My good, good friend from my program, C., interned last year at a men's residential drug and alcohol treatment center.  She still floats there, sometimes, because she is patient and good and levelheaded and smartsmartsmart and the facility figured out in .009 seconds they could not let her go and that they should pay her to be patient and good and levelheaded and smartsmartsmart.

That was a good decision.

Last night as I was switching buses, C. told me on the phone how she had to take the center's cat in to get its shots.  The men, you see, had kidnapped the cat from the streets and lavished it with love and given it a place to call home.

And they threaten to kick each other's .... rear ends .... if one of them hurts it.

They named the cat Relapse.  C. and I dissolved into giggles, and then she asked me how the wedding planning was going and if I was getting excited.

And me, for all of my pratical, no nonsense, bluff of "I don't want a formal, big wedding" (and truly, I don't want those things exactly) and "we have to execute this well", did get excited.  I did.  I let myself get excited.  I let myself dream about all of our closest friends together in one place, laughing, eating, drinking, laughing, laughing, laughing.  I had a vision of the golf course in Pullman lit up by white lights in the early dusk of a warm, late summer Eastern Washington evening.  I let myself think about beautiful bridesmaids twirling around on the dance floor and handsome groomsmen lined up at the altar.  I let myself think about coming home to Shoes at the end of the day, together in one place, enjoying normal life, the (thus far nonexistant) dog between us.

And I bubbled over like a young girl.

Sometimes I forget about all of the joy and lightheartedness and free spirit that's in me.  Sometimes I forget that these Good Things are really for me.  That I can partake.  Maybe that's the real work of this upcoming busy year:  to partake in the good and to enjoy the rambunctious love and glee that's waiting.

(I never know where my posts are going to end up.)

3 comments

  1. Kylee on August 23, 2011 at 2:22 PM

    I am glad that you allowed yourself to get excited. You so deserve these Good Things.

     
  2. BreAnna on August 23, 2011 at 9:29 PM

    Good for you! You deserve some excitement in life. I can't wait to hear more about your plans.

     
  3. Anonymous on September 29, 2011 at 3:14 PM

    Do you remember Amy and her cats? I had a box of kittens and two adults in the shelter car climbing all over me while I drove to the animal shelter. They asked me the names for the breeding pair...I told them they would need to rename them. "What?" they said..."What are their names?" "Asshole and Crackhead" I whispered. Ahhh, the good old days!

     


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