Thursday, September 27, 2007

That Lovin' Feeling

I feel like I didn't do my relationship justice with my last post. I was so preoccupied with explaining that what we have is for real, but that I haven't had the easiest time in the world allowing myself to be loved and be in a relationship that I downplayed how wonderful it (and He, Prince Charming) is.

The truth of it is, I'm still in a state of disbelief. I have to look at Prince Charming, at least once each time we're together, and tell myself - remind myself that it's real. I have to remind myself that it's not impossible that I met someone that I could see spending the rest of my life with. I have to remind myself that I am, for the first time in my entire life, really and truly loved.

It's the most amazing thing in the entire world.

Lyrics of the Day

"I've been wishing on a star but I could never have imagined that I could land just where you are, after all this lonesome traveling." Teitur One and Only

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Getting to Know You

When I look back on my relationship with Prince Charming thus far, especially the earliest days, I find it amazing that we've gotten to know each other so well. I find it even more amazing that PC hasn't run the other direction screaming yet, and at times I feel like I've given him ample reason to do so.

I always thought, in my oh-so-many days of Singledom, that I would be the coolest girlfriend ever. I'm laid-back, I'm not jealous, I like sports, I don't have any hang-ups about pornography, etcetera, etcetera. And while all of these things are reasons that I could be a very cool girlfriend, it turns out that none of that is really what it's about or what it's supposed to be about. I didn't really realize what I was getting into (though I wouldn't trade it for the world). It seems that I got far too used to being single and being on my own and not having my behavior or moods have much effect on anyone else's life, but being in a committed, heading-towards-forever relationship is a much different situation than I've ever found myself in before.

During the 10 days that PC was with me in Montana, I found that you just can't hide anything anymore when you're working your way toward living with someone. You can't pretend that your body is miraculously hairless every day - if you need to shave, the person that you're spending every waking and sleeping minute with is going to know about it. If you have a runny nose and can't force yourself to get out of bed, you can't hide from your significant other - you've got to allow them to suffer through it with you. If you're in a hopelessly black mood, there's just no hiding that from a man who pays the utmost attention to what you do and say. As a person who has a hard time admitting any type of weakness (even to myself), this is proving to be a difficult, though somewhat liberating, adjustment. And when I did have moments of hysteria in Montana (managing to misplace my wallet when I could have sworn that I should have it with me), I couldn't hide my frighteningly stressy side - PC got to see that along with the rest. But throughout the trip, my Prince Charming was unfailingly loving, understanding and tolerant.

All of these things that we experienced on a small scale in Montana, Prince Charming and I have been experiencing in an even more real way over the past six weeks. When, just before the end of Prince Charming's visit to Montana, I finally got the call finalizing my job in San Francisco I was really excited. Though San Fran is a good 5 to 5 1/2 hours from LA, I knew that PC and I would work out a way to see each other as much as possible. I was also excited about the prospect of spending three months in such an interesting and beautiful city. I knew that PC and I would be able to explore it together. And we have, we have managed to see each other every single weekend since I got to San Fran, which has been ever more eye-opening for me.

There is so much stuff that is wonderful: walking across the Golden Gate Bridge together, sleeping in the same bed on a regular basis, cooking in, eating out, watching football together, walking all over my neighborhood, checking out local dive bars. But there are things that have been tough too: my need to decompress at the end of the day and have a bit of space to myself, getting used to PC's less-than-compulsive tidiness / cleaning habits (not that I'm the tidiest person in the world myself - it's just that when I grab the tub of margarine out of the fridge and get margarine all over my hand, I know that I'm not the last one who used it), dealing with the conflict of wanting to share everything with PC but still needing to have some measure of privacy (including this blog, but that is a post for later), trying not to take any bad moods out on each other. But this is what it is, what it's supposed to be. We're building a relationship - a real, lasting, workable relationship - not some fantasy based on infatuation like everything else that I've ever experienced. And through all of it: the good, the great and the not-so-perfect, I've never begun to doubt that I love him or that he loves me. And that is really the most amazing thing of all.

Lyrics of the Day

"Is your figure less than Greek, is your mouth a little weak? When you open it to speak are you smart? But don't change a hair for me, not if you care for me. Stay little Valentine, stay. Each day is Valentine's Day." My Funny Valentine Frank Sinatra

Friday, September 21, 2007

Meet the Parents

Although PC had briefly met The Mother at my going away party (those mere three days after we met), TM had been largely unable to form a true opinion about him. But when contemplating PC's imminent arrival in Bozeman in August, The Mother's opinion was not what was eating away at my mind. It was the introduction to The Father.

My father is just a bit scary. Not the Meet-The-Boyfriend-At-The-Front-Door-With-A-Shotgun scary, but he's got a very intimidating presence. He tends to sit back and watch and listen and he doesn't offer up his own voice very often. To a young man courting his daughter, that silence can come off as down-right menacing. I had more than one pre-pubescent suitor quake in his shoes upon visiting my family's house for the first time. In high school I avoided the situation as much as possible and there was no way in HELL that I would have introduced the Speed Freak to my father. I did make the mistake of introducing The Ex to my parents - a mistake because I still believed that I was in a relationship that was going somewhere at that time and The Ex had already decided that it wasn't. It just took me about three more weeks to figure that out. The point is: meeting my dad is a big deal. A HUGE deal really, and I was just a bit nervous of how it would work when Prince Charming finally made it to Montana. I was actually more nervous that PC would be put off by The Father than I was of it being the other way around - PC tends to make an almost universally good first impression.

I never should have worried. Of course, I couldn't have expected it to work out quite so well as it did. Seriously folks, in the end I think if I didn't marry Prince Charming my family would disinherit me.

The Father took to PC like he's never really taken to anyone before. The Father obviously warmed to PC quickly and engaged him in far more conversation than I would have expected. And Prince Charming did the same in return. If I analyze it, I'd have to say that PC's father has always been very hard on him and I think has maintained a largely disapproving attitude toward his son and I think that Prince Charming was nearly overjoyed to have a male presence that was both friendly and accepting. It was touching, really. And I think that The Father began to realize that, although he never had sons of his own, he could gain surrogate sons by marrying off his daughters.

Now that PC is pretty much one of the immediate family, there are very few hurdles left to scale before he's given full and complete approval. This is jumping ahead in the story a bit, but the most important of the final hurdles is about to be jumped this weekend: I'm taking Prince Charming to Bakersfield on Saturday to meet my Grandfather.

Lyrics of the Day

"Everyone can see we're together as we walk on by, and we fly just like birds of a feather - I won't tell no lie. All of the people around us, they say, 'Can they be that close?' Just let me state for the record, we're giving love in a family dose." Sister Sledge We Are Family

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

All Apologies

Oh, ever faithful readers (if there are, in fact, any of you left), I have been remiss in my bloggerly duties for far too long. It first started as just a few days during which I didn't have time to write, then grew into weeks and finally into hulking, guilt-inducing months of silence that intimidated me into ever further silence. But a wake-up call from a good friend and secretly-faithful reader reminded me that I have stories to tell that need to be told and should be read and here I am again to share them with you. My most sincere apologies for the disappearing act, I promise never to leave you so in-the-lurch without announcement again. The largest problem that I now face is how in the hell I can catch you all up on the events of the past months. It may be hurried or it may turn into a rambling, incoherent jumble of sentences but somehow, someway I will eventually manage to bring us all up to speed with current events.

Let's start somewhere around where we left off. I had returned from the all-too-brief wedding weekend with Prince Charming to slog through my final two weeks in Baltimore. And slog through I did, finally managing to pack up all of my earthly belongings into two suitcases and a huge box for shipping, boarding a poorly-booked flight home to Montana and landing back on my home turf late Saturday night, July 28. I spent the following days sleeping off my traveling exhaustion, hanging with my folks and doing nothing more than wishing that Prince Charming was already there, in Bozeman, with me. Being with my family again made me acutely aware that I really wanted PC to be with my family, a part of my family, my own chosen family.

There is no way that I can detail the entire ten, blissful days of togetherness. It would be too exhaustive, too repetitive and too difficult to dredge from my memory at this point. But suffice to say that we did everything we could possibly do and we had an amazing time. We did the Sweet Pea Festival with my family and with Red, who was also visiting. We floated the Madison River (basically you sit in an inner tube on a river, drink some beer and float on down it - if I've never described that before), spent a few days at my cabin, met endless numbers of friends and family and got really, really used to being together. Not to say that everything was 100% perfect - there were little bumps (caused mostly by my moods or poor stress-handling skills), but we navigated them fairly easily - especially considering that the anniversary we celebrated (with mimosas in the mountains) was only our four month.

Throughout most of our time in Montana, the future of the geography of our relationship was still in question. I had yet to hear word on any suitable jobs, and I was beginning to despair that I had been too narrow in my demands. But I had decided fairly early on that I needed to be back in California once I was done in Baltimore - not just to be near Prince Charming because I hated being so far away, but also to see if our relationship would weather being together as well as it had weathered being apart. It was the Friday before PC left that I finally heard on a job that sounded good and I accepted. Then I prepared to leave that following Thursday for my new place of residence and employment: San Francisco.

Lyrics of the Day

"Now are you gonna love me? Are you gonna fight for me? Promise that you'll never, ever leave me please." Aaron Espe Settling