renivalentine

i finally cried.

let me preface this by saying that while having MRIs and cat scans and x-rays and being told that roughly 11% of people that have brain aneurysms rupture walk away from it unaffected and going through the panic process of "what happens if i die?", i never cried. not once. sometimes i wonder if i've just forgotten how.

and then today happened.

we're officially in our new apartment. just Alex and i. the cats will be coming home soon (shooting for May 1st or thereabouts). i'm broke as hell and still figuring out how and when i'm going to get furniture (and who i can pay to haul it up the stairs and put it together). but i'm happy. and Alex is happy.

i found out last week that i'm not dying. and i'm off medication now so i'm allowed to drink (which i haven't actually done yet). making the climb to my second-floor walk-up was a little easier today than yesterday, and this was after taking a twenty-minute walk around town. i like my neighbors, i found a nearby ATM and a little bakery. still don't know when garbage day is, but i have cable hookups in both bedrooms and the living room.

but none of that triggered it.

i commented on a blog. i didn't want or expect a response. i saw someone going through a hard time, a time that i'm all too familiar with. and i sent the poem. the same one that i found when i was twenty-three, pregnant, and alone in a hospital, wondering what i'd done wrong and what i needed to do to fix it. i wanted to share that little sliver of sunlight peeking through the darkest of gray skies. not because she asked, but because she needed it.

and she replied. a simple, very small thing. the words "Thank you" in the subject line. and that was all it took. i finally feel like a part of something in general. it was like watching the pieces of your life start to make sense after years of jibberish. after a bitchy comment about my being on chat with visible cleavage (fyi for anyone who's seen me on chat or in real life - if i'm awake and it's at or above 60F, you can see cleavage), after realizing that i will probably never go back to school, after seeing relationship after relationship circle the drain, after noticing that it i genuinely don't know how to be with anyone but the one person that i cannot be with, after finally accepting the fact that i am amazing - flaws, jiggle, crossed eyes, extra finger nubs, crazy family and all. two little words and everything came rushing out.

i cried tears of joy. for Charles, who i may finally be able to be friends with - admittedly easier when there are miles between us and he doesn't have his hand in my pants. for my son, who is failing the fourth grade but doing it on his terms. for my niece, whose parents are complete morons but at least a half-assed father is making the attempt. for my brother, who is a terrible human being but may eventually be a decent dad. for Bill, who has decided that he's quitting his job to follow a dream. for Harriet, who is my day-drinking, cigarette-smoking, foul-mouthed downstairs neighbor - yes, i got a Sophia. and for her, who is finding her legs and standing on her own - slowly, shakily, but unsupported.

you're welcome.