Time is on my mind. The past, the future, the elusiveness of time. Scott and I are moving in together this weekend, and boy am I on an emotional roller coaster. I've consulted my best friends Britney and Taylor and even they don't know what to say to me right now. What if it doesn't work out and I just donated all my furniture to Goodwill? What if it does work out and these last five nights are the last time I will live alone...like, ever? What if, God forbid, Scott disowns me once he sees all the TLC shows that I watch?
Moving in with someone is a big deal. Some people will try to tell you that it's not, but they're lying. For me, it's the end of an era. I love living in Washington Park. I've been in the same zip code my entire life (college excepted) and I'm comfortable here. I know the traffic patterns, which dogs are friendly, and my PR time from my front door around the park and back. I've seen the neighborhood evolve. I've witnessed The Girl-Who-Screams-During-Sex enter into and end multiple (apparently very enjoyable) relationships. Not least of all, this is where I learned to be self-sufficient.
But honestly, my emotional roller coaster isn't really about leaving the neighborhood. It's about change.
Change was forced upon me - big time - yesterday in another arena. I hadn't expected someone that I've vilified for the past 13 years - someone who stole something irreplaceable from me - to ask me for forgiveness. I wasn't prepared. Images of my past flash before my eyes, even now. The years of pain, the struggle to find a new normal, to heal a deep cut. Part of me resents that he asked for this and that I agreed. Suddenly, a huge weight has been thrust upon me without any notice: it is all on me now to figure out how I move on. I can't use my anger as a crutch anymore; I have to figure out what my future looks like without it, and it's overwhelming. I wonder sometimes if our fear of the future is not that it is going to be different, but that it is going to be exactly the same.
With all the stress and the fear connected to moving in with someone, it's easy to forget why you choose to do it in the first place. For me, I chose this path for myself because if I do this, then I get to live with Scott. And Scott is my world. I get to live with someone who feeds me Pringles through the phone, who lets me practice opening peanut butter cups on his chest using only my toes, who has never made me feel like Bear is baggage, who sings to me when we're cooking, who reads the books I recommend to him, who supports me eating gluten free without any complaint, who climbed a tree on our third date, who has taken on running to do it together, who loves having dinner with our parents, who gets more excited about going to prom (in his dad's sports car) as chaperones than I do, who cheers me on when it takes me 45 minutes to get down a ski run (it was an unavoidable black diamond, btw), who forgives me for untucking the covers every night, who dances in a rainbow onesie - with my dog, who talks about the tough stuff willingly, who shows up for me - no matter what.
That guy is my future, and he makes all this uncomfortable change worth it.
"I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire...I give it [this watch] to you not that you may remember time but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it."
- The Sound
and the Fury
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