5/9/2019 in The life I wish I had

First post and disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not have the life I claim to have here. For more info, read the book description. The idea is to write here daily to train myself to be more positive.

Sarah has been working with me on vegetables. I don’t hate all of them, just many of them. Tomatoes, lettuce, and pickles are all fine, but not on their own. Currently, the best way to eat them without too many extra calories is in the form of, basically, a chicken burrito bowl. No rice, no cheese, no other toppings, just a fairly large bowl with about 6oz of grilled (and seasoned!) chicken, lettuce, tomato medley (it’s not straight tomatoes, she does something to them, but I don’t know what), and for variety, sometimes there is dill relish or some other form of pickles. It keeps me happy because I can come home from work frustrated or annoyed and make myself the bowl from her prepared containers and have a 1lb meal for dinner that only has like 350 calories. I physically don’t want to eat more after eating that much mass, and it’s low calorie enough to let me stay in my budget.

I also can’t overstate how nice it is to not have to always cook for myself. I feel like it’s far down the list on reasons I appreciate Sarah, but I also feel like it doesn’t (well, can’t) get the credit it deserves. Too many people are toxic and would shame us for her cooking for me. It’s nuts. Why do people have to be happy in the way you want them to be happy? Grr. But anyway, yea, not having to cook everything myself is super nice. Not being hungry is nice. Eating veggies is nice. Not having to worry about food spoiling because the two of us can eat it all before it spoils is nice. It’s one less stressor in my life.

Speaking of people shaming you for not being happy in the way they want you, Sarah and I don’t live together. On one hand, I don’t enjoy having a 20 minute drive every time I want to see her (and that’s if traffic is good). On the other hand, I am not about to complain because 20 minutes is closer than anyone else ever has been since college! A lot of our friends try to tell me I can’t know what she’s like at home until we live together. I find that ridiculous. When we travel we stay in the same hotel room and don’t have sex. I already know that she doesn’t snore. I already know how she acts in private. We’re both too tired from living our lives to keep an act up around each other. We both see each other and it’s like watching the shield and sword just fall to the ground after a long battle. We can finally rest when we’re together.

Sex. The number of people, including my parents, who tell me that you can’t be in a room alone with a girl without fucking her is just comical. I say comical in the same way a giant Samoan man might laugh just before tearing your head off. it’s that laugh that covers up pure rage underneath. She has self control and so do I. You don’t have to do things for real to know. Some people do, but we don’t.

And really, that’s what drew the two of us together. We saw each other sticking out like sore thumbs from the crowd. We wanted to live our own way. We saw things that were wrong with society and decided to not follow the crowd. So we don’t. The only reason either of us even pay attention to what society wants or expects from us is because we want to have friends. Neither of us had overly social parents. Neither of us really had friends. We aspire to be that couple who hosts BBQs and board game nights for the neighbors. We want to be the people who create a community. Our first challenge on that road together is finding a way to cope with the amount of hate we get from others because we choose to be happy in ways outside of the strictures of their cultural values. Tl;dr, we aren’t progressive and the place we live is. People don’t like that.

One of the keys to our relationship is actually not texting each other. We go to work, we work, we come home, and many nights our favorite activity is sitting on the couch cuddling and talking about conversations and current events. Or watching movies. When we run out of stuff to talk about, there’s always the duck pond to go for a walk around, or a P90X3 video to get hot and sweaty to. We both agree that exercising together will be a lot more fun post marriage. :) It’s easy to slow down and take your time when your arms are so tired you can barely lift them. Tee hee.

Most important to me though, I understand why I am in her life. I have a clear purpose and place. There are both static tasks I can do for her that are always helpful to her, and because Actions are one of her preferred receiving languages of love, she appreciates when I try to proactively take care of things for her. Usually. Everybody screws up. :p That’s huge for me. I was literally created and raised by my father for the sole purpose of taking care of him when he got old and senile. No, seriously, he told me that word for word when I was a teenager. Taking care of mom was an after thought, I was created ONLY to take care of him.

Years of being an adult have let me fix many of the broken things from my upbringing, but I don’t think I’ll ever change that part of who I am. I want to serve someone and be loved for it. Where my father went wrong was by showing me his love was nothing more than a facade. I remember realizing what he’d done and thinking so clearly “If that is what love is, I want no part of it.” In my heart I always knew love wasn’t the terrible thing my father showed me, but something far more fair, pure, and good. Sarah wasn’t the person to show me that. Rebecca was. Rebecca quite literally saved my life. But Rebecca also chose to leave. That’s a topic for another time though. There are many feelings there.

But yes, I doubt I’ll ever shake that need to serve someone and be loved for it. For decades when I tried to date, I always found myself thinking “just let me care about you!” either during the early stages of the relationship, or after it had started to crack apart. It took me a while to realize that thought was consistent and something I needed to focus on as a priority in relationship selection.

Blah blah blah. Lots of words. In the end, I’m just happy to know I have someone who wants to see me after work. I have someone who wants to spend Sundays with me. I have someone who wants to travel with me. I have someone who isn’t offended if I pay for something for the two of us, and who knows I won’t complain if she does the same. Our relationship isn’t a competition. It isn’t a constant grind for equality. We don’t even worry about fairness. Instead, we just enjoy each other’s company. We’re friends. We can leave all the propaganda of our progressive culture at the door and just like each other as people, instead of political statements. I’ve searched so long for her, and here she is. I finally have a place to rest and recharge. I finally have a way to rest and recharge.

But equally important to me as my own happiness is knowing that she enjoys my company. She wants to spend time with me, and actively works to make that happen. I’m not always chasing her attention, she seeks out mine. It’s…a hundred little things like that I took for granted and assumed everyone did. And, in truth, almost everyone does. But they don’t do it with everyone, they don’t do it with most people. They do it only with the people they really love and appreciate. I just finally found that person who wants to let me love them.