Well, that happened. And I couldn't be happier.

For those of you that have not been tracking my bleary-eyed announcements on Facebook in the wee hours of this morning as sleep eluded me due to nervous excitement: ladies and gentlemen, yesterday I got engaged. 

In about five million ways I never really thought I would get married, in the same way I never really thought I would live past the age of 16, mostly because it's what I always wanted for my life.  Family is the only thing that has ever seemed truly important to me, and the nagging feeling that it was all going to come to a halt in my name was... well... 

Anyway, that's not what I'm writing about here.  Suffice it to say I've felt very surreal for the past 36 hours.  Like suddenly someone opened a curtain and said, "Congratulations, you won a brand new life!" 

That sounds kind of creepy and unhealthy, but please believe I have no other way of describing it, and I know this surreal feeling will fade into a normal level of excitement soon, but at this moment when it is all still so fresh, I feel a bit like I've been dreaming and tomorrow I'll wake up. 

The funny thing is, it wasn't a particularly fantastical moment, there were no unicorns, no chorus of angels, no swell of music, but somehow that made it exactly what it should have been for me.  And I'll explain that statement at the end. 

I've been dating Paul for about a year and a half now.  I met him through Wildclaw Theatre, that little horror company here in Chicago.  And this sounds dumb, but it really was sort of immediately right with him.  I'm not going to gush about how I've struggled in past relationships for the smallest shred of pseudo-happiness and how easy it has been to find myself completely overjoyed with Paul all the time, so let me just say that I feel great.  I met this guy and immediately thought I would marry him. 

A year and a half later, we have our own apartment together, our two cats are learning to get along, and we joke about getting married so frequently it's like we're already married.  At least I thought it felt like that.  Until I actually heard the words and said yes to them.  And then suddenly it was like a brand new relationship.  I said to Paul tonight, "Do you feel like we just started dating, somehow?  Like everything is completely and stupidly new?"  He giggled really hard and I knew he'd been thinking it too.  I joked, "Hell, we should get engaged every year!" 

So, like I said, we'd joked about it.  A lot.  And lately it had been not so much joking as "Hey, wanna go ring shopping on Saturday?"  That was from Paul, met with my mock horror, "No, that takes all the surprise out of it!  You're supposed to surprise me, dammit!"  Of course, I secretly believed he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of actually surprising me because I can read his body language so well I would spot a proposal coming from a mile away. 

Saturday comes and the weather is amazing, so we decide to run all our errands on our bikes.  It's great.  We go to a frame shop, the dollar store, and then Paul says he needs to check his phone to see if someone texted him back.  He's usually not secretive in any way, so when I ask what he's hoping to find out and he pretends not to hear me, I figure something is up.  He seems pleased to see whatever he was looking for on his phone, and our next stop takes us to: 

A jewelers.  It's the jeweler that Paul's best friend used for his wedding rings last August.  Apparently the text he was waiting for was the address of the place. 

We walk in, the woman says, "Hi, what can I do for you today?" and Paul sort of stumbles out the words, "Well, I guess we should say it out loud: we're getting married!" 

This is the first I've heard of it as an official thing, so I'm slightly dumb struck, both wondering if that was supposed to be my official proposal and wondering if this is all just an elaborate joke. 

So we sit down and I'm pressed to design an engagement ring for myself.  After wading through several options, the woman finally cottons to the fact that I wasn't ready for this, and had my heart set on being surprised, so she suggests, "Ok, now that I know what you like and what you don't like, why don't you just let Paul come back later and he and I will finish the ring's design so you can truly be surprised by the time you see it." 

Perfect.  So, we make our departure and I'm all giggley and stupid and Paul keeps teasing me, saying, "What are you giggling about?  It's like you think I proposed or something.  Well I didn't, you know.  Maybe I'm getting this ring for some other chick I've got on the side that has the same size finger as you."  It's cute.  I'm still a bit confounded, but it's cute.  We decide to go about the rest of our errands. 

Toys R Us is next on our list, and we're looking for plastic Easter eggs.  After talking to a clerk, we're directed to them.  As I turn I hear Paul ask the clerk something about a ring.  He waves me away when I glance back, and I figure he's just going to put plastic jewelry in the eggs before we hide them for each other, just to be cute.  So I walk away to let him have his "surprise." 

The store is packed with hickish families of obnoxious children pumping quarters into rubber ball machines and dragging plastic dinosaurs around by the tails.  We check out, and suddenly, at the end of the check-out line, Paul reaches into the bag and pulls out a Ring Pop. 

And gets down on one knee. 

Right there. 

At the end of the check-out line. 

I am suddenly painfullly aware of everyone that has seen Paul make this very classic movement, and a red light goes off behind my eyes as my social phobias kick in. 

Before he can say anything I stage-whisper, "Nonononono, not here not here not here not here!!!!!" and literally drag him to his feet.  He's wearing a look on his face somewhere between just having maniacally shot a kitten, and realizing he's maniacally shot a kitten, and before he can protest I feel myself fleeing the store. 

He stumbles out behind me, as we're both guffawing, unable to breath we're laughing so hard, and his first words to me are, "I've been spurned!" 

Finally I collect myself and we go back to our bikes, Paul laughing and admitting that maybe not all his ideas are great, and as we're unlocking our bikes from the trash can they're chained to, he grabs me up and says, "But this time I mean it - Krista, will you marry me?" 

Before I can answer he's crying because he knows I will say yes, and when I say yes he's crying even harder, and we hug, his sunglasses fall off, my hat tumbles to the ground, and ten million years pass in my head as I realize I'm going to be this man's wife. 

Then to break the tension I say, over his shoulder, "I've just been proposed to over a trash can outside of a Payless Shoes.  This is the happiest day of my life." 

I put on the Ring Pop.  And suddenly I feel like a completely different person.  "I need a drink," I admit.  "My girl," says Paul, who is visibly shaking. 

And that's when it hits me.  He really DID manage to surprise me.  So much so, in fact, that my first gut reaction was vehemently negative!  That is the first sign for me that I had just received the perfect proposal.  Why hadn't I realized it before?  Of course the only way to surprise me would be an action so embarrassingly inappropriate I would never see it coming.  The perfection is as blinding as it is simple. 

We spent the rest of the day in a daze, texting and calling various people (our folks both already knew, incidentally, that it would happen some time this weekend, savvy as they are) and my second sign that this was the perfect proposal came when my two best and oldest friends in the world independently asked me in their own respective ways, before I'd even told the Toys R US/trash can story, if the proposal had been appropriately lame/weird/silly like I always thought it would be.  Mark asked if it had been over a flaming barrel.  Debi asked if he'd used a paper napkin ring.  The fact that I then got to tell a true story of a Ring Pop over a trash can filled me with limitless joy. 

Incidentally, my ring is strawberry flavored, and I spent the rest of the day nervously licking at it, so the remainder of my "engagement ring" is now in the freezer to prevent me from finishing it. 

This is as far as this story has gotten currently, and I'll update as we figure out details.  But for right now we're still clutching each other and giggling and turning uncontrollably red at the words "engagement" and "fiance."  Fun. 

I think I like this whole "life" thing.  It certainly makes for a good story.

WHEE

Oh, I'm so glad I just watched Toy Story 3 last night with friends and then saw this today:


http://disney.go.com/charactercalls/bigkidcalls/


I know it says not to enter a third party's phone number, but there's nothing that really stops you from doing that, so... heh.  I'm totally giving my friends little "presents." :)  Why does this delight me so very much?

In my room

Whenever I come home, I try to open up drawers that I haven't looked within in a long time, examine my old toys, look under my bed and in my closets... I couldn't tell you what's there before I see it, but when I do, it's like I'm dreaming, and memories come rushing back to me so powerfully I can't even express them.


My room has changed quite a bit since I lived here.  Most notably, my mother has filled it with HER toys and collectibles, which is funny, because it just makes it look like I had mass amounts of toys as a child, and in reality I did not.  But my furniture is still mostly the same, and the things I've left here are all still here.  Letters, pictures, things I taped to corners of door frames to remind myself that I had friends, maps, knickknacks... it's all still here.  I opened up a cabinet that's in my headboard last night, and found that's where I stored all my diaries and candles and special things.  The smell inside that cabinet almost brought me to tears.  I could smell the wax of the candles and the paper of the journals, the pencil smudges and rose water and incense that I never used but couldn't throw away.  Stuff back to when I was 13.  Stuff from England.  A large bound blank book that I used as a massive diary for my trip through England had this particular smell that made me immediately flash to how it felt to hold the pencil I wrote with in that journal, and how it felt to put it down every night before bed, and how special and spiritual and secret I felt holding it.


I've changed so much and haven't changed at all since then.  The smell of that cabinet reminded me of loneliness and hopefulness, social fears and private confidences, crushes and friendships and confusion and frustration, crying and laughing and wanting to escape and go back all at the same time.  That sinking feeling that everything used to be better, and the glimmering feeling that everything could still be ok.  Fearing I might change as an adult and lose something, and fearing I might not at all and would be stuck with myself forever.  I was right on both cases.


I haven't opened up my toy closet yet.  I'm almost afraid to.  I don't particularly want one of my parents to walk by and find me on my knees, worshipping some forgotten stuffed animal in a daze of nostalgia.  I know it's only been about two years since I was here, but still... two years.  And opening a closet is like going back in time.  I've dreamt of my room so many times in my life that when I think about my room the dreams and the reality become blurred, and when I see what's really there, it's like I'm dreaming all over again.  I kind of wish I had more time on this trip to just absorb myself, and at the same time I'm glad I don't have the chance to over-saturate and find myself back where I started as a child, wanting nothing more than to get away from the constant and unending me-ness of it all.  I wish I could go back.  The irony is in know the only reason I feel that way is because there's distance.

A random piece of shit

I want to write a blog for you,

even though you'll never see it.

I want to say sweet things to you,

even though you won't believe it.

I want to be with you today,

even though it's me you fear.

I want your arms around me now,

though to you I'm not as dear.

But maybe if I stay with you

and tell you one more time,

you'll figure out I love you so

you're in my heart, my mind,

my soul; and I can't quite you, love,

don't think I'll ever do.

So be with me and smile a bit,

and make this true love true.

I'm leaving you, Doctor Who

I just finally watched Waters of Mars and End of Time - the last two pieces of the David Tennant Doctor Who run.  And I'm done.


No really.


I'm done.


That was exhausting and I don't mean that glibly at all.  I'm never watching another new episode of Doctor Who again.  Ever.  As far as I'm concerned, the series is over. Sure, it's just started it's new season and I hear the writing is much better now and it's all kinds of fantastic, but for me, it's done.  It was a fucking trial and I escaped with my life.


I'm pretty sure no one else understands how I feel right now.  I don't WANT to see any more.  I don't want to think about it, I don't want to get involved, I don't want to know.  I'm DONE.  The entire run of David Tennant's Doctor Who was designed to see just how much sadness and despair they could cram into one character - to see just how far down they could crush him, grind him into the dirt, take away everything he loved and more, again and again and again until there was nothing left but numbness and dark.  By the end you just wanted him to die so he wouldn't suffer any more.  It was like praying for suicide.  Please... please, let it end.  And finally it has.


It was a punishment to watch this show.  I just wanted to see him happy.  The fucking show paralleled my life and brought me down at every turn.  I could be happy if only I could see this character that I loved feeling happy.  I just wanted to FEEL HAPPY watching a fun sci-fi program.  But all the show did was make me suffer.  Take and take and leave nothing but pain and emptiness.


For years.


I hear it's better now.  More enjoyable, and brand new start, a good jumping on point, etc.  And that's nice for it.  But I feel like I've been through just another abusive relationship.  I don't care how much it's changed, I'm done.  I can't forget, so I'm just going to leave.


Have a nice life, Doctor Who.  I will always love you.  And I will never forgive you.

Life continues. And for the first time, that's ok.

I can't believe I really forgot how it feels to be in love.


I convinced myself that love was something you felt intensely when you were young, because your heart was pink and unblemished, and then as you got older it was gentler and necessarily duller each new time.  Scars build up, they numb the sensations, just like on skin.


I thought that's just how it worked.  It seemed normal to be numb.


Yes, I love you, of course I love you, though I don't feel that fluttering in my stomach, I don't get that stab of desire or that deep ache of overloaded happiness.  Who does?  I haven't felt that way since I was a kid.  No one does.  It's enough to simply not be sad.  That's what love it.  Pleasantness.  Comfort.  The idea that you can stop working.


"Don't call me at work again, no no, the boss still hates me, I'm just tired and I don't love you anymore, and there's a restaurant we should check out where the other nightmare people like to go, I mean nice people, baby wait, I didn't mean to say nightmare..."


I was wrong.


I can't believe I forgot what love really feels like.  When it's right.  When it's returned.  Jesus, did I ever feel this way?  I almost can't even stand to write about it because, as close as written words come to describing my inner feelings compared to trying to speak them, it still seems to cheapen this feeling.


You know those old people who still look at their spouses with perfect love and happiness; commercial grandparents displayed, smiling and caressing, maybe dancing in slow motion, behind empowering voice-overs about investing or life insurance?  Maybe you've implanted a memory of your grandparents appearing this way, and maybe they were and maybe they weren't.  But some couples really do stay happy forever.  It had nothing to do with any rockiness the relationship might have gone through in the past.  It only has to do with true love.  I always thought those people were the only lucky ones in the world.  I don't know how it's possible but I can safely say, in spite of the fact that a part of me is laughing at myself as I write this: that can still be me.


Since the time I was born, I was convinced that I would die before I was 16.  Or maybe at the age of 16.  When I was 16 I went to college instead, had sex for the first time, drove my own car, made my own friends.  In one year my entire adult life started.  I guess it was like a death in a way.  Not in the sense of bad, but in the sense of change.  But somehow, living past that point was like, "well, what now?"  I hadn't planned for a future.  I had unexpected time.  I was never a very happy person, so this was a little disheartening.  I knew that because of how deeply I could feel everyday emotions, if happiness ever did find me, or I it, it would be a blinding supernova, an apocalypse of joy.  But every time I felt on the cusp of realizing this happiness, it would peter out, sour, become something awful, cause one more scar.  Or maybe it would just die with a whimper, novocain to the soul, the worst kind of ambivalence.  My experiences with love have been like this.  I never really thought I'd find that supernova, but it was becoming more apparent that I might not even find my way out of the darkness.  Why live a life just to get it over with?


So I shouldn't have to explain how alien is this feeling to me.  I didn't even think I'd be alive today, let alone happy.  Let alone happier than I've maybe ever been.  I say "maybe" because I haven't set myself down for a full life review.  Don't think I will, either.  I don't need to convince myself that I feel good right now.


If I were reading this for the first time, knowing myself, that statement alone would bring me to tears.


I should be so afraid.  I understand this could end me.  If this feeling doesn't peter out, if this is the supernova that it seems to be, then I'll burn to death in the white hotness of it.  And if it does peter out, there's no further down I can dig.  There's bedrock beneath my feet already.  Beyond numb is nothingness.  So I should be terrified.  Terrified of how easy it is to fling myself in, to dive headfirst without knowing where the bottom is.  But the water seems clear.  And the sunshine feels good.  And it is easy.  And I'm not afraid.


Because I remember now what it feels like to be in love.

Where your eyes don't go a filthy scarecrow waves his broomstick arms and does a parody of each unconscious thing you do...

You know, it's really good that I don't have any stalkers (or anyone really interested in my life whatsoever) because if you type in Trelbee in a Google search there's pages and pages of the most random things to which I've made the smallest contribution.  For years and years, it seems.  Things I'd completely forgotten about.  Cached shite that is closed and well since deleted, but still appears when you click on it, sparkling and brand new.  Stuff I didn't even write, sometimes.  "Trelbee's restaurant and bar recommendations."  Wha?  It's blank, mind, but MySpace apparently glommed my name onto a lot of random things.  I don't even use MySpace.  I keep the account open only because I still want access to band stuffs.  Bla.


So, that was weird.


Meanwhile if I look up my real name, it brings up not me at all.  I'm looking at you, "Krista Solis."