When I had lunch with Rosa two Tuesdays ago, there was a lot of talking about The Future. (Capital letters mean nit’s the important Future and not the immediate future in which I will probably bump into people accidentally, letting coffee loose all over everyone’s outfits. It looks to be one of those days.)

The Future is sort of like the sun. It’s bright and warm and enticing, but if you stare at it too long, you start to feel a little light headed and your vision starts to play tricks on you. Or if you’re me, your boyfriend tells you that you need to pack your shoes first and then ducks to avoid the coffee you just threw at his head braces for impact, because that’s a ballsy statement to make when he knows you’re barely clinging to sanity in the face of all this PMS.

My future involves a month and half working on the Volvo Ocean Race finale PUMA City in Boston. It involves packing the five years worth of crap that I’ve managed to stockpile into my tiny apartment, including roughly 100 pairs of shoes. It means cleaning, and repainting, and getting back into shape for work. Because The Future for me also includes moving in with James who, bless his little soul, swears he does not mind living with all those shoes if it means waking up next to me every morning.

… I hope he knows I’m serious about keeping every single pair.
We saw our first apartment last night, meeting our broker-to-be, Jen, for the first time. We were both a little nervous. I can’t be entirely sure why– perhaps it has something to do with the fact that James and I parade around like our own private club. And you’re either in it, or you’re not, and sometimes I think we’re doing that thing we do where we’re the clique and everyone else around us (translate: the guys at work) don’t get half the jokes and wonder what they hell is so funny about a pukey-noise. (Everything. Everything is so funny about a pukey-noise. Duh.)

We were worried that she’d dislike us, or we’d dislike her, or she’d have no sense of humor, or warts. You can never be too safe. We scare easily. And we’re a little nervous because this is our first grown-up apartment hunt, where we have to save all the money and make all the choices and meet all the criteria. And, bless his little soul again, James gets to make all the final calls on this stuff, because I’m going to be in Boston when the intense apartment hunt happens.

And, to be entirely honest, that’s fine. I will love everything she shows us because when I’m worried about being homeless, I’ll settle for anything that has a mostly-intact roof. This time around, though, the bar is set a little higher. We’d like sunlight. Space. A puppy.

I’d love to have a place that I know as “home.”

James and I were laying in bed the other night, and I was explaining how home is a funny concept for me now, as the apartments I’ve lived in since leaving my parents’ house have been temporary. None of them have been home. And it’s a supremely upsetting experience to pack and move your entire existence every six-to-twelve months. Especially if you’re a creature like me, a creature of habit. I lived in my parents’ house, the same house, with the same address, on the same road, with the same dogs for the first eighteen years of my life. Then I moved to Italy. Then I stayed in Albany. Then I moved to White Plains. Then I moved to New York City. Then I moved back home. Then I moved to Idaho. Then I moved home again. Then I moved back to New York City. Brooklyn Heights: Dorms. Brooklyn Heights Apartment. Brooklyn Heights Dorm again. Midtown West. Jersey City.

And I said to James, “I just feel sometimes like I’m never going to be home again.” And he kissed my forehead, which is his unfailing way of settling my Crazy Girl Anxiety back into place, and said, “Well, we’ll build New Home together.” And, be honest, you’d fall in love with him, too, after a moment like that. Because it’s more than just knowing what to say at the right time. Whether or not it was really like this, I chose to believe he meant it, and all that implies. (Which, as we all know, is a very big step for me and all my scary issues.)

I hate my life in boxes. My bedroom back home became my mother’s office, possibly as a deterrent from falling flat on my face and crawling home again. It worked. I am now moving to what appears to be the Upper East Side, working with a marvelous broker who wore a phenomenal skirt and very cute boots to our first meeting. And yes, just in case you missed it, I’m moving in with the Awesome Boyfriend, because he promises to love me despite all my shoes. And clothes.

I told Rosa about this in our discussion of The Future, and a weird thing happened that I had again last night. This wave of calm settled over me, and all of the sudden the dizzying speed at which the future is descending upon us seemed to slow a little, and I caught glimpses in my mind of what it would look like to live with James, do the morning routine every day, dinner and the gym every night, snuggle up together and nod off to sleep knowing that if we have nothing else, we have a safe space, protected from the chaos and clutter of the outside world by the simple fact that we have this amazing love for one another all over the inside. And, you know, it’s pretty interesting that something so simple, something that could have the potential to be so delicate also acts as something to strong, so impervious.

And of course there was the subsequent onslaught of questions. And I answered Rosa as honestly as I could, with the same answer I gave Maxine and Christine for the two month period of time I dated James without, you know, officially dating James. What does this mean? I don’t know. Well, does it mean…? Mmm… I don’t know. You haven’t talked about it? Nope. I mean… I don’t know. So, you’re moving in together but…? Right. I don’t know.

And then I smiled and told her it wouldn’t break my hear to wake up next to him every morning in The Conceivable Future, and if everything stays as it is now (Amazing. Awesome. Perfect.)… Who knows? Not me, that’s for one. But as soon as I do, you’ll be the first to hear about it.

Until then, we’re really doing it. We’re really moving in together… and all that implies.

Now, in my defense, I still don’t have internet in my apartment. I also don’t have TV, so when I don’t know what’s going on with any of the shows everyone loves, it cannot be held against me. I’m still revising my thesis for publication, you see. Real life is a serious distraction.

My days go so fast lately that they blur together, one big landslide of time, and sometimes I’m on top riding the wave and sometimes I’m all the way underneath, buried in the rubble. I’m getting better at being on top, and never in front, and have entirely given up hope of slowing it down. Life moves a thousand miles an hour– makes for good cardio.

I didn’t blog about Valentine’s Day. My perfect boyfriend made me perfect pesto and we watched perfect Arrested Development. That’s exactly what we would have done had it not been a holiday, and that’s exactly what I wanted. He also got me a card, a nerd card, and that was perfect, too. As were the zombie comics and beer (Circus Boy, delish!). It was yet another holiday he proved did not need to end with me curled up in my bathtub, crying into a jar of peanut butter. He’s three for three (birthday and New Years), and I’m keeping him.

I had lunch with Rosa last week, and she and Mark hit Allen and Delancy for VDay. Rosa, of course, looked stunning in this red and white polka dot dress with a ruffle. That girl is all legs and curves and flawless skin and frizz-free hair. And next to Mark, they’re easily one of the most handsome couples you’ll find in the City. (I prefer my wrinkled tee-shirts and worn-in blue jeans that match James’ high tops and sweatshirt-track jackets. We COULD clean up well, we just DON’T. As a couple, anyway.)

She said the food was amazing, as can be expected from a place like Allen and Delancey. One of the myriad of things I love about Rosa is that she’s a total foodie, just like me. I love a girl who isn’t afraid to eat. Apparently their reservation was at 6 but the service crawled (her only criticism) and they were there until 8:30, three courses considered.

We caught up on life, as this lunch date was long overdue and almost a full year in the making. She’s as smart as she is gorgeous and, consequently, is going to attend Seton Hall Law. And, needless to say, I all but melted into a puddle of I AM SO PROUD OF YOU right in the middle of Otto. And I pried into her life with Mark and she interrogated me about James, and it hit me all the sudden that this is what life with girlfriends is like.

Rosa studied abroad in Italy our second semester together at Pace (presumably to give Downtown a break from our tequila-fueled antics) and our friendship evolved from one that was See You Everyday into a more mature, Like No Time Has Passed At All kind of dyad, where we can miss lunch dates and have completely opposite schedules and fall in and out of love with boys and jobs and other friends and at the end of it all, sit and chat for three hours about what we’d like our wedding proposal to look like eventually, like no time has passed at all. That’s the mark of a true friend. When you can take respite with each other from the whirlwind of both your lives, sip bellinis and demand of one another, “So, tell me-and be honest- how’s the sex?” And instead of being awkward and intrusive, the trust and conversation flows naturally, just like it always has, just like it will. Any woman who has a friend like my Rosa understands: you’re either friends like that, or you’re not. (And I’m so very glad she is.)

Kristin and I are much the say way, and I’m happy to report that she’s still incredibly pregnant and, though a big migraine-y today, doing well, considering here petite waist is now a size 6 and the other week  her maternity pants were mean to her. Very mean. Unforgivably mean.

Life is settling back into routine nicely. The new job continues to be amazing, even if Wednesday through Saturday blur together in one indistinct mass of eating, sleeping and running up and down the stock room stairs.

A month and a half until I’m off to Boston. This is when we start holding our breath…

I had a lovely post all about the events of both Valentine’s Day and All of Last Week half-drafted and ready to go until 6:15 this morning, when I had a conversation with James.

Last night he got a text from an ex, an ex I only found out about several days prior. It was harmless, entirely innocuous, just a little note relaying the sighting of a past mutual friend. And, true to form, James simply read the text without even bothering to punch in his password to reply. He explained the backstory, and why the message was funny, and I laid there in the dark, quietly thinking to myself how this person who was texting him out of the blue used to lay in my spot. Used to have these conversations. Used to feel this way in these moments.

And it brought me back for a moment to how it used to be with The Ex, the little conversations we’d had full of what turned out to be empty promises. Or untrue visions of an unrealistic future.

It struck me as simultaneously sad and emptying– that moments as intimate and precious as the ones I revel in in the small hours of the morning, or the late hours of the night, spent in the deep comfort that comes with this kind of attachment (whether that comfort and security is real or imagined)… They are not new stories. They are new renditions of the same stories we tell our new people.

When the time comes to end a chapter of our lives, the people in them simply become stories. Good stories, sometimes. Great stories, more rarely. And sad stories, too. We all have our sad stories. And we are all somebody else’s sad story, from somewhere down the line, tucked away safely in a past that we can choose to retell, or to leave silent.

And I laid there, tucked up against James, sad for the people I’ve lost into stories– Christine and Maxine feel like stories now, from a past that’s too far away to touch– and glad that I’m lucky enough to realize that I have people here to fill the gaps. With whom I can create new stories. Amazing stories.

I tell James about The Ex not because I like pointing out every mistake I’ve made, every emotional scar I’ve healed. I tell James about The Ex because it’s my way of showing him I’m far enough past that part of my life to acknowledge it, take it for what it ended up being worth for me, and leaving it as it is. A story.

What it comes down to is what we do with the stories we collect. If we keep them to ourselves, scared that they’ll stir feeling of loss or vacancy, we lose them. The people I’ve met, my friends, even the ones who seem suddenly billions of miles away, they really do make for the best stories. And the ones who’ve hurt me, or left me, well… They serve their respective purposes as well.

They’re all there, emblazoned in my every thought, action, contribution. My stories culminate into the girl I’ve become. And I wouldn’t change a single word of a single story, cliche as it may sound.

I should write them down. Rosa will attest that some of the stories certainly warrant an animated recount. And, as the old adage says,

The palest ink is still more enduring than the strongest memory.

Perhaps a project to consider, logging all the glorious misadventures that were my collegiate years. Perhaps not. Maybe you had to be there to enjoy them.

Then again, maybe it’s all in the retelling.

I keep talking about how my life is about to undergo serious, grown up changes. I keep talking about it like it’s in the future because it still feels looming, impending, but not entirely here.

And then suddenly, this morning, it was. I woke up next to James, the best way to start a day, and we did Morning Routine, and I talked about my developments in my thesis brainstorm, and he caught up on Twitter and headlines and we brushed our teeth and were out the door relatively on time. Not a bad morning, for me. No tears. No moans of “I don’t waaannnnnaaa…” Nobody had to be coerced out of bed, into clothes and out the door. I’m not even that overtired this morning, though the bags under my eyes might beg to differ.

We took the train in together, but instead of diverting for breakfast, I kissed him goodbye at Christopher Street and set out to breakfast and work on my own.

And then, the strangest thing happened. I was walking to work by myself for the third time from the Christopher Street stop and it hit me. The first time I did this, I was half-panicked because I was nervous about getting horribly and irreparably lost. I knew I was bound to end up in Harlem, dehydrated, exhausted and disoriented, four hours late for work, only to be fired for failure to succeed as a functional human being. Or something. So I did what I always do when I’m sure Certain Death is just a wrong-turn away… I bustled. I bustled through all the quaint side streets and past all the brownstones, too quickly to even bother looking up. I was focused, you see, on sighting the Starbucks sign on W. Houston and W. Broadway. It was the goal, and everything else was just blur.

Then yesterday, James walked me to work after breakfast. Life is a lot more entertaining pre-caffeination holding his hand, and certainly safer for everyone I encounter, but we’re chatty people, and I was focused on his witty banter. I wasn’t really, you know, looking.

But this morning, it was just me, and I was on my own, and the sunlight was shining off the skeletons of the maples lining W. Houston and the little streets that arc off Bedford were dappled in dancing shadows and everyone was smiling in the morning sun. I said hello to the Little Old Man James and I saw yesterday morning, perched atop a stack of green patio chairs. I passed the same man walking the same dog, and said hello. He smiled at me with tobacco stained teeth and I decided that he was a writer of some sort.

It could be entirely untrue, but I’ll spend the rest of the day wondering what grand adventures his imagination cooked up. I popped into Starbucks and got the usual, a bagel and a latte, with a smoothie for later, to hold me over until lunch. I sat here, looking out the window, typing away…

This is it. This is my new routine. And it’s amazing. Kristin sent me an e-mail with some bad news and I sent her an e-mail with some giggles. The two will even one another out, because that’s what friends do. Kristin’s e-mails made the cut, they’re part of the New Routine.

Waking up with James will be part of the New Routine, and let me tell you, that makes my heart smile. Bedford and W. Houston and the Little Old Man who sits atop stacked deck chairs? They’re part of the New Routine. The writer with the dog, and the calming taste of a hazelnut latte, insidpensible parts of my morning that are the same kind of familiar and, in this new setting, the same kind of unique… they all stay.

And this is it, that feeling of stability my mind has been craving. My New Routine, it’s forming. It’s not perfect yet, and I’m sure it’ll hone itself a bit more before I perfect it. And it won’t stay this way forever; I leave for Boston in just two months, where I will need a New New Routine. Routine 2.0. Routine: The Remix.

But this is Day 3 of Getting To New Work, and also, Day 1 of Feeling At Home Here. And where I thought I’d feel terror, and bite down and resist change, I have instead an overwhelming sense of calm, with undertones of excitement.

I’d love to chat longer, but there is a darling little girl running around Starbucks, and I suspect she needs someone to giggle with.

That’s my cue.

I had a grey hair the other day. I know that in another fifteen years, far less than that will move me to tears, that grey hair will be par for the course and that they’re not at all exciting. But the other day, I discovered a single strand of grey nestled in with the chestnut locks that are just starting to yawn red for the summer (thank you, 48 hours of sunshine) and the first thing that popped into my head was, “Hello there! You. Are. AWESOME!”

I then lovingly nestled the strand of grey into my ponytail and set about my day (loosely translated, that means I then glanced at my Blackberry and did the Oh Shit! dance all the way to work, because lately I manage to run a solid 30 minutes late).

It’s a sign of the times, the single grey hair. I’m barely breaching fully into adulthood, I know. I’m still young enough to own far too many shoes. I’m still young enough for my room to be in a complete state of chaos and disrepair. I’m still young enough to not let the weight of the world sit too heavily on my shoulders.

And I’m old enough now, too. I’m old enough to have the Serious Boyfriend who I love dearly. Old enough to decide that transitioning the Serious Boyfriend into the Live-In Boyfriend is a good idea, a great step and exactly the kind of grown-up transitions I want to be making. Plus he won’t make me give up the shoes. Which is why he gets to stay. (Also, Fish likes him.)

I’m old enough to love that I work for a company that is sending me to Boston for a month to work with one of the most exciting and innovative retail teams in action right now. The Volvo Ocean Race is hands-down the coolest eye-opener I’ve had to a sporting event, something to which I would have remained oblivious had I not worked for PUMA. The crew of the boat seem incredibly cool, in the salty-seamen way.

I’m excited to meet everyone. The Puma retail team. The PUMA corporate team, including Cate Hewett, who shall remain until I’m offered substantial proof to the contrary, the best thing since sliced bread in my mind. Why, you ask, am I comparing a Corporate High-Up to my all-time favorite form of carbohydrate? Because Cate Hewett operates on that elevated a level of Awesome. She is also adept in both Operations AND Customer Service and, as far as I can tell, knows everything about everything. Or at least everything about everything worth knowing.   And Jacob (my DM) has a lot of enthusiasm and energy for the project, which means the whole team is going to catch that wave and ride it.

The fact that I get to be a part of something so great, and huge, and monumental for the company in which I’ve invested so much time and energy is just… Well, flattering. They chose me. It’s very exciting.

Very exciting in the Do-Not-Mess-This-Up-Young-Lady sort of way.

I find myself on the precipice, and with the absence of The Girls but the love of The Boyfriend, I’m in pretty good shape. The key, I think, is to move forward slowly, with caution. You know, instead of my standard hurling-myself-over-the-ledge.

And that’s the point of this blog– to chronicle the next stages of my life. Because some days it’s semi-coherent at best, but I suspect this will all make perfect sense in retrospect. I’m also a firm believer in the old adage, “If you can’t set a good example, you’ll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” If, in retrospect, none of this makes sense… Well, let that be a lesson to you, too.

Still, all signs point to all the fairy tale expectations I’ve had for my charmed little existence coming true, shoes, Prince and all. Coherent or not, I’ll take it.

The thing about being me is that, at the end of the day, it’s pretty damn great, even when it’s awful. And that’s something I don’t take for granted, even if I gripe, struggle, falter and sometimes, barely muddle through. I got lucky. My story is a good one, with engaging characters and a fantastic setting.

I’d still take the worst day as Me over the best day as Anyone Else.

At 23, I believe that’s what they call ‘success.’

I spent three hours this morning waiting on the stoop of the store after having arrived with Richie to realize two things. 1. Someone tried to break into the store last night, unsuccessfully. And 2. They did so by trying to break the deadbolt itself, very successfully.

The result is that Richie and I are sitting on the stoop, sipping coffees, people watching. I got to call 911. I got to file a police report. I got to take and e-mail photographs. Thanks to the lock incident at Puma a couple weeks back, I knew not to expect a locksmith until a couple hours had passed.

A couple hours have passed, though, and we’re still locked out. And people watching was fun, but now I’m bored and starting to think, and we all know what happens when I think.

It leads to writing.

I cried yesterday, in front of James, sort of for the first time. I’m pretty sure he’s seen me pinch out a couple angry tears of frustration, and possibly a couple tears of anxious laughter, but never like, FOR REAL. Christine was my crying-FOR-REAL person. Maxine was my crying-FOR-REAL person. New boyfriends are ABSOLUTELY not crying-FOR-REAL people. Especially not in Blockbuster, over being homesick for missing best friends and late fees.

Have I mentioned that I haven’t really been sleeping well lately? And I started new birth control, so perhaps I’m a bit emotional? And that I’m in full-blown denial about ho hard it is to do day-to-day without Kristin and Christine and Maxine? You can’t have cocktails with your Blackberry email messages from friends who are far away.

And so yesterday, in Blockbuster, trying to explain why my movies were so late (my G5 has yet again fried its power source and one of the movies– Forgetting Sarah Marshall, if you haven’t seen it, stop what you’re doing and go get a copy, then prepare to guffaw-laugh and get a serious crush on Jason Segel– was stuck in the un-power-up-able CD drive)… I cried.

And James got very quiet, because I just broke the rules and cried in front of him, a clear and blatant disregard of the universal knowledge that a crying girl is to be treated exactly like what she is– and what she is to her boyfriend if she’s crying in front of him for the first time is a live bomb that’s simply counting down to detonation. Naturally, he proceeded with caution.

And I, of course, being at my most grounded and logical emotional place, demanded to know why he was being weird, then demanded that he knock it off before he had a chance to answer me. What can I say? I’m not entirely sure why he’s dating me, either.

And then I one-upped my Girlfriend Rule Breaking and ranted. I ranted about how I hate that I never feel like my life is pulled together, and how annoyingly ironic it is that everyone seems to think I’m the model junior-adult.

But I can’t have the I’m-A-Huge-Failure talk with James, because he doesn’t know that I’m really a huge disaster cleverly disguised as a promising and talented young lady. That’s the talk I have with Christine.

And then it hit me… I miss Christine. And Maxine. And Kristin. And that’s when the tears started a-flowin’. Because who am I supposed to talk about my life with? It’s not fair ot make James be the boyfriend, the best friend, and the confidant. Not that he seems to mind at all, it’s just… Who am I supposed to talk to about how great he is if he’s the person I’m doing all my talking to?

I love the conversations we have, it’s just not the same. Not the same as the existential ambling walks home Tine and I shared. Not the same as Maxine’s squeaky voice reverberating off elevator walls as we march her to the president’s office.

My life is very much the same, and alarmingly, jarringly different, and suddenly I’m going through all the motions and life is eerily similar but very much not the same. The effect is dizzying sometimes, derailing. Disorienting. And how do you adjust? How do you close the holes in your heart that you didn’t want to wake up one day to find as empty spaces?

I know that this is all part of growing up, all part of coming-of-age. It just seemed so simple when we were all going to be best friends forever, when it seemed like the Failure Talks and coffee dates and movie nights were set to last Forever. I’m 23 and I already find myself asking, Does anything really last Forever?

I guess I’ll have to wait and find out. The Girls are still the girls. It’s not better, nor worse. Just different. And I have a thousand other amazing friends in the city with whom I plan to eat meals and drink drinks and laugh too hard in the very near future. (I’m looking at you, Rosa.) Girlfriends whose schedules didn’t mesh with the Trifecta that was Max, Tine and I. And new friends and old friends who are new again, they give you room to grow and learn, re-introduce you to sides of yourself you may have forgotten you were, once upon a time.

So as daunting as this Adult Life still is so early at its onset, there are still rays of hope for me, as far as I can tell. My boyfriend is still amazing. My girlfriends in the city are still exceptional. I still love my job, my shoes and my coffee.

If Kristin were here, she would very loudly remind me that I am still, and forever shall be, a Weeble. And we all know what that means…

Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.

Here’s to the wobbly days. May they always give ample perspective for the days when nothing goes awry.

If you ask him, my boyfriend will tell you that I fart. (I do, it’s true. If you’re not a particularly flatulent person, this post is not for you.) In fact, you might not even have to ask him… That’s something he could very well just volunteer. Every now and again, I toot, and he thinks it’s hilarious.

I should amend that first line, now that I think about it… If you ask him, my boyfriend will tell you WITH PRIDE that his girlfriend farts. He’ll also tell you that I like comics (it’s true! I do that, too) and that I have excellent taste in film (zombies, slashers, torture porn, hurrah!). The fact that I love his tee-shirt collection, his parents, especially his fantastic younger sister and verbally sparring with his insanely cool group of friends may also slide its way into the conversation, as might my tendency to be a touch inappropriate in the name of humor and the fact that as far as girlfriends go, I can certainly throw down in the sack. I drink beer (love it), eat ribs and I never pick bad restaurants.

These are all things he might say, if you were to ask him about me.

If you ask me about him… I’m just going to smile and tell you I totally hit the jackpot. Because I finally found a guy who thinks it’s cute that I fart. And burp, every now and then. And who doesn’t mind that I love a good, juicy burger and an ice cold beer. I’m counting my blessings that he doesn’t think my thesis on slasher films was weird, and thanking my lucky stars that after our first little tiff, his I’m-sorry gift was zombie comics and Magic Hat.

Yes, it’s true. We have one of those sickening relationships that every former incarnation of myself would wretch at. Publicly. And that, for me, is something.

Not just because I’m a girlie girl who’s used to being one of the guys. Also because if you know me, you know the past year in my love life has been less of a stroll down memory lane and more of a tactical exercise in hostile territory. Evasive maneuvers are how I managed to stay single while I sterilized my wounds with ample amounts of tequila and healed up with the help of my soulmates, The Girls.

And now here I am, almost a full year after what I can only descrube even in retrospect as what felt like the Emotional Apocalypse , taking stock of my emotional progress and counting my blessings. My ex, who shall remain nameless, did not manage to inflict lasting emotuional scar tissue, even if he left me forever wiser about where I invest my emotional resources.

Taking a look at my new love portfolio, I have to say that lesson is one I’m happy to have learned, as James is everything a girl could wish for in a boyfriend and then some. For Christmas, he even gave me a crowbar.

And yes, we do the “I love you”s. And yes, we sometimes digress into makin’ out in public. And if I accidentally feel him up every now and then? Well… He’s cute. You totally would if you were dating him, too. (You’re not, so don’t, or it’ll end badly for you, I promise.) Things would be eerily perfect, if there was anything eerie about it at all. But there’s not. So it’s just great.

And we’re pushing past the panic zone I had where everything fell apart with The Ex, and looking at what it would mean to combine our awesome book collections onto one bookshelf when we move in together come June. There are “I love you”s, but no promises of Forever… And it doesn’t bother me yet, but I’m sure it will eventually. Considering what it means to have to fully extricate your life from someone else’s once its combined isn’t just heartbreaking, it’s overwhelming and ominous. Forever-talk thwarts that effect. But. We’re not there.

We fart in front of each other. That’s where we are. And that’s farther than The Ex and I really got, so there we go. I believe they call that progress. It does have me begging the question, though, is it better to have promises of forever from someone who thinks they mean it but doesn’t? Or have silence on the topic from someone who means that, too?

And I can’t claim it’s not an adjustment still, every now and again, this super-single girl suddenly being so committed to someone else. But it’s all good adjustments. Asking him for his thoughts before signing the contracts for Boston. Taking long weekends to Vermont. Having dinner at his parents’ place. Grabbing sushi for two instead of one before a night of movies in my apartment. He’s not a habit, like in the past… Not a mere integration into my routine. He’s like a sense of stability in who I am, a source of support and laughter. He’s like a best friend I get to snuggle with, except better, because he kisses my forehead all the time and doesn’t roll his eyes when I come home with (more) new shoes.
I don’t know. I guess I’ll figure the rest out as we move along. James isn’t really a planner, anyway. (Somewhere Kristin is pulling her hair out with anxiety, being all WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO PLAN??) And I am a planner, so I have to assume that’ll lead to… what do mature couples call it? Friction? We’ll see. For now… an apartment together somewhere in the boroughs is in the forecast. And if you know me, you know that means he means enough to me to take big risks and make big emotional investments. Lord help us all.

I do know that I love him. And if you ask him, he’ll tell you with pride that his girlfriend farts.

… He’ll quickly add that she doesn’t poop, though. Everyone knows girls don’t poop.

I have a secret that I can’t tell you. It’s a doozie, though. I mean, like, when I found out, I laughed and cried and laughed and cried and punched the person who told me, which was not smart, as that person was operating a motor vehicle and all our lives were put at stake. All the same, it was a secret that awesome.

But I can’t tell you. Seriously, I can’t. Not for another ten days am I allowed to breathe a word of this super-secret matter. Which, as you very well know, means that I can’t blog about anything. At all. Because if I do, I’m going to blog about the secret. Because it’s just that awesome.

On the 14th, I shall rock all your worlds. In the meantime, I am good for little else other than giggling, shifting my weight from side to side, and beaming. Every now and then, I also poke Jimi and say something about the secret, but that’s essentially what my life has been reduced to. Which is funny, since it doesn’t feel reduced at all.

It’s one of those secrets.

In the meantime, I have other news that you can hear about. I’ll be in Boston from sometime in Mid-April to sometime in Mid-May. I’m going to end up missing graduation, because there’s no way I can get back from Boston on the 19th and walk in graduation on the 20th without a severe case of the Mallory Grumpies putting everyone’s life in danger. I’m not getting a medical degree, so I suspect my parents won’t care too much.

If Mom has a real fit, I might walk. I might even prance, just to spite her. We’ll see.

But it’s official– I’ve been selected to be part of the Volvo Ocean Race retail team in PUMA City in Boston. Contracts are signed. Wardrobe has been sized. New city has been identified for the conquering. I, of course, am going out of my skin with excitement. I love PUMA, great company to work for, and it’ll be nice to see a larger snapshot of the bigger picture than the Black Store boutique in MePa.

Which reminds me. I also am wrapping up my last week in MePa on Sunday and transferring to Tretorn permanently starting next Monday. I survived my first two days with minimal incident, really enjoy working with everyone I’ve met on the new team down there and can’t wait to roll my sleeves up and get my hands dirty. (Literally. The floor in the basement is essentially cement and earth. Everything is covered in dust. Including the managerial staff.)

And let me just say, another two weeks up and down those stairs and I’m going to have my soccer legs back. Hallelujah! Just in time for summer.

Oop, see, there. I almost said something else about something else that had to do with the secret. But I can’t! It’s a secret.

And you can’t know for another ten days. So for now… Mums the word.

xo

-MM