This glorious life
Today, I sat channel surfing as I ate my breakfast of yogurt and juice. In general, I tend to read when I have breakfast, but I have just started Game of Thrones, a huge book. It reminds me of all the heavy Harry Potter books that I used to read to Lucy. So...it is heavy to hold and, in the mornings, I simply don't have the strength to hold it in my hands. So, I opted for television. The TV landed on CNN first. No. Not this early. I channel surfed.
Landed on the movie, Date Night. I had seen it years ago, but only vaguely remembered it. It would serve the purpose. I settled in with my spoon and container of yogurt.
And spent the next hour laughing. At one point, I took a big sip of my juice only to spit it out spectacularly as Tina Fey's character said, "Three guys at once? That's a nightmare. That is literally a recurring stress dream that I have. I can only think of jobs for two."
After the movie, I could feel all those leftover endorphins spinning around my body and it felt so good. So relaxing. I tried to think of the last time that I had really laughed.
It had been a while. Not THAT long, though. Luckily, I live with a woman who is so snarkily hilarious that our marriage has been filled with a lot of laughs. She finds the humor in just about anything.
This is not to say that she is a daily comedienne. She can be pretty serious and she is mildly OCD, so she can also be annoying. But, I have been lucky. My life has been filled with many good times.
And this movie reminded me of that. We know lots of couples. And honestly? I think most of them are pretty happy. Some not so much. And we have had our days (years) when we weren't all that happy. When we lost each other for a while. But, we always seemed to come back to each other and always with a sense of WHEW! Like...how did that happen to US? T and I have always related in a way that I have never had with anyone else. A secret way of communication. I can look across a room at her at a party and know exactly what she is thinking. I know her GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE look. Sometimes, when we'd grocery shop, she'd slyly lift her shirt up to flash me her bra when no one was looking. We have certain sentences that only belong to us. Certain songs that only belong to us.
Our life together has not worked out exactly as we planned. The original plan was that we would retire at 65 (or 67 or 68, depending on how the finances looked) and move south. Somewhere where there was no snow in the Winter. On cold, snowy days we would sit cuddled on the sofa talking about how, if we were in our house in New Orleans, we would be sitting on the porch swing right now.
Things didn't work out that way. But, life never does, does it? I will die on the prairie. I have encouraged her to move south after my death and she is considering it, I believe. She says that she doesn't think she could stay here. Too many memories. We had the chance to move to Florida last year and didn't take it. Was that a mistake? I think it might have been, but hind sight is 20/20.
For such a long time, my life was just....get up, take a shower, get dressed, slurp down a yogurt and go to work all day. Come home. Eat dinner. Watch television. Go to bed. The weekends were so chore heavy that they seemed to pass in a blur. Now, I look at that woman in awe. I was able to take a shower in the morning and not have to rest for a half hour? I wore high heels sometimes to work. And I sometimes race walked if I was late. I couldn't do that now to save my life.
My job was a desk job, but I was up and down a lot. Meeting with families. Setting up kids with audiologists or speech therapists. I pretty much ran my office. It was an office joke. Co-workers would be introducing a new person to our office and they'd say, "Any questions? This is the person you ask. She pretty much runs this place. She knows everything." I was such a good juggler. Now, I struggle to carry books to take back to the library.
I miss her.
Sometimes, I sit around and cry all day. It just seems as if everything is slipping through my fingers. But then, I get up. There really is no other choice. Things are what they are. And I am my Mother's daughter (whether she liked it or not), there is always that voice in the back of my head that says, "Buck up and quit your bawling. It could be so much worse."
I have had a pretty spectacular life. I can honestly say that I lived on my own terms. I followed my arrow. I raised and loved children. I fell in love with my best friend. And despite so much adversity, so many people who tried to stop us, we persevered. We refused to let go of each other's hand. We did the right thing when so many insisted that it was wrong. Through thick and thin, we stuck it out.
We have laughed so hard that we cried so many times that I couldn't put a number on it. A lot of T's best and most funny lines were solely for my enjoyment and I will never forget them.
The time when I was lamenting that both of us are bad cooks. She said, "Hey! I can yodel and you know how to speak Klingon. Who needs to be a good cook? We rock, babycakes."
The time when not one, but BOTH cars broke down at the same time. And I was having a rough chemo. "Think about it this way. Since all you do is throw up, isn't it better to do it in the rental car?"
The time when I was reading my book while she was getting ready for bed and all of a sudden, I felt a sock sliding around my head. I looked up and she was standing in a towel. "Tell me you still want to read after seeing this hot potato, woman." She went to take the towel off and it swung around, hit me in the face and knocked my glasses off. "Hey! I'm even sexier when everything is all blurry...." I laughed. We laughed. We always seem to laugh.
Cancer is not funny. My life seems tragic to me in so many ways. And then there is my wife. A phone call from Lucy. "I just needed to hear your voice." A handmade card from my sister. A marco polo from my niece. A text from my cousin saying, "I want you to come and see this ocean with me." Tulips from our next door neighbors. A package in the mail from Terri.
The sun is out today. There is a black squirrel running around the side yard, bringing good luck. A cup of coffee on the way.
This glorious life.
Landed on the movie, Date Night. I had seen it years ago, but only vaguely remembered it. It would serve the purpose. I settled in with my spoon and container of yogurt.
And spent the next hour laughing. At one point, I took a big sip of my juice only to spit it out spectacularly as Tina Fey's character said, "Three guys at once? That's a nightmare. That is literally a recurring stress dream that I have. I can only think of jobs for two."
After the movie, I could feel all those leftover endorphins spinning around my body and it felt so good. So relaxing. I tried to think of the last time that I had really laughed.
It had been a while. Not THAT long, though. Luckily, I live with a woman who is so snarkily hilarious that our marriage has been filled with a lot of laughs. She finds the humor in just about anything.
This is not to say that she is a daily comedienne. She can be pretty serious and she is mildly OCD, so she can also be annoying. But, I have been lucky. My life has been filled with many good times.
And this movie reminded me of that. We know lots of couples. And honestly? I think most of them are pretty happy. Some not so much. And we have had our days (years) when we weren't all that happy. When we lost each other for a while. But, we always seemed to come back to each other and always with a sense of WHEW! Like...how did that happen to US? T and I have always related in a way that I have never had with anyone else. A secret way of communication. I can look across a room at her at a party and know exactly what she is thinking. I know her GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE look. Sometimes, when we'd grocery shop, she'd slyly lift her shirt up to flash me her bra when no one was looking. We have certain sentences that only belong to us. Certain songs that only belong to us.
Our life together has not worked out exactly as we planned. The original plan was that we would retire at 65 (or 67 or 68, depending on how the finances looked) and move south. Somewhere where there was no snow in the Winter. On cold, snowy days we would sit cuddled on the sofa talking about how, if we were in our house in New Orleans, we would be sitting on the porch swing right now.
Things didn't work out that way. But, life never does, does it? I will die on the prairie. I have encouraged her to move south after my death and she is considering it, I believe. She says that she doesn't think she could stay here. Too many memories. We had the chance to move to Florida last year and didn't take it. Was that a mistake? I think it might have been, but hind sight is 20/20.
For such a long time, my life was just....get up, take a shower, get dressed, slurp down a yogurt and go to work all day. Come home. Eat dinner. Watch television. Go to bed. The weekends were so chore heavy that they seemed to pass in a blur. Now, I look at that woman in awe. I was able to take a shower in the morning and not have to rest for a half hour? I wore high heels sometimes to work. And I sometimes race walked if I was late. I couldn't do that now to save my life.
My job was a desk job, but I was up and down a lot. Meeting with families. Setting up kids with audiologists or speech therapists. I pretty much ran my office. It was an office joke. Co-workers would be introducing a new person to our office and they'd say, "Any questions? This is the person you ask. She pretty much runs this place. She knows everything." I was such a good juggler. Now, I struggle to carry books to take back to the library.
I miss her.
Sometimes, I sit around and cry all day. It just seems as if everything is slipping through my fingers. But then, I get up. There really is no other choice. Things are what they are. And I am my Mother's daughter (whether she liked it or not), there is always that voice in the back of my head that says, "Buck up and quit your bawling. It could be so much worse."
I have had a pretty spectacular life. I can honestly say that I lived on my own terms. I followed my arrow. I raised and loved children. I fell in love with my best friend. And despite so much adversity, so many people who tried to stop us, we persevered. We refused to let go of each other's hand. We did the right thing when so many insisted that it was wrong. Through thick and thin, we stuck it out.
We have laughed so hard that we cried so many times that I couldn't put a number on it. A lot of T's best and most funny lines were solely for my enjoyment and I will never forget them.
The time when I was lamenting that both of us are bad cooks. She said, "Hey! I can yodel and you know how to speak Klingon. Who needs to be a good cook? We rock, babycakes."
The time when not one, but BOTH cars broke down at the same time. And I was having a rough chemo. "Think about it this way. Since all you do is throw up, isn't it better to do it in the rental car?"
The time when I was reading my book while she was getting ready for bed and all of a sudden, I felt a sock sliding around my head. I looked up and she was standing in a towel. "Tell me you still want to read after seeing this hot potato, woman." She went to take the towel off and it swung around, hit me in the face and knocked my glasses off. "Hey! I'm even sexier when everything is all blurry...." I laughed. We laughed. We always seem to laugh.
Cancer is not funny. My life seems tragic to me in so many ways. And then there is my wife. A phone call from Lucy. "I just needed to hear your voice." A handmade card from my sister. A marco polo from my niece. A text from my cousin saying, "I want you to come and see this ocean with me." Tulips from our next door neighbors. A package in the mail from Terri.
The sun is out today. There is a black squirrel running around the side yard, bringing good luck. A cup of coffee on the way.
This glorious life.
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