Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Is this what it feels like?


It's funny how things can change so quickly.

My weekend started out so crappy - getting frustrated with all the crap going on with the house. Of course, it all gets compounded by the stress that is my professional life as well.

But then I started to do something about it. I called. I left messages. It made me feel like I was doing something about it at the very least. And then I went upstairs and finished the final bits of my flooring upstairs. There was a moment there when I just stood in the middle of that room with my hands on my hips and felt powerful.

And then my boyfriend came over and he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk.

I don't know if you know, but I love walking. And he doesn't like the cold. So this was a big deal. We walked down to Queen St. East and just browsed. Gordon bought me lovely chocolates (and himself bad coffee) from Ambiance and a wonderful chocolate hazelnut tart from this amazing, cute pastry shop near me and then we ducked into a few gourmet shops and local joints to pick up dinner items, including Chino Loco. We just walked and gawked and held hands and had a wonderful time.

Then we got home and cooked together, making a wonderful meal and he did the dishes and mopped the floor and I think I'm going to have to marry him soon because he also made my bed two days in a row. Seriously, I'm not making this up.

I have been having moments lately of such intense, overwhelming appreciation for Gordon. I know he will read this and I know he will like it, but that's not what this is about. This is about change.

This is about going from the depths of frustration about my house to satisfaction in the space of a day - partly because of my own toil and partly because my contractor did come over, fixed one thing and promised to return today (which he also did) to do more work.

This is about my recent performance review at work when I considered exactly how much things had changed since last year. And how much I'd accomplished. And how much my stress decreased when I discovered that my bosses think I'm doing a good job.

And it's about everything that bugs me from time to time, all the things I want to accomplish and worry that I'm not doing: it all either passes or happens or wasn't important anyway. Everything just... changes. You go on that trip, you finish that project, you save that money. Or you decide you don't really want to go there, that task was silly, or you can do without that item. Even fears about marriage can turn into confidence that a strong partnership can figure it out... whatever "it" is.

It's a calming thought.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

No, it feels better when I get petted.

Raye said...

fyi ... my favourite thing about the past year is seeing the quantity of big smiles you have had even when they were not easy to get to!