The Long Way Home

Nearly 3 years in the making...

The phone calls and the letters of loved ones
Always prying and implying that when
The stormy sides of dreams arrive
I feel the consequences hit
I've tried to explain
But the right words feel wrong
Big mistakes fill the well when the love is gone
And now there is crying and good-bying
Red Wanting Blue

The first holiday without him. Not that he was physically there for all of them, but he was there, on the phone, in stories...in my life. He, as in the old boy. They were Brandon fans, a lot of them, and rightly so. I never actually told them we broke up. (Thanks, mom, for doing it for me.) She never actually told them why, and I danced around the issue to the point where I'm going home to lots of questions and things I don't want to talk about. It was about so much and nothing all at the same time but you don't just end 2 and a half years over nothing so it has to be something...
They deserve an explanation, more than the one I give my niece of, "Brandon went bye bye but he loves you and we can call him."
My actions and relationships affect other people. They will not be meeting this new boy for quite some time...

Happy

Dinner at Afghani restaurants where you bring your own wine and talk about life and boys and the past and the future and the present and how you're so glad it's here, with each other, now, with candles and Christmas and taxis and New York all around you.
Rockafeller Center and new red sweaters and $2 cotton candy and girls nights out that end with more giggles on the train.
Brunch with this new boy that tops off a weekend full of Christmas shopping in which I found everything I needed to get before I fly to KS for Christmas with myfavoritepersoninthewholewideworld.
A warm apartment that smells like stir fry and candles and a bed with new fluffy sheets and cookies from a mom that still sends them even though I'm a grown up and should make them myself (I don't because she sends them and hers are so much better...)
I'm happy here.
My job is insane but I love my kids. I can't imagine not teaching them...
I miss the old boy sometimes but am over him, I think. We, at this point in time, are not right for each other.
I miss Minneapolis sometimes, but am finding more and more things I would miss about New York if I left, and meeting more and more people I would miss as well.
This is life, and I'm starting to love it here.
I started over, again, and made it, at least I think so.
Not that there will not be ups and downs as there are in life, but the 'put me on a plane and get me out of this city' adjustment period is over.
This was my dream.
It came true :)

The New Boy

I forgot what it's like in the beginning.
When you're understood just enough to be comfortable with all of the newness.
When 2 or 3 days apart feels like forever and 'I miss you's' come genuinely after an hour or even less...
So much makes me think of him...golf and sushi and Target and cigarettes (long story) and Nebraska and football and books and I could go on and on and on...
It's been 3 months. I forgot what this felt like. I'm enjoying it this time, knowing that the ultimate comfort that experiencing things together brings will come soon enough and that this new, 'can't get enough of you stage' will never happen again and that, should this last, there will be days we long for this.
I'm not sure if this is forever, or even for a while, but for right now it's making me a very happy girl...
Hhmm...

Little City Meets Big City

When this girl discovers that she can listen to acoustic sunrise online. It was (and still is) her favorite way to wake up on Sunday mornings.
She doesn't even really miss that the old boy is not here in the bed with her, even though a part of her still loves him...progress, she thinks.
An old friend...a Bemidji friend...is in town. Time for brunch and reminiscing about Elmo stickers and a broken engagement and nights where things could have ended up very differently...
This is her home now, this is her life, and the restless 'can't wait to leave' feeling she had 2 months ago is slowly fading into nothing.