Holy Moly

Five months ago today, I made out with a stranger on the patio of a bar.

I haven’t been in a relationship for this long since… since… 2008…? Shit, I can’t remember.

Also? This is the happiest I’ve ever been. When I see Colin, I am filled with all kinds of disgusting sweet fluttery thoughts.

Little things happen all the time that remind me why he’s such an amazing boyfriend. This last week, he was really put through the ringer.

You see, the second week of recovery from having your tonsils removed is the worst. The pain from the huge cauterized portions of your throat has nearly subsided, as the underlying tissue begins to heal and the nerve endings simma’ down now.

Then the scabs start coming off and, if you can picture this, imagine sucking on the scabs on a child’s knees. I mean, mine weren’t THAT gross — there wasn’t caked in dirt or lint stuck in the scabs, but they were pretty disgusting. And they were IN MY MOUTH. And when they started to come off, it wasn’t like one big giant throat scab comes off but rather, little bits and pieces of throat dangle in the back of your mouth. You can feel them touch your uvula. You can tell when you swallow and little bits of tissue are moving down your throat. You can tell. The whole process is right there in your mouth.

You know how you bite your cheek or something and you can’t stop running your tongue over it, obsessively exploring all the corners of your mouth. It’s like that, except you can FEEL it, but you can’t touch it.

I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to just stick a toothbrush or something way back in there and scrub at the scabs JUST to get the skin to fall off. Fuck! It was so gross and so frustrating and also — SOOO painful. Pain radiating into my ears, causing me to clench my jaw, grind my teeth. I gave birth to a baby at home, on purpose, without medication. And that hurt… But this? This was worse.

And so what do you do when you’re in pain? Yep. Sip, sip, sippin’ on the sizurp. The liquid percocet stuff my doctor had prescribed tasted like ass, but I didn’t even grimace taking it during the second week. I was hardened to the stuff. And it really did make me feel better… Physically.

Emotionally? Oh, dear. Bless my boyfriend’s heart. An up and down roller coaster of weepy, “I miss you”s followed by bratty, curt text messages exclaiming my own frustration because I was THAT girl that sat around missing her boyfriend and it was ALL HIS FAULT for being so sweet and great. And WHY did he have to live an hour away? And also, next time you get a girlfriend, you shouldn’t spoil her in the beginning like you spoiled me. You can’t take off all these weekends from work and skittle around together for the WHOLE WEEKEND only to actually get back into some kind of professional routine and start working all weekend again!

*pout*

*stomp my feet*

*throw myself onto the bed*

*snotty sobs*

And my poor boyfriend! He was just like, “Oh… Baby!” There was nothing he could do. After four days of this up and down rollercoaster, I realized I couldn’t take any more of the percocet. Plus, I mean, the dosage I was taking at this point was the equivalent of three Tylenols. So, I stopped with the hard drugs and switched to Tylenol. And I was back to normal again.

(This is when the boyfriend — and likely, every other person I interacted with during that zombie, emotional week — rejoices.)

Of course, when something like this happens — when my boyfriend shows me that he’s capable of being empathetic and that he cares about my emotions and that he wants to do things to make me happy and more comfortable — I’m reminded of the shit stain of a track record I have carried with men and what kind of absolute bullshit I used to take from “boyfriends” and my exhusband. And I don’t mean to undersell my boyfriend to say that he’s doing the basics — because it really is so much more than that.

But on the daily… On a regular basis… He goes out of his way for me — even when I’m being a crazy, on-prescription-drugs jerk — because he loves me.

Last night, we were at a friends watching TV. He was eating Triscuits and crunching really loudly. I was curled into his shoulder and teased him about how loud it was, that I couldn’t hear because his crunching was TOO LOUD! We all laughed and continued to watch the TV.

A few minutes later, I realize he’s still eating the Triscuits… Only now, he’s taking these teeny, tiny bites and really making a conscious effort to chew very quietly. I giggled, told him I was joking before. But smile, so satisifed, that even in something like that — something so simple — he’s thinking of ways to do things for me.

I’m a lucky, lucky girl. Five months. Damn.