments, it doesn't feel any less miraculous. 

Drama

Here, in no particular order, are some things I always thought I wanted:

• Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex.
• Huge, romantic gestures. 
• Huge, dramatic fights followed by some ridiculous making up including both of the above. 

Needless to say, my adult relationships have all been kind of rocky. 

Someone twice my age? Well, it worked for Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn in Love in the Afternoon, why is my life any different? Living half a continent away from one another and communicating mainly by once-a-week letters because our schedules are at odds? It has a faint tang of Jane Austen, does it not? An emotionally abusive genius I can't stand unless I'm wasted? If the waifish Zelda Fitzgerald can do it, why can't I?

Yeah, I know. 

I bought into all of ohmygodtruelovehastobeallconsuming bullshit, the idea that in order for Love To Be Real it had to be Passionate. And I equated Passion with really specific things. Let's get real. I conflated Passion with Sex and Drama. As if eating one another alive was the measure of the seriousness of a relationship. 

We all know how that story ends. Francesca spending eternity in a whirlwind, Cleopatra with an asp at her breast, Catherine locked in her rooms at Thrushcross Grange.

Me, crying in a feminist sex shop in Minneapolis. 

As established, I am a colossal fucking idiot when it comes to relationships. 

Here, in no particular order, are some things I never knew I wanted:

• Texts during the middle of the day simply to ask "How's your day going?" 
• 96 (continuous!) hours in another person's company. 
• A major holiday dinner with a family that isn't related to me. 
• A cat to like me. Well. At least not actively despise me. 
• Flowers. 
• My spare set of keys with someone who would make use of them. 
• The bed to smell like someone else. 
• Sleeping wrapped up in someone's arms. 

These things, these quiet, day-to-day, being an actual part of one another's lives blow my mind almost every day. I am actually amazed by the extent to which I enjoy family dinners, evenings in with the cat, drinking champagne and cheering so loudly during superhero movies that the neighbors start knocking on the living room wall. It feels completely natural in a way I've never experienced before.

I'm astounded by how being a part of someone's life can expose the depth and breadth of their heart, of their capacity to love.

And all of those things, the having-of-the-spare-keys and sleeping-with-his-shirt-under-the-pillow doesn't mean that the other stuff is missing. It turns out your neighbors can hate you because you cheer during Captain America: The Winter Soldier and for the other reasons people hate sharing thin-walled apartments with couples.

Drama, it turns out, is overrated.

Thank God. 

All This and Heaven Too

"Oh, Kel. I know."

I have imagined this situation, the words I've just said out loud hundreds of times over the past two months.  I wrote them down. I practiced saying them in the shower. I ran phrasing and timing past friends of mine. I planned how I could leave, quickly, when things went awry.

This is the one situation I didn't anticipate.

It's a hell of a thing, to tell someone "Here are all the ways that I'm broken" and have them still treat you, well, like a person. It's an even bigger thing to tell someone "Here are all the ways I'm broken" and have them say:

"Yes, I know. I love you anyway."

It leaves me speechless.

In the past I've written a lot about love. About how much I love it, how I feel it for my friends, how I wanted it despite someone tap-dancing on my heart. I wrote about how I need different words for love and how Upper Midwestern parents changed my conception of love.

This blog has many, many entries that fall under the category of "love."

Yeah, they're total crap.

Perhaps that's a bit harsh. Some of them have it right (mainly things about friends and family). A couple of the ones about relationships probably have it half right, but Jesus H. Jones.

I had no idea.

There's a line from a Florence + The Machine song that I've been thinking about a lot lately.

And all my stumbling phrases never amounted to anything worth this feeling. 

I mean, we've all felt this way, right? It's the (almost) universal human experience, and something we know idiomatically if not intuitively. "Love at first sight." "We just knew." "Opposites attract." "Chemistry." "Love is blind." "Lieben uber alles." "Love is the neutrino that doesn't interface with the Higgs Field of Logic."

What, you've never used that last one?

But regardless of all the idioms, all the friends in happy, successful relationships, it still feels unique, doesn't it? Like ohmygodnooneinthewholecourseofhumaneventshaseverfeltthisway. So we listen to sappy pop songs on repeat. We tell our friends how we received a tablet in the parking lot at the Wedge and it was a big thing not because of the gift, but because it was a gift based on something we mentioned in passing like three weeks ago and wasn't it sweet that they remembered? We smile thinking about one another during the course of the day and spend long Saturday mornings cuddling and talking about video games and anime and our families and the books we're reading.

We talk. We talk a lot. 

And those things and the way we talk about them are great. They're better than great, they're amazing. But the stuff that gets to me, what makes me think "I love you" is subtler, somehow. It's the look of understanding on his face when I say "I have obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety and some shit left over from exes that weren't very good to me." It's the way he smells, the messages when I'm stressed or upset, the way his voice sounds when we're up late talking that just . . .

Well, all my stumbling phrases, right?

Whatif

"Will talking about it help?"

My lizard brain is in full on panic mode, which means that I've exercised, cooked for the next week, baked six pies, and my house is spotless. All positives, right? Or they would be if they weren't coping mechanisms for distracting myself from my overactive amygdala.

The question from Kerry is all the prompting I need.

"What if therapy uncovers some terrible childhood memory that I've repressed for 30 years?"

We continue with the whatifs for awhile until I get to the big one.

"What if I'm broken and can't be fixed?"

 ***

The woman sitting across from me laughs out loud.

We’re in a dimly lit room with muted furniture. She’s dressed in soft colors and has an Eastern European accent that I can’t place, but find incredibly soothing.  She’s delighted by what I’ve just told her, that when my OCD was really bad I used to take a picture of my stove before leaving the house.

“That’s rather ingenious, isn’t it?”

I give her a look that says “Oh, get off it” and she laughs again.

“What I mean is that for many people, well, they let OCD simply restrict their social functioning. You didn’t. You’re highly adaptive, and it’s really quite wonderful. You’re doing quite well.”

“It doesn’t really feel that way.”

“I know it doesn’t. But believe me, you’re really doing much better than you think.”

“I have to admit, I’m pretty pleased to be called “highly adaptive.””

She smiles. “I thought you might be.”

***

It is not, I think, an exaggeration to say that I owe Kerry my life.

When we talk about that period in my life—the North Country years—we talk about being in the hole.  Outwardly I was fine. I was succeeding at my career, I was dating, I saw my Twin Cities friends regularly. I was passing.

As an interesting aside, people with high-anxiety tend to be chronic over-achievers.

Back to the point. As I’ve written about, exhaustively, I might have been passing—even succeeding—but I was a bigger mess during that time of my life than I am now.  And Kerry was the one who noticed, who hopped into the hole with me and helped me find the way out.

How do you tell someone thank you for helping you get your life back?

It’s the question I ask myself as I’m dumping all of whatifs on her, and I ask myself again when she comes up with the perfect response.

“Are you familiar with a Japanese style of pottery repair called kintsukuroi or kintsugi?”

“Nope.”

“It’s the process of mending a broken piece of pottery with a lacquer mixed with gold dust. The philosophy behind it is that the brokenness isn’t something to hide. Rather, it’s a part of the piece’s history, and more beautiful for having been broken.”

Then, "Kel, no one is so broken they can't be fixed."

The T-Rex roaring in the back of my head snaps his jaws closed and goes quiet for awhile. The fourteen other Kellys in my head stop screaming.

"Thanks, Ker." I pause. "I guess I've got some pies to go shrink-wrap."

History is a Nightmare

"You all right?"

We're out. I'm picking through my dinner and taking small sips out of my glass of beer.

"Yes. Why?"

"You're just quieter than normal."

"Oh." I shake my head and smile at him. "No. I'm sorry. Caught up in my own head."

"Anything in particular?"

"The show. It was good. I'd like to see more. But . . ."

He waits for me to finish. It's one of the things I like best about him, this ability to ask questions without asking them.

I flip the program over and tap the advert for the next show. The Woodsman.

"I don't think I'll be seeing this one with you."

He scans the synopsis. "Oh. Oh. Yeah. I can see where that might have some triggers for you."

I open my mouth to say something, to give him more than the one sentence explanation I stammered out the first time we were together.

I pick up my fork instead.

***

"So what's the problem?"

"I'm sorry?"

"It sounds like there's a problem."

"No. Problem isn't the right word. It's that I haven't figured out a way to say "I'm not entirely certain you aren't going to murder me in my sleep" yet. 

"Huh?"

"I know it's not actually going to happen." I see the look on her face. "No. I'm serious. I know it's not likely, but it's the only shorthand I know for "my lizard brain panics every time I leave because I'm really happy and it doesn't know how to deal."

"You don't think that's a better thing to say than "I'm not entirely certain you aren't going to murder me in my sleep"?"

"Oh, shut up."

We're quiet for awhile.

"You know that everything you're describing sounds really textbook for victims of trauma, right?"

"I know."

***

"Oh, here, You'd like this one too."

We're lounging. It's a brilliant, blue-sky autumn morning after days of rain, but I'm disinclined to venture out. This, being alternately wrapped up in someone's arms and his button-down shirt, is exactly what I want out of this slow, sleepy morning.  I read comics and my bookclub book. He makes me coffee and messes around on his computer.  We talk, intermittently, about anime and books and video games. He explains how he's making some piece of software run better. I tell him a long, funny story about my mother. And in between I read. He messes around on his computer. 

Even my best Saturday mornings have never been this good. 

I start, a few times, to tell him why I woke up crying the night before. Why I always wake up crying when I stay over. More than that, I want to tell him how big and different and terrifying this is for me. Just this. Just this sleepy, quiet morning together. I want to tell him that it scares the hell out of me and why it scares the hell out of me and why I'm having nightmares that wake both of us up, and I come close, so close, a time or three.

But he looks up from his computer and smiles at me and asks if I want more coffee or comes and sits next to me on the couch and we read a comic together and all I can think is:

I can't. 

This, the coffee, the comics, the smell of his shirt and my perfume, this long, lovely Saturday morning is wonderful. And completely, entirely, ridiculously unexpected. It's the kind of thing I've wanted for years and never thought I was going to get. 

"Hey, we should walk to the grocery store if I'm going to cook for you."

"Yeah. It's a really beautiful day. I suppose we should take advantage of it."

I go to the bedroom and slip out of his shirt and into my own clothes, holding the soft black and white cloth to my face for one more deep breath. 

What would be the purpose in talking about nightmares now? Better to enjoy the sunshine while we've got it.  

Some Conversations, with Family

"C'mon, Kels. I want to drink wine and make doughnuts."

"Oh. That sounds like fun!"

I should know better than to trust my mother. Halfway through an incredibly finicky recipe, I push my flour-filled hair out of my face, spin around, and see her contentedly drinking a glass of wine at the kitchen table.

"Hey! I thought we were supposed to be making doughnuts together!"

She laughs. "By "making doughnuts together" I really meant "I'm going to read the recipe out loud to you and drink wine while you do all the work.""

I take off my apron, grumbling, and remove my scarf. "It's too damn hot in this kitchen." I observe, twisting my hair up out of my eyes. These days I'm wearing it past my shoulders and it gets in the way of almost everything. As I'm fussing with the last pin, I look up and see my mother snickering.

"What's so funny?"

"Well, Kel." Her eyes are sparkling. "Bite marks are just so retro, don't you think?"

I remember why I've been wearing my hair down all day and blush. She cackles.

***

"What are you doing with that?!"

"What?" I've picked up a power drill from the workbench and am carrying it out to my car. 

"What are you doing with the drill?"

"I got new plates for my car because Minnesota makes no sense. I'm going to go put them on."

"Put it down!"

I've never been very good with power tools, but for goodness sake, this is the limit.

"Daddy, I am perfectly capable of . . ."

"I know. But the tools here are all pretty greasy and you're in good clothes." He snatches the drill from my hands and gives me a half hug. "I don't want you to get gunked up. I'll do them for you."

"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine." 

On the way out of the shop I take a deep breath and think about how the smell of Lava Soap, engine oil, and diesel will always remind me of my father.

"Kel!"

I turn around. "Yeah, Daddy?"

"I mean, I also don't trust you to use it. You do call it an electric screwdriver."

"That was, like, six years ago."

He raises his eyebrows to indicate that it doesn't matter. I roll my eyes to indicate he's out of his mind.

***

"You look like hell."

"Well, you know." He gestures to the infant, snuggled up in my lap. "Newborn and all. We're not sleeping much."

"Yeah. Mom says he's fussy between eight and midnight?"

"Yup."

"What does "fussy" mean?"

"It means he screams his head off from eight until midnight."

"What?"

"He cries. Just cries."

"For four hours?"

"He's a baby, Kel."

"How have you not, you know, left him at a local police station?"

He just stares at me. "You're never baby-sitting. You can take him for a weekend after his 21st birthday."

"I mean, I was joking, but I think we both know that until he's capable of verbalizing, it's probably not a great idea." 

"Yeah, it's almost like I suffered through years of having you as a baby-sitter."

I snort derisively. "It wasn't that bad." 

My snort wakes up the baby, who immediately starts bawling. I pass him back to his father who gives me a "see what I mean" look of exasperation and retires to the rocking chair.