I am happily eating the words from my last post while planning my wedding. :)

Twenty-five days until I become the happiest lady on Earth.

I turned 27 this year. So far, I'm not a huge fan. Initially, I felt old, but now I just feel nothing. I'm at that awkward space of time between youth and middle age.

Something I've realized from all the turmoil and grief that has characterized 2011 is that I'm pretty sure I will die alone. I know how over the top that must sound coming from someone under 30, but the inkling remains. Since my teen years, half a dozen or so different guys have, in varying degrees of sincerity, expressed a desire to marry me. Not one -- even those who swore they loved me more than anything -- has actually done so, other than in playful jest. Yes, I'm still less than a year into my current relationship, and no, I don't predict the future with any particular degree of accuracy; yet, here I am, and this is how I feel.

Either I don't pick guys who are inclined to getting down on one knee, or there is something inherently unmarriageable about me. It's probably a combination of both factors. And every quality of mine that points to the latter -- and there are several -- is a facet of my personality I couldn't imagine abandoning. I am not particularly easy to live with, but I'd always hoped the reward was worth the challenge. Maybe I'm just wrong. The fact that my last relationship ended without a proposal is pretty strong proof that marriage will likely never happen for me. I'm not ok with that right now, but I hope to be sometime soon.

And I sure as hell hope to eat this whole post one day.

Him: Babe, you are amazing. The most intelligent woman I've ever known. I'm the luckiest man in the world.
Me: Aww, babe! You're too sweet! You actually made me blush.
Him: All true. I don't know why but you continue to amaze me. Should be used to it but I'm not.

Yep, I'm one joyful, lucky lady.

Happy Sixmonthiversary to the one I love!

I wrote this in bed last night while drifting off to sleep. It's clearly a masterpiece.

Midnight, limbs tangled
Your warm breath on my pale neck
This is paradise

It must be nice to delude yourself to the point of complete self-absolution of any wrongdoing by chanting the phrase "she cheated, she cheated, she cheated."

Too bad it's a complete load of bullshit, and you're the one who looks like an ass, not me.

Fuck it. My life is too amazing these days to pay heed to lies intended to hurt me. Consider this the end of me caring. Now, excuse me while I go home to a fun guy who loves me instead of an empty apartment where I live out a bitter existence contemplating why I'm so much better than everyone else.

A year ago today, I lost my grandmother. When it happened, I wrote the following entry for my other blog. I still feel the same way today, so rather than bring on the waterworks trying to recapture my emotions today, I thought I'd share:

My coworker has a dry-erase board on which she displays a new quote every so often. The last couple of weeks, it’s been a modified version of this gem by Charles H. Spurgeon:


A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were
helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered.
Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.

It made me smile the first time I saw it. Since my grandmother died last week, it has made me smile even more.

My grandmother was a truly amazing woman. She was born in 1931 in Sallisaw, a tiny community even today in Oklahoma’s Cotton Belt, to Georgia and Benjamin Franklin Davis. They later moved to Muskogee, where she always considered home. She was married to my crazy grandfather for 40 years and, if not for his mental problems, would probably still have been with him to her last day. She got a two-year degree from Connors State College, where she studied literature. She raised two children while also working, certainly an anomaly for a middle-class woman of the time. After my grandfather served her with divorce papers, she picked herself up and kept living the life she chose. She went to work at several different doctors’ offices over the years, doing administrative work and assisting in physical therapy. She was an active member of her church, the guiding force behind her class reunions (which happened every two years), the family photographer and record-keeper, a reliable friend, and an omnipresent grandparent. She was also strong, independent, vibrant, hard-working (even at 78, she still occasionally went in to her most recent employer’s office to help train new physical therapists), reliable, loving, and big-hearted. She watched what she ate, got regular exercise, and had her hair done at the salon every Friday. She had a kind word for everyone, a smile even in the hardest times, and an unending supply of encouraging and supportive thoughts. The only time I heard her complain during the past year of hospitalizations was at the very end. I last visited her a week before her death, at which time she told me she didn’t feel like company. As much as I wanted to be with her, I preferred her honesty, and I knew she appreciated me coming.

My grandmother considered nine of us her grandchildren, though three were not related by blood (and one not even by marriage). Being a grandparent was one of her greatest joys in life, and being the oldest, I always felt a special connection to her. I was forever her princess. I never doubted for a second that she was proud of me or that she loved me completely. We all had photo albums, and thanks to my several years of precedence, mine comprised two separate albums. Her home was a photographic shrine to us all. In fact, she so often had her camera in hand that my little sister called her “Cheese” for several years. She had a sponge-like memory and could quickly recall funny things we’d said or did throughout our lives. She remembered our ambitions, our quirks, what sports we played, our friends’ names, what foods we liked, and what we called her (Meemaw, Grandma, Grandma Margaret, Cheese or Mother Goose).

At the funeral last week, I met and hugged people who loved her throughout her life. I saw family I hadn’t seen in years – some in two decades. I cried with my beloved aunt, her daughter, over her memory and what we’re going to do without her. I shook hands with members of her church who remember me as a little girl. I knew these people better than the rest of the family, and it made me feel privileged, like I was in an important part of her life that no one else was. Even the man who mows my grandmother’s lawn was there. When the preacher asked him before the service if she was as meticulous about her grass as she was about her appearance, he told him that she was the only one of his clients who never complained. “She treated me like the valedictorian,” he said. She treated everyone that way.

My grandmother, Margaret Jane Davis Vance, most certainly carved her name on my heart, as I know she did on the heart of anyone she ever met.

Saying goodbye is taking its toll on me. I won’t pretend that everything’s fine, but I will get there. I remember a line from a movie saying that you lose people in pieces, not all at once, and it’s true. I suppose I’ve been lucky not to have lost a grandparent until age 25, but knowing that doesn’t make the pain any less. I’m sad, because I loved her. I regret that she left us before any of her grandchildren married or gave her great-grandchildren. I’m angry that she – the most life-loving and healthy-living of my grandparents – was the first to lose her fight against time. I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to see her again before her death, but I know you always feel that way. I’m still in shock, too, because we weren’t expecting the end to come so soon. I wasn’t ready to let her go. None of us were.

However, if my grandmother left a legacy, it is this: love with your whole heart, respect your body, embrace adventure, and never leave home without a dab of red lipstick.

You can read her formal obituary here.

The universe clearly wants me to believe in bizarre, esoteric things. I have received countless scoffs (you know who you are) regarding my very strong belief in the power of Mercury in retrograde. As I mentioned, Sunday was the planet's (my ruling planet, for the record) first day back to normal. My last post detailed how I spent much of the day, so I won't rehash it, but I wrote before the rebirth I was ready for had happened.

Things are again beautiful at home. Everything is not perfect, as it never is, but I could almost cry for joy thinking about the 180 my life has taken.

I'm a very lucky woman. I have amazing people in my life, and while I know building good relationships is more about skill than good fortune, I can't help but recognize the luck I have, too. My friends are the opposite of fair-weather: they are there when I absolutely need them, even if we rarely connect on a regular basis. They showered me with sympathy and advice, none of which I took, but all of which I appreciated.

I spent the past week in tears over what I thought I had lost, and truly it scared me. How could ending a relationship I'd maintained only a quarter of a year destroy me like it did? I guess the simple truth is that I'm in love. I didn't think it was possible to fall quite so mightily for someone so soon after the end of my last relationship, the one I was sure would last forever. But I did. Boy, did I. Thinking of my life without him wrecked me. It affected every facet of my being, penetrated deep into my soul and psyche, and just wouldn't let me recover.

Then everything changed, and we realized what we almost set free. I think it was my final gathering of strength and resolve to move forward that gave us the ability to fix things. Obviously, putting things back together isn't instantaneous, but my heart is dancing with joy today. After barely seeing each other for more than a week, we spent all of yesterday together. (Yes, I played hookey from work on a Tuesday. Call it a mental health day.) It was beautiful, magical, and exactly what we both needed. We did frivolous things: breakfast out at 10 a.m., pots of tea in the afternoon, games of chess and checkers, a trip to an artisan chocolate store, poking around downtown, and a late afternoon nap. It was glorious. I never, ever wanted it to end.

But it did, of course. Today, we both awoke as happy as the day before had made us. I'm back at the office, and he's returned to his normal routine, but the whole world has a new tint. My heart is again filled with hope. I know not every day will feel this amazing, but I am embracing it with all the strength my small arms can muster. I'm in love with him, and I'm in love with being in love.

And I have to say, smelling like him makes every day 100 times better. Let the clouds roll in, and let real life roll on. Just envelop me in his aroma.

Sunday was leaden with symbolism.

Mercury left retrograde.

It was Easter, the day of resurrection.

It was Passover, a celebration of escape from slavery.

It poured -- poured -- all day. "The rain is a baptism on my car."

And for the first time in over a week, I slept Saturday night. It took an Ambien and the sound of a storm to get me there, but at least it happened. I needed it. I've been a shell of myself for too long, and lack of sleep was only making it worse.

I had fully committed to Sunday being a new beginning in some way for myself. I didn't know exactly what that would mean, but I woke up with purpose. I was still weepy and glum, but I knew I had to change something. I roused in time to attend Easter services at my church. If you've never been to a Unitarian service about such a Christian holiday, it's an experience you should have.

Truly, it was exactly what I needed. I don't really consider myself a religious person, but All Souls is definitely my spiritual home. Marlin's Easter sermon was like a patch for my broken heart. He talked about what resurrection means in an everyday context. I wish I could give you a direct quote, but the gist is: Things happen in our lives that we cannot control. Loved ones die. People we trust let us down. We lose our jobs. Resurrection means moving the boulder in your life, whatever it is -- a death, an abusive relationship, fear, anything that is holding you back -- and revealing truth and beauty on the other side. No matter how bad things are, we can always be reborn.

I wept like a baby the whole service. It was beautiful, moving, and it made me remember how much I have to offer the world. This has been a very hard year for me, but I'm young, ambitious, and I will find my path. I will rise up from the ashes.

I also saw someone I thought was lost from my life. Things aren't perfect, but they are better, and I can't express how happy that makes me. Some friends you just need in your life, no matter what has passed between you.

I want to thank all of you who have been so loving and supportive of me this year. I know it hasn't been my finest hour, but I expect that will change soon. I have hope again, and that's what I needed.

EDIT: Here's a link to the podcast of the sermon. Listen to it, I urge you.

I wish this post was as hopeful as the last one, but I'm afraid my life is in shambles.

But the real reason I'm writing today is to make a plea to my ex: let's call a truce.

He has asked me not to call, text, write, or email, and I'm honoring that, but I'm in such a terrible state right now that I have to say something somehow.

The little digs about me and our relationship -- calling it "dead weight," among other things -- are just plain hurtful, and he knows that. I'm going through a lot of shit right now. I can't eat or sleep or make it 20 minutes without bursting into tears. My stomach has felt for a week like I swallowed a herd of butterflies. I have negativity from a very childish girl. I don't also need it from the man I loved and with whom I planned to spend my life.

While I'm not asking him to censor his journal, I am asking for civility. He said he would keep futures mentions of me private, so I couldn't read them, and he hasn't honored that. I know I should stop reading, and I'm trying, but it's hard when I know there's a chance something about me is on there.

And I will also say that dating one of my friends would be a terrible, awful thing to do, and if he's going there, he should at least urge her to talk to me before anything serious happens. It's just the right thing to do.

God, I can't believe this isn't all behind me yet. Mercury is in retrograde through tonight, and after that, I'm hopeful that my life will once again resemble something happy and calm. I could really use a dose of both of those right now.

I’ve been filled with uncertainty for a few months now. I know that surprises no one. Making major, life-altering decisions that shock those around you is never easy. My days alternated between being sure I had done the right thing and regretting my choices bitterly.

Then, something ugly happened. I don’t really want to talk about it, but I had a terrible weekend. I can’t remember the last time I cried so much. I drank vodka in the middle of the day and acted completely unlike my sane, rational self. I was desperate, depressed, and sick to my stomach.

It was awful, needless to say. But it opened my eyes. I finally realized that I have moved on emotionally as well as physically. The uncertainty I’ve been feeling isn’t about him – either him – but completely about me. I’m not the kind of girl who takes chances, so doing so has caused a lot of inner turmoil. I like to make plans, and I hate to deviate from them. Going from a strong hope that I would be married and relocated in 2011 and a mom shortly thereafter to a future consisting of a giant question mark has been like losing an appendage.

The truth? I’m glad I took this leap of faith. It changed me deeply and for the better. I want to take chances. Nothing worth having should be the safe, easy, obvious, boring choice. It should require a lot more effort.

I also learned that I never, ever again want to be with someone who won’t take that leap with me. Even if things don’t last forever (of course, I hope they do), they are beautiful, and, this weekend aside, I am not sure I could be happier. Loving someone is great; treasuring them and making sure they know how special you are is even better; but being willing to throw caution to the wind and dive head first into something crazy that may not work is the ultimate commitment. I’m grateful to have that in my life.

Again, none of this indicates any ill will towards my ex. He is a wonderful, fantastic guy, and a total catch. I have no doubt he’ll find someone who will make him happy, if that’s what he wants. I didn’t leave because he was a bad guy. We just stopped working. We gave up on each other. We gave up on us. Even when we missed each other terribly, neither of us was willing to make that first step towards rebuilding. Instead, we waited on the other person to make the move we wanted.

It’s definitely over now. He doesn’t want to talk to me, and I understand. I hope someday he’ll change his mind, and we can be friends like we used to be, but I’m not holding my breath. I still have no doubt in my mind that we were a great match and that we could have made it for the long haul, but we didn’t. That’s our fault. I am grateful, however, that we can both live with beautiful memories of our 4.5 years together, some of – if not, so far – the best of my life.

Things aren’t perfect now. I’m certainly not perfect. There are still a lot of adjustments to make, personality differences to confront. But I want to confront them. I want to compromise. I want to do fun, crazy things while I still can.

And most of all, what I want right now is the one I’m with, and that’s a damn fine way to feel.