Ghosts, Spiders, and the Space/Time Continuum.

Here's the kind of weekend I had....there's a black widow spider in my freezer, slowly freezing to death in a tupperware container--and that's not what I'm going to write about. Just thought it worth mentioning, in case I stop updating this, you can safely assume that it's because the ferocious little beast somehow busts through the tupperware, opens the freezer door, and bites me without me realizing it in time to completely panic. Awesome.

Anyway, the Remix and I spent a substantial portion of our weekend together...something like 100%. It was absolutely wonderful, but that's not what interested me. On four separate occasions I had revelation-type moments about myself or my relationship skills--one positive, and three correctable.

My continuing inability to see my own hang-ups is beginning to frighten me a little bit. I apparently have big, big issues with a couple of things, left over from the time I spent with my ex-wife. (Still no clever blog name...sorry.) One of them would be harder to explain, so I'm going to use the more conventional for an example, though the psychology is approximately identical.

I used to love to cook. I'm not always good at it, mind you, but I enjoy it. Pasta, grilling, breakfast, seafood--I like to experiment and occasionally even come up with something edible. I don't cook, anymore. When I was first married, I saw this as an opportunity. Who doesn't want a man who likes to cook, right? I'd stop at the grocery store on the way home from work, randomly grab things I thought might taste good together, put some music on in the kitchen and go to town. The ex hated it. She wouldn't eat anything that wasn't exactly the way mommy made it, and mommy was a shitty cook, so I was out of luck. I thought I might be trying to hard, trying to force her into liking the things I liked, so I regrouped and tried again, made her something I thought she would like. Still no dice. Too much oil, too much salt, too much garlic, and never enough like home. So I gave up. Completely. Let her make dinner, suffered through dry flavorless chicken breasts and burgers made with 98% lean ground beef. And hated it.

It wasn't until this weekend, though, that I realized how much I missed it, and how much it hurt to go unappreciated. Then I made the Remix dinner on Friday. Sure, I burned the tortillas, and she laughed at me while she fanned the smoke detector with a bath towel, but I loved it. I loved that she ate it, and liked it. I loved that she didn't think it just magically appeared on her plate. And it struck me like a out-of-control school bus just how easy it was to get through that wall, once I knew it was there. Lucky for me, we're both enjoying the benefits.

The second revelation was a simpler one, and something I had hoped for. Saturday, we went out with my entire office to a baseball game. People she's never met, only one other familiar face in the crowd, and I behaved. Like, really behaved. Maybe it's just that I'm too old to want to be falling down drunk every weekend. Maybe I've finally developed that sensitivity I so sorely lacked the first go 'round for how it feels to be the only sober one in a group of strangers. Maybe I just appreciate her enough this time that I don't even want to risk alienating her. Whatever the case, I took her out, with my friends, and didn't leave her on an island. More importantly, I didn't feel like I missed out on a damn thing, either.

The specifics of the last revelation are less important. It was about space, and time. I was wildly overprotecting myself again, delineating ways I need my space in certain situations, when she cut me off. She looked sort of sad, and she asked the simplest question. Why don't you think you could do that with me around? Let me just say this--It wasn't just that I didn't think there were girls out there who thought this way, it's that I had totally given up hope and accepted it as fact--girls want all your time, all your attention, and all the control. If you want to have a beer and watch a football game, better clear yourself some schedule or build yourself a den. If you're not ready for bed and your X-Box or online poker habit is tugging at you, tough cookies, right? And it dawned on me, as she said it, that she meant it. With the right person, sometimes it's enough to just be around. When she says she can knit while I watch the end of the Sox game, she' s not trying to make me feel guilty, she's trying to let me breathe, to let me just be me. I was so relieved, I wanted to cry. I can't explain it, really, without another 1000 words of back story. I don't know that I need to. I'm so unaccustomed to anyone considering what I might want, it's almost bewildering to be faced with anything else. If there was any one thing that I didn't know I needed to hear, this was it. If I had any lingering doubts, any self-protection left, it's gone. And it's wonderful.