#52essays: Grown Up Love

I’ve missed two months worth of blogs. The first week I did, I thought I’ll catch up next week and then it happened again, and very soon, there was no catching up to be done. I just had to let it go. Too many weeks had gone by and I really didn’t know where to begin.

The last week of February and the past three weeks of March have not been pleasant. Hypomania and depression intermingled and took me for a spin. In my manic moments I wish I’d taken the time to sit down and write instead of cook 5 half-pans of food and immaculately clean my kitchen immediately after. I have journaled some throughout the 5 weeks but I have not done much else. Although…I have to give myself credit for submitting an application for a residency in July. I think it’s been difficult because life is generally difficult during this block of weeks in the winter/early spring. But there have been other triggers that have not helped the situation. All in all I have to say that my adjustment to New York even though it’s had its great moments, has been rough. But tonight I really want to speak to the joys of loving again.

It’s been about 6 months of doing this relationship thing with Bae, and I have to say that sometimes I pinch myself that any two people could be this compatible, and when we hit a snag, we are mature enough to work through it. It’s a beautiful thing and it makes me feel grown up. I think this must be what people talk about–that when you find someone worth growing up for it’s almost effortless. This is not to say that we don’t have moments where it’s tough and we have to work through something really difficult but for the most part neither one of us wants to take our ball and go home. I am not making any pronouncements yet because I think it’s still early yet. We have fallen into a rhythm that seems to match both our temperaments quite well and that has made it feel like we have been together longer than we actually have. Shall I tell you the story of how we met barely a year ago?

So remember when I was back on the interviewing circuit in May/June? Well, I emailed my friend Reverend Rachel when I found out I was going to be in the Ithaca area. She rallied all her friends and told them I’d be in the area. Three of them responded and set up meetings. All of the meetings had me traveling the 40 minutes down to Ithaca from where I was interviewing. Having been to the area only once before I misjudged how I’d feel after driving in from the airport. So I called Bae-to-be and asked if she’d consider meeting me at my inn instead of at the place we had initially agreed upon. She said yes without hesitation. I’d like to say the rest is herstory but it isn’t. I knew when I had dinner with her that night she showed up at my inn that I would love to date her if I ended up moving to the area. When I did move, she was hard to pin down. She gave me quite the run for my money. It felt like I was chasing and she was resisting. It wasn’t like she was playing hard to get, just more like she didn’t want to succumb to her own feelings about the whole event. As we spent more time together the surer I became and the more elusive she did. Finally after dinner together one night, I signed up for Match and had the ovaries to call her up and tell her I was done chasing her and I was back on the dating scene. Somehow, that was what she needed to make up her mind. Sometime after her birthday in October, a time we can’t seem to agree on, we finally started dating. Three months later she said I love you and now the rest is herstory.