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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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11:07 a.m. - 2009-12-14
Ice, ice, baby. Like most of the country we've been entombed in ice for the last few days. School is open today, but it's still plenty slick and crunchy out there. Fortunately I've done most of my Christmas shopping online. Gotta love free delivery. No, I might not score that unexpected whimsy bargain as I would trolling through the stores, but what with gas and lunch and the other odds-n-ends that pile up in my cart while I'm trundling along at Target, shopping online is actually a savings. At least I tell that to the Guilt Fairy when she comes by to sneer, "You know, if you'd gotten off your lazy arse and gone shopping you'd have found most everything for cheaper if you'd have bothered to look hard enough." No pleasing the Guilt Fairy. The bitch. She's definitely getting coal in her stocking. Mick and I agreed to go very minimal on gifts for each other this year. The wedding looms large. Besides, as I pointed out, thanks to him I have all the diamonds a woman needs. Finger bling, earrings, necklace, I'm good. He hinted around about a tennis bracelet and I told him to save it for my 50th birthday or our 10th anniversary. Some kind of Big Deal event anyhow. No need to lay the ice on his woman this year, though I did appreciate his wanting to keep adding to my sparkly collection. My sad diamond-less past smote him to the core. Mick is determined that I twinkle from head to toe and put-paid to the notion that I'm not worthy of diamonds because I'm not a real girl. Mick is fierce about me understanding my days as Behemoth LA the Beast Who Gets Lug Wrenches for Christmas are over. If I want frills and lace and flowers and sparkly jewelry then I shall have them, to the devil with those who insisted I was too big and too butch to deserve flummery and frah-lahs. Such a nice snug Freudian fit we are. Mick needs to be a Hero. To slay dragons and bestow boons and be the champion of the maiden fair. And I'm just the maiden for the job. Our illusions might trite and a bit silly, but the need driving them is real enough. If we plug the gaps in each other's psyches, staunch the wounds of hurts from ago, well isn't that great? Dubbed official caretaker and drudge-of-all work since toddlerhood, having someone whose life's mission is to take care of me is an amazing and wonderful thing. No one-way street either, I take care of him just as much as he does me. For whatever psychodramas play out beneath, our middle-aged love affair is also a fine practical working partnership too. Our life together is bigger than its parts. Bills get paid, repairs are done, leftovers (when we have them) get eaten and don't just rot in the fridge. The cars run well. The laundry is kept up. The half-assery and mess of years past has been swept up and tidily filed away. No chaos. No frantic scrambling to keep the power on. No piles of crud and busted down stuff that'll be put right 'someday'. No empty promises. No meanness. No endless game of Got You Last. No smirking. No cruelty. If he wasn't even half the good guy he is, I think I'd love him just because my heart doesn't sink and my stomach squirt acid and clench up when I hear his car in the driveway. Imagine the relief and pleasure of actually being glad my guy is home. Mick steps back and marvels, appreciating the whole. He doesn't get a boner from pointing out that I missed a spot. Mick's big enough inside himself, he doesn't need to make me small. That he treats me as something delicate and valuable is a joyful bonus. My goodness. I started out wanting to talk about the weather and Christmas shopping and ended up writing a love letter instead. But that's also part of it. The standing down from always needing to be on guard, warily anticipating the next move. With Mick I'm finally free to go where things take me.
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