Gear Shifting
The engine is screaming, the speedometer winding down while the tach redlines. The entire car shakes and vibrates, hitting limits, the wheel lurches. I’ve gone from cruising at high speed, shifting into lower gear to slow the drive without touching the brakes and she’s fighting every second of it until she finally slows and I take the corner easy.
This is the closest analogy I have to the change. To how I have to slow myself down when I’m leaving them. Choke it down, brake the engine, and then let the whole thing adjust as it will to the change until it’s controlled again. I know they want me to talk, to be here. They want me to shine for them. I can’t. Everything in me is pushing me back, still going too fast, still running too hot. The weekend is still burning too brightly.
***
“Is Jewel here? Is Jewel here?”
He’s come to pick me up, and from the first second he walked in everything spun back into high gear. Touching, kissing, breathing him in. It’s never enough. Even when I’m satiated, I know it’s just for a brief time, and that I still want his touch.
I drove, he slept. Every mile I tried to slow myself. Be present. Don’t race ahead to the rest of the weekend in your thoughts. Savor that this is the beginning. Watch the painted yellow line and feel the joy in the start. Now, here, I’d give a fortune to be there again instead of far away and over.
I try to tell myself that it’s this time away that makes the weekends feel more alive. There can’t be adventures like these every day. Even the relaxed nights just watching tv while I rub his back can’t happen every single night. There would be a routine, a staleness that flavors all daily life when you get caught up in society. It won’t remain as it is now if it was every day. Would it? God, would it?
We round up Z and R as soon as we get there for an open house as a fire department. I like going to that sort of thing, but I want to go even more tonight for the domesticity of it. For the family side. I craved the inclusion and experiencing it that way.
The lights whirl, the ladder truck is extended. There are groups of firefighters and I laugh at myself. In Michigan I’d be in that group, talking and joking and planning. Here they know nothing of that, and so tonight I’m just a face in the crowd with her family. Tonight I am just theirs, and Michigan is at rest. He teases about letting me fly solo and ‘hunt’. I could. I know how to drag one down and then another and work my way through them, reading them, figuring out the ring leaders and the ones looking for a Penthouse magazine letter fantasy.
What I can’t tell him, don’t have words for, is that I’ve been that girl, idly watching the families walking by, wishing that was me instead. The game loses it’s luster when it’s hollow. When you can feel something real instead. When you know you’re going to go back home with them and curl up to watch tv with them, and be loved for who you are.
We’re sitting in Taco Bell and playing with sauce packs. I like to read them, especially if they say socially awkward things like “Marry me”. He hands me one. It says “Just the beginning” and I’m thrown back to my thoughts on the drive down. Beginnings. Starts. Be present. I take a picture and he makes the pukey face we make when we’re being too disgustingly cute. He doesn’t know that I feel like he’s handing me a sign. He’s handing me a signal and it’s here that I start trying to pay attention.
The next comes later that evening. K comes home with her friends and I hear her whispering as she comes in the door, asking if I’m there. Up the stairs. Across the carpet. Into my arms for a hug. She’s giggling softly when she hugs me and saying hello. Then it’s over and her friends are waving to me as they head into her room and the moment is over. But she’s happy I’m here again. She’s giggling when she hugs me. She’s opening up.
He grins at me when he sees me grinning. We don’t even need to say anything, he knows what I’m feeling.
***
We go to bed, and I tell him to turn the shower speaker on. I spend an hour rubbing his entire body to the sound of the playlist I made him, reveling in this connection. I focus only on him, remembering the beginning, remembering to be present. At some point while my hands glide over his back I find myself asking questions in my head. Do I really think this would happen frequently if I was near him more often or would it fall by the wayside in the daily grind? Is it special because I can’t do it all the time? What does he feel when I want to spend my time doing this?
Is this only special because I’m not here all the time? Or am I downplaying?
***
The next morning is given over to pleasure first, then I help him get the house ready for a baby shower. Normally I’m pretty caught up in my own bitterness, or anxiety about having to interact with women in these settings. The questions always come up. “How many kids do you have? When will you have them? Don’t you just love new babies?” Yes. No. I don’t know. God, where is the hard liquor.
But this is the first time I don’t feel bitterness rising in my throat. Have I matured? Or have I found my place? Are the oldest of my wounds starting to finally heal?
His cousin hugs me for no reason, welcoming me to her party. She knows who I am, why I’m here. She’s accepting me. She makes a point to talk to me in the kitchen and catch up. She makes a point to reach out and ask to be my friend. Again I’m reminded of the signs. I’m reminded to be present.
His cousin’s daughter catches me off guard. I didn’t think she really noticed me much, but she walks up to me and says “Hi Jules”, the familiar address of my own family, making the room spin for a second. She could be my own cousin. I could have been around my own family this easily, it certainly feels the same. Just like that, another moment.
I’m asked a couple of times how I know the expectant mother. “Family friend.” No one pushes further. I look at pictures of dogs and babies and fawn over toddlers. Only once does it hit a little hard, but I get a breather and I recover. The bitterness stays dormant. Small miracles.
Matt and C arrive a little later with Little T, and I try to remember how it felt to be here the first time. I tried to put myself in C’s shoes, and tried to be accommodating. She wanted to see the Angel Oak, and I brought my dslr for that reason. Little T stayed with the kids and the four of us went out on a double date.
It was T who pulled the date ideas together. We went to the Angel Oak and took photos of the tree, of us, each snap of the shutter feeling like a conclusion snap on a trap, capturing a moment forever. He tells me he was going to bring me here for a date eventually. I like that it gets to be today, like this. I hope maybe we can come back again some time just for the hell of it.
He picks a place called Poe’s Tavern. It’s cute, there’s a goth vibe and the food was delicious. During dinner I snap some photos of Matt and C, and selfies of T and I. I like the relaxed comfort, and it’s not hard to be present here. This feels normal. Happy. I have a few thoughts over my fish and chips. Questions. No answers.
He takes us to the beach next. I roll up the cuffs of my jeans and take my boots off, tying the laces together. He takes them and my purse and carries them for me. The first steps on the beach feel good. Feel special. The surf has always been a draw for me, and he’s timed it by luck so the sky is painted in a brilliant sunset. So many of our important moments are colored in sunset yellow.
We walk, we spy dolphins playing in the waves, we hold hands and we talk about the last three and a half months. Our first date and impressions. I stop and record him talking about it. He doesn’t protest or do anything other than talk like he always does. I find myself wanting to record him more. I want to save these. I want to capture him in these moments.
I have a couple of photos of him in the setting sun, photos that show what I saw that day when I first said his name. I think a part of my heart is still here on that beach, reliving that moment over and over. Will it be a ghost? Will people a hundred years from now catch a glimpse of a smitten woman on the beach, ethereally grinning stupidly at the thin air into which she disappears?
We walk back up the boardwalk, lost in our own little world for a moment. Our humor is similar, meaning we both find little ways to make the other laugh, chuckle or giggle. Usually very suddenly. I feel understood in those moments. Appreciated. Funny. His first compliment to me was that I was funny.
“Those plants looks like marshmallows.” “What an astute observation.”
Later on we play Munchkin with Z and K, and I become the most powerful player. I determine the outcome of the game, boosting T to victory for the price of a compliment. This is another volley between us. He gave me a beautiful sunset on the sea. I conceded defeat to him publicly in a competition, willingly. I could have won, but I chose instead to give that to him, and as someone who has stabbed her siblings in the hand with sharp objects for daring to even try to take it, that’s no small thing.
After that we try to watch Big Mouth. T and I find it hilarious. Our company is probably more amused by our amusement than by the show. I try to be present for it, but my mind is already ahead. The next thing.
We split off to go to bed, and I shower first. There’s sand on my legs and booze sweat from mimosas on my skin and a day of thoughts and feelings in my hair. I wash them out until there’s just him again. Just us. Again... is it only special because this isn’t my whole life? This isn’t my daily routine? Would it grow old fast? Sometimes I think yes. But then others I think that I could live this. Times when the draw of T and S is like a siren song, and I know that if I’m not careful I could wreck this ship on the shoals for dreams of family more powerful than anything I’ve ever tasted.
But the stark reality is that I can’t run away from the life I’ve built to play house no matter how ridiculously tempting that is. I’m not a cold woman to switch on and off like a light. I’m not the woman to be mercurial, even if I’m highly emotional and prone to following my heart. Wanting to and following through are not the same, and if this is meant for me, if this is all really where I’m meant to end up, then that transition will come. That time will come. And that will make this the beginning. The yellow lines on the road. The start. And I need to be present for this and not running off years in the future.
I need to remember that there is beauty in the start and not to rush things. That was my lesson for this weekend. This is the beginning. Of what, I don’t know exactly, but I can have faith.
***
And then it’s dawn. “How is it morning already?!” Yeah. Same question, bud. It’s over and I have to go soon. I try to stay present, I try to stay grounded. I want to tell him that he lives in the dream I’ve carried for decades. That I feel more like me here than almost anywhere else, but that it’s not for me to stay. That I have to go back to a world where I have ceramics and quiet, but I keep your sippy cup in my hutch and sometimes imagine that things can be different. That maybe some day...
But this is the beginning. And it’s time to slow down and shift.
This is the closest analogy I have to the change. To how I have to slow myself down when I’m leaving them. Choke it down, brake the engine, and then let the whole thing adjust as it will to the change until it’s controlled again. I know they want me to talk, to be here. They want me to shine for them. I can’t. Everything in me is pushing me back, still going too fast, still running too hot. The weekend is still burning too brightly.
***
“Is Jewel here? Is Jewel here?”
He’s come to pick me up, and from the first second he walked in everything spun back into high gear. Touching, kissing, breathing him in. It’s never enough. Even when I’m satiated, I know it’s just for a brief time, and that I still want his touch.
I drove, he slept. Every mile I tried to slow myself. Be present. Don’t race ahead to the rest of the weekend in your thoughts. Savor that this is the beginning. Watch the painted yellow line and feel the joy in the start. Now, here, I’d give a fortune to be there again instead of far away and over.
I try to tell myself that it’s this time away that makes the weekends feel more alive. There can’t be adventures like these every day. Even the relaxed nights just watching tv while I rub his back can’t happen every single night. There would be a routine, a staleness that flavors all daily life when you get caught up in society. It won’t remain as it is now if it was every day. Would it? God, would it?
We round up Z and R as soon as we get there for an open house as a fire department. I like going to that sort of thing, but I want to go even more tonight for the domesticity of it. For the family side. I craved the inclusion and experiencing it that way.
The lights whirl, the ladder truck is extended. There are groups of firefighters and I laugh at myself. In Michigan I’d be in that group, talking and joking and planning. Here they know nothing of that, and so tonight I’m just a face in the crowd with her family. Tonight I am just theirs, and Michigan is at rest. He teases about letting me fly solo and ‘hunt’. I could. I know how to drag one down and then another and work my way through them, reading them, figuring out the ring leaders and the ones looking for a Penthouse magazine letter fantasy.
What I can’t tell him, don’t have words for, is that I’ve been that girl, idly watching the families walking by, wishing that was me instead. The game loses it’s luster when it’s hollow. When you can feel something real instead. When you know you’re going to go back home with them and curl up to watch tv with them, and be loved for who you are.
We’re sitting in Taco Bell and playing with sauce packs. I like to read them, especially if they say socially awkward things like “Marry me”. He hands me one. It says “Just the beginning” and I’m thrown back to my thoughts on the drive down. Beginnings. Starts. Be present. I take a picture and he makes the pukey face we make when we’re being too disgustingly cute. He doesn’t know that I feel like he’s handing me a sign. He’s handing me a signal and it’s here that I start trying to pay attention.
The next comes later that evening. K comes home with her friends and I hear her whispering as she comes in the door, asking if I’m there. Up the stairs. Across the carpet. Into my arms for a hug. She’s giggling softly when she hugs me and saying hello. Then it’s over and her friends are waving to me as they head into her room and the moment is over. But she’s happy I’m here again. She’s giggling when she hugs me. She’s opening up.
He grins at me when he sees me grinning. We don’t even need to say anything, he knows what I’m feeling.
***
We go to bed, and I tell him to turn the shower speaker on. I spend an hour rubbing his entire body to the sound of the playlist I made him, reveling in this connection. I focus only on him, remembering the beginning, remembering to be present. At some point while my hands glide over his back I find myself asking questions in my head. Do I really think this would happen frequently if I was near him more often or would it fall by the wayside in the daily grind? Is it special because I can’t do it all the time? What does he feel when I want to spend my time doing this?
Is this only special because I’m not here all the time? Or am I downplaying?
***
The next morning is given over to pleasure first, then I help him get the house ready for a baby shower. Normally I’m pretty caught up in my own bitterness, or anxiety about having to interact with women in these settings. The questions always come up. “How many kids do you have? When will you have them? Don’t you just love new babies?” Yes. No. I don’t know. God, where is the hard liquor.
But this is the first time I don’t feel bitterness rising in my throat. Have I matured? Or have I found my place? Are the oldest of my wounds starting to finally heal?
His cousin hugs me for no reason, welcoming me to her party. She knows who I am, why I’m here. She’s accepting me. She makes a point to talk to me in the kitchen and catch up. She makes a point to reach out and ask to be my friend. Again I’m reminded of the signs. I’m reminded to be present.
His cousin’s daughter catches me off guard. I didn’t think she really noticed me much, but she walks up to me and says “Hi Jules”, the familiar address of my own family, making the room spin for a second. She could be my own cousin. I could have been around my own family this easily, it certainly feels the same. Just like that, another moment.
I’m asked a couple of times how I know the expectant mother. “Family friend.” No one pushes further. I look at pictures of dogs and babies and fawn over toddlers. Only once does it hit a little hard, but I get a breather and I recover. The bitterness stays dormant. Small miracles.
Matt and C arrive a little later with Little T, and I try to remember how it felt to be here the first time. I tried to put myself in C’s shoes, and tried to be accommodating. She wanted to see the Angel Oak, and I brought my dslr for that reason. Little T stayed with the kids and the four of us went out on a double date.
It was T who pulled the date ideas together. We went to the Angel Oak and took photos of the tree, of us, each snap of the shutter feeling like a conclusion snap on a trap, capturing a moment forever. He tells me he was going to bring me here for a date eventually. I like that it gets to be today, like this. I hope maybe we can come back again some time just for the hell of it.
He picks a place called Poe’s Tavern. It’s cute, there’s a goth vibe and the food was delicious. During dinner I snap some photos of Matt and C, and selfies of T and I. I like the relaxed comfort, and it’s not hard to be present here. This feels normal. Happy. I have a few thoughts over my fish and chips. Questions. No answers.
He takes us to the beach next. I roll up the cuffs of my jeans and take my boots off, tying the laces together. He takes them and my purse and carries them for me. The first steps on the beach feel good. Feel special. The surf has always been a draw for me, and he’s timed it by luck so the sky is painted in a brilliant sunset. So many of our important moments are colored in sunset yellow.
We walk, we spy dolphins playing in the waves, we hold hands and we talk about the last three and a half months. Our first date and impressions. I stop and record him talking about it. He doesn’t protest or do anything other than talk like he always does. I find myself wanting to record him more. I want to save these. I want to capture him in these moments.
I have a couple of photos of him in the setting sun, photos that show what I saw that day when I first said his name. I think a part of my heart is still here on that beach, reliving that moment over and over. Will it be a ghost? Will people a hundred years from now catch a glimpse of a smitten woman on the beach, ethereally grinning stupidly at the thin air into which she disappears?
We walk back up the boardwalk, lost in our own little world for a moment. Our humor is similar, meaning we both find little ways to make the other laugh, chuckle or giggle. Usually very suddenly. I feel understood in those moments. Appreciated. Funny. His first compliment to me was that I was funny.
“Those plants looks like marshmallows.” “What an astute observation.”
Later on we play Munchkin with Z and K, and I become the most powerful player. I determine the outcome of the game, boosting T to victory for the price of a compliment. This is another volley between us. He gave me a beautiful sunset on the sea. I conceded defeat to him publicly in a competition, willingly. I could have won, but I chose instead to give that to him, and as someone who has stabbed her siblings in the hand with sharp objects for daring to even try to take it, that’s no small thing.
After that we try to watch Big Mouth. T and I find it hilarious. Our company is probably more amused by our amusement than by the show. I try to be present for it, but my mind is already ahead. The next thing.
We split off to go to bed, and I shower first. There’s sand on my legs and booze sweat from mimosas on my skin and a day of thoughts and feelings in my hair. I wash them out until there’s just him again. Just us. Again... is it only special because this isn’t my whole life? This isn’t my daily routine? Would it grow old fast? Sometimes I think yes. But then others I think that I could live this. Times when the draw of T and S is like a siren song, and I know that if I’m not careful I could wreck this ship on the shoals for dreams of family more powerful than anything I’ve ever tasted.
But the stark reality is that I can’t run away from the life I’ve built to play house no matter how ridiculously tempting that is. I’m not a cold woman to switch on and off like a light. I’m not the woman to be mercurial, even if I’m highly emotional and prone to following my heart. Wanting to and following through are not the same, and if this is meant for me, if this is all really where I’m meant to end up, then that transition will come. That time will come. And that will make this the beginning. The yellow lines on the road. The start. And I need to be present for this and not running off years in the future.
I need to remember that there is beauty in the start and not to rush things. That was my lesson for this weekend. This is the beginning. Of what, I don’t know exactly, but I can have faith.
***
And then it’s dawn. “How is it morning already?!” Yeah. Same question, bud. It’s over and I have to go soon. I try to stay present, I try to stay grounded. I want to tell him that he lives in the dream I’ve carried for decades. That I feel more like me here than almost anywhere else, but that it’s not for me to stay. That I have to go back to a world where I have ceramics and quiet, but I keep your sippy cup in my hutch and sometimes imagine that things can be different. That maybe some day...
But this is the beginning. And it’s time to slow down and shift.
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