Miss Tricky Takes Over

I had one of those moments last night, one that made me feel so crazy and helpless that my chest hurt a little. Nothing really happened before hand…. it was just all of a sudden there. I tend to think that when you are experiencing huge emotions your brain has a special filter that only lets you absorb a little at a time. It is how people survive the death of a loved one, it is how women handle becoming mothers and it is how couples manage to achieve true love.  Human beings are jumpy creatures who shut down when overwhelmed. If your brain suddenly let you feel the full impact of your deepest emotions you would probably spend the rest of your days eating valium flavored pudding at the funny farm; but we can handle it all in small doses. Last night my filter slipped just a little bit. Last night for a moment I got a taste of just how deeply happy I am.

 It totally rocked me. I have never been in love with a whole person before, not every part of them. My ex I was fascinated with; he was this aggravating taunt, always out of reach that drove me to chase him. At the time I thought that was the only way to stay passionate about someone. I thought that love couldn’t fill you up the way need does.

 This may shock you guys, but I am a bit of a cynic. (gasp!) I do this stupid little thing in my head when I think about Mr. President and how I feel about him. I bargain; I rationalize. I seem to be so prepared mediocrity in love that my brain starts to try to and put him in a tidy, little, predictable box. Something I can control, I suppose. All my defenses want to squish him into a little spot in there that I could lose without losing everything. But he just won’t stay in it. Every time I get him wedged into the companion “we talk for hours and he’s my favorite friend” box he kisses me again and I panic. Why do I just naturally assume that you cannot be great friends, great lovers and focused parents all with the same person? How did I learn that? Why is it that every time we match each other step for step in humor, passion and reliability I am flabbergasted?

 Last night I got this one little peek behind the curtain and saw just how good I have it. Maybe it was a perfectly planned flash to remind me to stop over thinking, maybe it was just an accident, but either way I woke up a little different today than I did yesterday. I’m glad I can’t feel all of it all the time, that much joy might kill me; but for one little moment last night I got to feel exactly how much I love him. There is nothing better than that.

(I have decided as of this morning that I want to do I Love Fridays too; except I’m a brat so I’m doing it my way. Actually I was going to write this blog anyway and it just happened to be Friday and I was feeling kind of pouty and left out so I just rationalized a way that this ties in to I Love Fridays. There is a very good chance that I will never do it again but for this week at least it’s Friday and I’m dishing about love.)

I am not into phone sex, or sexting or any type of solo-satisfaction whether it’s assisted or not. I’m just not. I’m kind of like a cave woman when it comes to the hanky-panky. Me woman, you man, let’s do it, the end. I don’t want to talk about it unless I am just about to do it. I am too much of a pouty-pants to be all “well, we can’t and this is nice and makes me close to you blah blah blah,” I want it now, and if it’s not close enough for me to get my hands on it than I would just rather not think about it. I’m like that asshole high school boy they warn girls about in health class…. “we can’t stop now baby…..it’ll hurt…come on baby…” It’s bad, I have been known to temper-tantrum when interrupted. It goes beyond sex, too. I like to share space and casual physical contact with the people I love. I want to make dinner and watch movies and have someone else be in the moment and not be told about it later. I have spent years going on and on about how stupid it is to try and date someone far away… which, I’m quite sure, is precisely why the universe has seen fit to punish me with a long-distance relationship.

Really it’s Mr. President’s fault. What kind of scumbag shows up in MY city on MY birthday knowing MY friends and then is like “so I know we are totally hot for each other but I live 6 hours away. Ha.” If you were threatening to rip off my toenails and I had to be totally honest I would admit that some parts of this situation are nice. My tattoo artist referred to it as our love being in a slow-cooker, which appeals to me. It means we don’t have a lot of time to get on each other’s nerves and that we get our own beds 90% of the time. It also means that you get to do a lot of talking and getting to know each other without being distracted by life and hormones. You know what else it means? Less humping. And more scheduling, and a sneaky fear that maybe you are only cute and charming in small bursts and once you move in a couple months he’s going to realize that most of the time you are just annoying. Ahem. It means that if you happened to be having an off weekend when ya’ll were visiting then you have to wait until everyone’s schedule clears up to get a chance to make up for it. It means that just as soon as you get used to them not being around they show up; and as soon as you get comfortable with them there, they leave again. But then again, it is always planned and always special, there are care packages and real letters and there are those fantastically awful 6 hours of build-up to get to each other.

My point (if I had one) is that I basically got hijacked into 11 months (give or take, once I move) of foreplay. I tend to be a “hi I like you and *poof* we live together” kind of girl. True in many of those cases it’s because I was living out of my car when we met-which, if I didn’t have a kid, I would probably be doing now-but still, I am not big into waiting around. I have the attention span of a fruit fly with ADHD and either get bored with or just plain forget things that aren’t happening in my face all the time, except for now. Either I am way grown up or Mr. President is working some super Voo Doo on me, because I have suddenly mastered the art of the relationship slow-build. So much so that years from now, when I am old and he is really old and Spawn is picking us up from the bar to get us home safely, I will wax poetic about how the man I love wooed me from 300 miles away…and it was the best woo-ing I ever got.

The thing about being the mom of a kid with special needs is that you become so much more aware of all the other special needs kids and mommies out there. Have you ever been sucked in by one of those TLC specials? Something about sick or disabled kids? You know that look that all the mothers have? That look is the physical manifestation of what every mother forced to confront an ugly reality for her child feels in her heart. There is a sadness that runs so deep it cannot be extracted, a sadness that cannot be treated away or cheered up. But mixed in and layered on top of that sadness is an amazing and powerful sense of acceptance and duty- and in the really great moms, humor.

This is my friend Sasha and her daughter Sophie. I know, I know, too damn cute to even be talked about. Little Miss Sophie has been diagnosed with Prader-Willi Syndrome. I will leave it to Sasha to explain all the details in her own way on her own page but I just had to do something to let people know about their wonderful family. Sophie may still be too young to know it yet, but she has hit the jackpot when it comes to parents. The Tweels are one of those magical couples that radiate love and fun. When you are near them you are warmer and happier just basking in their glow. And now added to their family is an extra twinkly light that could not have picked a better place to grow and fight and exceed all expectations. I know a little tiny bit about feeling helpless in the face of something that has such a grip on your child; just enough to know that what Sasha and Ben face everyday is waaaaay out of my league. And they face it, not just with gritted teeth and dug in toes but with smiles and humor and that sense of playfulness so desperately needed in this kind of battle. Below is a link to Sophie’s homepage where you can learn more about this exceptional girl and maybe get a peek into why I am honored to call her entire family my friends.

What Friends Do

With Love and Thanks,

Tricky