So. In my last post, I dropped the bombshell that I had met someone. If you haven’t read it yet, take five ten fifteen how ever long you need and look it over. Go on. Do it. Otherwise, this post won’t be as full an experience. Done? Good.
As we last checked in with the grrl, she was anxiously awaiting a visit from her ape. When he told me (the grrl. Try to keep up) he had bought the tickets, I was jubilant. In the back of my mind, I was afraid that he would back out at the last minute. I couldn’t quite believe he actually WANTED to see me, so much so that he would fly a thousand miles to meet me. He hates flying as much as I do; he hates change as much as I do; I was floored that he was actually going through with it. With my history, I have a hard time believing that I’m worth someone making that effort, especially someone as averse to traveling as he is.
Once we had establish that yes, he was coming for realz, I had to do something I hate: Clean. I absolutely loathe it. Plus, I suck at it. Not a good combination. I’m not comfortable having people in my house, not even good friends, and here I was eagerly offering Idle Primate to share my bed. My friends were floored by the fact that I was letting him stay in my house. Frankly, so was I.
As I prepared for his visit, doubts started flooding my mind. I am a dynamo online. I’m funny and witty and charming as hell. I am MUCH better with the written word than I am with the spoken word, and I was worried that all my neuroses and quirks and idiosyncrasies would be annoying in person–not endearing. The demons were whispering in my ear that once Idle Primate spent some time with me, he would realize that he had made a mistake. I didn’t want to disappoint him. One thing that made it marginally easier for me not to panic was that I knew he had similar worries about disappointing me.
We have some of the same life experiences, which means we have similar issues. We also both think of ourselves as the caretaker in a relationship, which makes for a very interesting dynamic. In the past, I’ve tended to be with people who, in the long run, didn’t want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with them, and then my concubine nature would take over and I would do whatever it took to make them happy. Idle has a similar personality, which is actually refreshing. We both wanted to make the other happy, which is much better than one person doing most of the work.
As his visit neared, we started to post more on each other’s FB walls. Mostly videos, and mostly ones that one of us found funny. We have a rule that we had to listen to the entire song if the other person posted it on our wall. As we both have devious minds, it led to lots of mirth, especially as neither of sleeps very much and one of us has OCD (that would be me). For example, as I said in my last post, I loved the hair bands of the ’80s such as Cinderella and Warrant. My poor Idle, well, let’s just say he was a punk back then and leave it at that. In our serious moments, he posted the video Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. I had heard the song before and hadn’t been immediately captured by it, but through my new lens of love, the song had a resonance that it lacked before. I felt such a strong connection with Idle, being ‘with’ him was like being home. I wrote a brilliant essay many years ago (as it’s not online, you’ll have to trust me. It’s quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever written. Pulitzer Prize worthy) about how I found ‘home’ in people, rather than places, and I felt it strongly with Idle.