Not Good Enough

So, I just started writing this post about my Memorial Day celebration. Billy and I over at Nancy and Alex's house, with Chuck and Pollo, and our friends Peter and Helen and Andy, and how the bunch of us sat on Nancy & Alex's back porch and drank lots of alcohol and ate well-prepared food on the bank of the Delaware River, laughing and chatting and just enjoying the day. I was just writing about how hot it was, how I was sticky all over from just the air, how Chuck was just sitting and he was sweating, but how that didn't detract from how great it felt to be there: On the first true day of summer with my incredible boyfriend and my closest friends in the whole world. It felt extra good because Billy and I were back to normal after a brief interlude with an argument last week, and it's those times - after a fight, when you vaguely notice that almost imperceptible shift back to normal after a day or two of strained interaction - that I realize how truly wonderful things really are. That I haven't just imagined how truly enamored I still am of my boyfriend, and how he does still hold my hand and rub my back and touch me for no reason, even after nine months of dating. And I realize how much I love to hear him say he loves me out of the blue. And I realize that I really am happy. Suddenly, I forget about the worries of day to day life, the small grievances that I let burrow too far under my skin; It's the cumulative bliss that matters. And then, for the first time, someone asks Billy "So, do you and Laurie live together?" and I heard Billy say yes...And I had no idea it would make me that happy, to hear him say out loud, to someone he'd only just met, that, yeah, we do live together. We're that serious. And, in that instant, I realized I'm starting to get over all of my worry with regard to moving in with him. Because he loves me, and he asked me to be there, and I should stop fucking worrying about what may or may not happen in six months, a year, five years. If it doesn't work out, I'll deal with that then. Why behave right now as though something terrible is looming? Enjoy it, for fuck's sake. And why did it take me this long to figure that out? And all that being sad about leaving my condo? It's just the ending of one chapter that opens up the vein of opportunity for a new one. Yes, it's cliche. But it's the truth. And when I shared a good laugh - the kind that erupts from the whole group at once; a unified sense of humor, and an onslaught of smiles - with my friends over pasta salad and margaritas and kielbasa and eggplant, I saw just how much I have right now. And I can't even begin to describe how happy I am.

I started writing about that. But then I realized just I couldn't do it justice.