June 25th, 2012
you never know when you wake up in the morning if today’s the day you’re going to be eaten alive
“I’m always on your side / However you must fight / within your darkest night / I’m always on your side / with evidence of trust / and eminence of love / I’m always on your side / capitulate and fade / resurrect and break / I’m always on your side / Forever in your light / I’m always on your side / Lover, light the way”
—Smashing Pumpkins via Jeff
“We can’t predict the future. We can only strive to be future friendly, while solving the problems of today.”
—@LukeW
” ‘Well I guess I’ll do another cartwheel…’ “
—Diana, 2002
This weekend was idyllic, an almost perfect representation of what a summer weekend should be. Ice cream with Kelly on Friday, where she dissected my thoughts, brought me out of the darkness, and made me believe in my heart again; a long phone chat with Katy on Saturday, much-needed and full of laughs; cold press and pastries with Diana again Sunday, another solid hours-long kvetch-and-lovefest, complete with professional hijinks to personal plotting to how-to-handle-life advice. Lots of time with Jeff, gardening, weeding (I just type wedding there instead of weeding, indicative of what I’ve been going on and on about, perhaps?! Ha), an amaaaaaaazing yoga class with Macarena (new fave!) that left me feeling both incredibly strong and so very sore, TWO movie nights in a row (Insider! How to Train Your Dragon! So good!), long discussions, Hanging Out. Being Lovers. Lime beer, grilling steak, picking up burritos and a hot dog at the pool. Working on some logo stuff with my Dad, doing some other Chores. Big fast bike ride Friday. And a lovely beyond lovely afternoon at the Richfield Pool by myself, sparkling blue water, beautiful hot sun, swimming laps vigorously in the sunshine and feeling so grateful to have this strong and relatively young body; “this is not so bad, at 30, to be living like this” and just BEING. Soaking it all up. Living life and loving my husband and home.
And today is beautiful anyhow.
…
I’ve been rereading Open, Andre Agassi’s autobiography, with which I was enamored just two years ago. I tore through that book, eating it up alive, in summer 2010, not a tennis fan at all, not someone who really even knew who Agassi was, and yet I fell in total love with the book and with his story completely (and probably him, haha). And I’m supposed to be reading something else, but now I’m completely immersed in Agassi’s story once more, and this time taking away something a little different. (Isn’t that the point of rereading – to learn something new, to see it at a different point in your life?) His life calms down and comes together once he realizes, essentially, that all we have it each other, and all we’re supposed to do is ease the suffering of others (and ourselves) when we can – and when it’s bad, grind on, grind on, grind on. Even when it’s bad for not months but years. Even when it doesn’t seem to end and you’re losing in the first round every.single.time – keep after it. Some things are meant to be endured; yet everlong as they are, it doesn’t mean they last forever. In the meantime, you have the people who matter to you most—and that is the stuff that matters.
…
When you get to be at a certain point in life, when all your friends are a certain age, when you’ve gone through months-into-years of agony and stress and disappointment, you start to get really good at detecting what particular Things mean and what Signs are there and what certain Phone Calls will be about. And you flinch and worry and plan, and it breaks your heart that you feel this way, but the way you feel breaks your heart, too, and what can you do? You’re swimming in a sea-turned-ocean of uncertainty, and no one else seems subject to this struggling fate and all it feels is unfairunfairunfair and jealousjealousjealous and I just don’t have energy for it anymore. I simply cannot take it. I only have it in me to keep going, be with Jeff, and see the Short List of folks I know I can handle right now. (And I’m sorry. And I’m not, too, because this is 2012: Year of Survival, after all. And this is What It Takes to survive, right now.)
So you get a Signal from a friend that one of those Phone Calls is about to come your way, and you panic, aflutter, trying to prepare to be eaten alive, for whenever it happens (“all of these animals, starting their day calmly in the dawn, eating and going about their day, in this world of violence and surprise, where one might be eaten alive?” –very loose paraphrase from Andre Agassi’s book, from when he was watching day break in the desert while on an African safari). Even though you can’t.
And then “Tainted Love” comes on the radio and you’re reminded of your friend who years ago spent hours making up a floor routine to this song (or just plotting it, with her you’re never sure which). Who was your fun-but-ever-casual friend then, and now is yet another better half; you had no idea the person she would come to be to you today, what she would come to mean, and just hearing that song and thinking of her makes you feel a little stronger, more worthy and prepared. Her wise words “when you have a why, the how doesn’t matter”, her unwavering support.
“Stand on my shoulders and reach, man.” –Gil (Agassi’s trainer) via Open, again
…
And in the end, you have Jeff. You have each other. And that’s all that really matters.
Someday, it will all be OK. And until then…just keep swimming.
“…we have no idea what/if will come. Except in the end everything will be perfect.”