“I remember being a kid and learning about school dances from TV and movies. There were some shows that the main focus was the big dance coming up and all the preparations and politics and who will ask who. There seemed to be a lot of stress and drama around them. when I got older I was surprised to find that there was only a subset of students participating in such things. I wasn’t a part of that crowd and was amazed at how invisible it all was to someone like me. I would occasionally see a flyer on a bulletin board for an upcoming event or overhear a snippet of a conversation in the hallway but that was it.” -Chris Hallbeck

I feel relieved.  We’ve fought and made up and then fought some more, but each successful resolution just tells me that things are going to be alright between us.  I know I can be a huge pain, but it hasn’t scared her off and I won’t always be this way.

It’s funny how all these years I thought the problem lay in other people, but really it’s just been me.  So I’m working on that and being more conscious of it and hopefully one day I’ll stop being a problem.

I’m excited to see what the future holds for us.  As long as we’ve got each other, we can make it through anything.  Together, we’re unstoppable.

So now we are up to Texas A&M, Dartmouth, SUNY Downstate, Cornell, NYU, Columbia, and IU.

I found a folder in my Gmail with 5 years’ worth of emails that I thought I had deleted already. I trashed them, but not before reading through some of the older ones because I was curious. What was it that we argued about? On my end, there was selfishness, social ineptitude, and emotional absence. While I’ve changed since back then, I still carry my old self-serving tendencies and default to them way too easily. I need to be more mindful of that, to actually stop and make myself think about all parties involved. I’m not as bad as I used to be, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. I don’t want to instigate little spats anymore; it’s no fun for anybody.

I’m blogging under duress.

But really I just wanted to put up something I’ve been thinking about since this afternoon. I got out of bed to do stuff, then drink water and I hear this voice coming from the bedroom calling my name. It was the absolute sweetest and best sound I’ve heard in a while. It’s nice to be missed.

I think we’re bouncing back. I was scared for a bit there, but it actually feels better. I feel like surviving this has kind of made me feel more at ease with coming to her with problems. I hate that it came to this to make me realize how much she means to me, but I have and I won’t ever let her go now.

We celebrated her birthday together last Friday and it actually turned out pretty good. The weather was perfect and we got to walk around and then tasted some wine and then I got to try making some steak. I needed a little more practice and I didn’t factor in the fact that there would be two steaks to absorb the heat, but it turned out pretty tasty. I was afraid I’d overcook, but ended up undercooking just a touch. All in all, I was happy with it. I think she was, too, but that’s not important. What’s important is that I was happy with her birthday celebration. Let’s see what I can pull out of my butt next year :-)