Goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get married...

I'm sitting in a Santa Cruz hospital with my Milla and her dad, my papa san. He's reading the contents of his jello cup because after he offered her some, she said she doesn't eat it because it has pig hooves in it and after we read the ingredients realized that it's vegan.

How very Santa Cruz. And aren't I happy to be here?

My cousin Tamara just got married to her now-husband Aaron yesterday. It was lovely. They tied the knot at an estate at Monterey between two trees, a field with horses splayed out behind them. There was artwork everywhere; maps with the word "hope" torn and spread over the DJ booth. Donut cake and lace wedding dress, mad-hatter tea party meets Victorian grace. It was probably the most beautiful and low-key nuptials I've ever been to, and it was nice because if I never get married, I saw elements of what I've always wanted in this one and I was able to experience it and know what it would have been like.

They danced down the aisle to my favorite song, Dog Days are Over, by Florence and the Machine, for heaven's sake. That's my life soundtrack on a daily basis.

Milla's dad had to have emergency gall bladder surgery; he was admitted on Thursday morning and I was happy that the wedding was this weekend anyway because if it hadn't been I would've been coming up here to support papa san and my Milla anyway. He's doing so much better now that the traitorous organ has since been removed.

It's been a tumultous week. My writing mentor, Aaron Race, passed away after a long battle with lymphoma, and he was the person who ultimately honed the inclinations I had as a young person into the passions I feel today. What is the purpose of living if you don't do it passionately? Before him I was just an occasional writer, but after him I was someone devoted to the word and to being the one writing it.

Aaron and I had another falling out, like the one that so efficiently tore us asunder a few years ago. Basically, my theory is that we got too close to fast, and Mr. No-Attachments-All-Partying Aaron got scared and ran away. It's stereotypically male, and stereotypically him, so I'm not really surprised. He backed out of coming on this trip with me last minute, saying that he didn't feel like spending a weekend that far out of his comfort zone, with garnered a response from me of, "San Fran..6 hours...is out of your comfort zone?!" Because that's pretty pathetic and I couldn't believe an adult would actually say that. This of course comes after a weekend spent partying with his friend and a Wednesday spent all day at Disneyland, during which time I'm sure a party this weekend came up and he thought, oh, I'd rather go to that then a wedding I have to ride in the car too, I can just cancel on Erin.

Which was the problem. I don't like people to back out on their word. I don't care if it's going to the movies or going up north. If I tell you I'm going with you, I am, even if it's uncomfortable. Was it easy to be at a wedding that was practically what I had hoped for myself 2 weeks after I broke up with the man I had hoped to marry? No. Could I have gotten out of it with no fingers pointed in blame at me? Of course I could have. Did I? No. Because I gave my word I'd be there. I'm not especially close to my cousin Tamara, but I believe deeply that your character is based on your convictions and your strength of bond, and I do not break those lightly. Aaron simply proved for the second time that his word is baseless and he only holds true to it when it's convenient for him. Granted, in his defense that's the societal standard, but I try to love and invest in people that are exceptional and above the norm. I love people who are true, and now Aaron is not on that list, all the sadder for him.

Milla went with me to the wedding. Before we went though, I was wearing my pretty coral dress and there was a old Chevy truck in a field on the road to her house, and we decided to have an impromptu photo shoot. I feel like MillaFoto had it's first client. We had so much fun, and she shot over 200 photos in less than an hour. I'm going to be posting them on Facebook soon. For the first time in my life, I want to be photographed because I feel that I am never going to be prettier than I am now, and as much as I love looking at photos of my mom and grandmother and family when they were young, I expect my children and grandchildren will want the same. So, for posterity's sake, I'm gong to be documented when it's possible.

Having her with me at the wedding was wonderful. The Universe knew what it was doing when it pulled Aaron out of these plans and let me enjoy it fully with her. She melded with my family like she'd always been there and when my cousin Danny and Ron made me laugh so hard I had to crouch down so that the swaying of my laughter wouldn't topple me in my heels, she was laughing too. I am joyous and thankful.

Tonight we're going to wander downtown Santa Cruz, and tomorrow I'm going to spend the day with Carl and Queenie and enjoy the baby Carnivale that's going on around their streets. We'll walk and laugh and hug and I will be continually reminded about why I have the standards of association that I do: I don't want to muddy the perfectly clear waters I've been able to collect around myself.

Holy shitballs, I am so lucky.

I love you.

enraptured.

It's been a big week. It's the week following my break-up with Steve, but as Melanie was loudly pointing out last night, it's not as if we were close and hot/heavy to the end. We had been fading for awhile, so I need to get the hell over it and get some...according to her. I am naturally more hesitant.

If I just bounced from someone who I was so hopeful for to someone else I'm just with for a night, what would that say about me? Would my Grandma see me and be proud of the stupid shenanigans I was doing?

It's funny. I've never thought about a "GOD" that would pass judgement on me. When I have entertained the thought of this great judger, I laughed at it. I would give him the finger if he was so unbiased and unable to see the motives for my actions in my soul of souls, and was actually so petty as to have an opinion...that was how I realized people just put their own personalities on Gods. But I have always cared about what my Grandma would say. When I was laying in bed in my first terrible relationship and I was being screamed at and tears were running down my face, I looked at the ceiling and thought about her, and what she would say to the daughter of her daughter not learning from anyone who came before, and what in the hell was I doing?

I kicked him out the next day. My grandmother's opinion guides me more than any dude hypothesized about in a book could. Her love is my religion.

Anyway, I bought a Mini Cooper Clubman this week. It's pretty funny, because I got denied on Tuesday and approved on Wednesday and according to Aaron, that's a very Pokey thing to do. I wonder sometimes how that must appear to people...that I am so driven, so single-minded in my goals, when I'm really not. My real friends know that. The ones I go to when I'm lost and scared and forget that there's a direction at all, crying into their shirts and feeling that there is no reason to hope anymore.

But the Universe, God, my Grandma...whoever it is, tends to show me differently. And I am thankful that whenever my sadness and fear gush from my heart in tears, and it feels rung out and empty, it's always quick to refill with good things.

My cousin's wedding is next weekend. Aaron is going with me, which tells me it's going to be a whole new amazing. Just being with Aaron makes me happy, content, full and sated. I could spend whole days just laying next to him and I would feel it was far from wasted.

Yesterday, when the "rapture" was supposed to be happening, we were lying in his bed, and he had just finished rubbing my bad shoulder. His fingers lifted to my face, my eyes closed and content, and he stroked my eyebrow, brushed my eyelashes against my cheek. I smiled, and when my eyes opened he was smiling back at me.

I pity those people who think heaven is anywhere else but here.

late night musings.

Tonight, in its record-breaking coldness, I wonder that if God wanted us to spend our lives with someone else, we would have all been born Siamese twins.

I am alone.

I need to make every moment count, even if it hurts.

If life were seasons, and they were simply called the Wet and the Dry like in Australia, I think this would be called the Sad.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

You are the moon that breaks the night.

Closure comes quickly.

Steve and I ended our relationship Friday. Coincidentally, it was my last day at the office I've been at for my insofar Enterprise career. A day for endings.

It surprised me with how immediate and powerfully I cried. One big wash of tears, like Noah's Great Flood, pouring out of my heart and wetting my cheeks and covering my blouse in salty drops. The separation has been there for so long that I thought the eventual ending wouldn't be so devastating, but even the assumptions made by ourselves about ourselves can still make us look like naive actors on a great stage, suddenly unknown to the person we thought we were.

Sorrow was swift, and passed almost as quickly as it came. A tornado of mourning, and then a great lifting. I think there are a few reasons for this. One, Steve and I have come close to ending it a few times now, so I know that as soon as the first time happened my heart began to prepare for the worst. Also, he believes with conviction that a new job would make everything better, and holding on to that longer than I already have would make me a level of pitiful I'd rather not ever be. I said simply, "A new job will not make you love me back," and that was it. That was all the honesty of our relationship poured like steaming Turkish coffee into a glass and shot back in one gulp, pungent and true and inescapable.

It was initially such a hard conclusion to come to because Steve is wonderful. As a person, he is phenomenal, and having to end a relationship over circumstances and how one deals with those circumstances is usually something reserved for more established commitments. He didn't treat me poorly, or cheat on me, et cetera. He was simply not there, and I'm not inclined to the dynamics of a long distance relationship when we live 20 miles apart. I was so lonely. I just wanted to have my hand held, you know? Is there something so terribly dependent or wrong with that? And yes, I know the answer is no.

Enter Aaron. My friend from years ago, my other half, the person who my soul connected with on such a level that we were inseparable for over a year. Who, a month or so ago, shortly after I cried to God that I needed a relief from this confusion and turmoil, is suddenly hanging out with me. Long, filled-to-the-brim days with nothing but smiles and hugs that lift me up and swing me around and make me laugh like a joyous child I don't remember knowing.

Always respectful of my relationship, we didn't fall into our old habits of hyper-affection. On Friday though, he refused to let me be alone. I'm coming to get you, he says. You're not driving, you're not worrying, and we're doing anything you want to do. I need to be with you when you're sad. It hurts me when you are.

And that is what love is. That's what I have been missing for too long from my life. We go to dinner and the Shakespeare festival in Redlands, which was notably terrible. I didn't get a snide comment, or a complaint, or any type of negativity. Just an arm around my shoulder and a hand holding mine and smiles into the curls of my hair.

Yesterday Milla and Aaron and I went to Faire and had a long wonderful day. Full of friends and innuendos and kissing and laughs and hugs and everything that reminds you: this life is one of a kind and worth living as if the children of the future are looking to your demeanor as a lesson of what happiness is. Exhausted, we come home and lay in bed, deciding to watch a movie instead of go to dinner. There is the head on my shoulder and steady breathing and warm arm around my waist that tells me loud and clear I am worth touching, worth intimacy in all of its forms, and if someone can't give that to me, it is their issue and not mine.

My last blog, Unrequited, came from a dark night in which I couldn't seem to get my back warm and in my half-sleep, I reached behind me to pull my warmth to me and no one was there. Last night he was, and I slept closer to God than I have in longer than I care to think about.

I feel strongly that Aaron is a gift being given back to me. That our lives couldn't support our connection those years ago, but now we can. I'm reminded that I didn't seek out a relationship then, because I had everything I could want in terms of emotional support from him, and going back to that place of beloved contentment is not something I'm going to chalk up to coincidence.

My heart is screaming gratitude in a more visceral and primal language than I could ever voice.

Unrequited.

I really hate that I'm that girl now. You know the one. After a long day's work and when there are plenty of other stresses weighing on me, I can only think that I love someone who doesn't love me back. That I want to reach out in the night to seek comfort from someone I care so deeply about and have them feel the same, and be unable to.

I am trying to be understanding. To be someone who is worth loving. And not because I just AM. That seems to be a common undercurrent, at least with my many friends with their multiple relationships (and sometimes marriages) under their belts...that they expected their partner to love and accept them 100% for who they naturally are, no effort exuded, and that the mutual apathy is what tore them apart.

All of the ones I know of working..my italian parents, my papa bear and ma, my foster parents, are all relationships of sacrifice. Ones that weren't forged in easy times or places, but had to be worked at from the get.

And no, I'm not saying that if you're in one of those blissfully rare relationships that are easy from the word go means that you're not going to last. You're just rare. And probably in for a lot of craziness in the long haul that runs a higher risk of tearing you apart because you haven't had to sacrifice for each other until then.

So I wonder, always, if I'm making the right decision. If staying with someone who doesn't love me back is what I should be doing. I'm not obsessed with missing my opportunity with "someone better" or any of those cliches we comfort our dumped girlfriends with. I just don't know if I'm setting myself up for a fall that I won't want to recover from. How long can I stay in something like this without my self-worth fading like a firework after it's reached it's peak?

It's Steve's self worth that is keeping a wall between us, and it's mine that's on the line.

I'm scared and unsure, a combination of things I rarely ever feel for more than a few moments.

Writing it all out makes me feel better. Keep calm and carry on, right?