sing it back

The weather is finally behaving like November. I am not happy about this, per se, but having November weather dawdle and delay and fail to come was starting to make me antsy. The seasons have a pattern where I live, and going outside the pattern makes me feel at loose ends, a little. I think I was also worried that it would be worse when it did finally come.

Thanksgiving was not particularly noteworthy, except that I made the casserole I invented and it turned out pretty badly. This was probably the least flavorful and moist quinoa dish I’ve ever made, even with a little bitterness to it, and I felt terrible. The strawberry pretzel dish (I’ll post the recipe, I’ve decided, no one deserves to be without this dish in their lives) turned out perfectly, so that’s all right. It was a small gathering this year, with far too much food, and the turkey was apparently a little dry.

The next day BF and I spent a leisurely Friday morning and early afternoon, and while we did actually go to Target on Black Friday, because there was a sweater there I’d seen last week and just couldn’t rest until I owned it, we weren’t part of any mobs and we did no shopping for others. We packed up enough stuff to get us through three days, got in the car, and headed north. Our destination was a resort in the Poconos, where we went years ago when we were first together. BF wanted to show me a good time, so we got the most ridiculously luxurious room that they had, and a good time was indeed had. This resort specializes in “romance”, but it’s a klassy kind of romance, simultaneously hella cheesy and kind of sweet.

This time we got a less luxurious room, but we actually liked it better, because the way the room was designed was unique and interesting, and anyway they still had a large heart-shaped Jacuzzi, a mini swimming pool, and a sauna (which I may or may not have broken when I tried to turn it on). And a round bed surrounded by mirrors. Like I said, klassy.

Upon arriving, we got our stuff into the room and proceeded to spend the next two days relaxing. We paddled in the pool, we watched a silly cop movie, he napped and I knitted, we took a very bubbly bubble bath together with much giggling and some stylish bubble beards, I knitted some more, we ate too much at a totally decent buffet dinner and then ate too much on “Strip Night” when they served steak, we slept and woke and cuddled and spent tons of time being with each other. We spent a good amount of time in the game room at the main building, playing indoor mini-golf, pool (I am a disaster at pool but I love hitting the balls around), pinball and even a little air hockey, which I’d never played. It was so nice to do activities that are pretty common but that I rarely get to do, because bars are too loud and crowded or because pinball machines are an endangered species. No televisions in the game room or the dining room, either, which was very pleasant.

I think I needed this break. Specifically, I think I needed this break with BF. Chore charts and thrice-weekly Bikram are all well and good, but I noticed in the days before Thanksgiving that I was behaving kind of…like my mom. I was critical of BF often, all in a sort of joking way but not in a way that made me at all happy. I was tightly wound and concerned about things coming out right from hour to hour. It seemed necessary to make life proceed in precise sequence, and to participate in each aspect of the sequence in a specific way, and to keep the essential relaxed aspect of myself locked away inside while I got things done on the outside.

BF helped me over this weekend to reclaim that aspect, the me that, oh yeah, accepts BF for exactly who he is. Even if he’s not around much lately, and that means that he doesn’t know how I’ve been doing the housework and chores, and hasn’t cooked in so long that he doesn’t know where all the spices are, and even if it takes longer to get two of us out the door than it does just me, and even if he wants to hug me pretty much nonstop when I am used to walking around my kitchen unhindered by lovely hugs…none of those things are things that matter. I love him, and the parts that matter are the parts that are the same regardless of what he’s doing at work, and I have no need to be commenting negatively about those parts. I miss being with him, and I miss the way that he makes me my best self, instead of my most productive self…which, while it’s necessary right now, is the self I like the least. Thanks to him, and to this little vacation, I’ve figured that out.

I’m back to work, both during the day and at home. I haven’t done Bikram since last Tuesday, and am not planning to do it until tomorrow; I have to go to the grocery store and cook a meal tonight. My back has been hurting in a worrying way, and I don’t know if it’s caused by the Bikram or not, but I think the break might have been good for it. I’ll return with a renewed commitment to a healthy spine, not just a flexible one.

Lessons from vacation – I need to figure out a way: 1) to do chores less resentfully and passive-aggressively and patting-myself-on-the-back-ly; 2) to resolve an exercise schedule that doesn’t wear me out or ruin my back but that keeps me trim and happy with my body; 3) to be productive without becoming as tightly wound and Mom-like as I have been in the last couple of weeks; 4) to win the lottery so I can spend every day with BF.