Monday, May 07, 2007

Maybe it's the Martini Talking, but...

My life is pretty good. For having a pretty rough beginning of 2007, I'm having a wonderful time. Perspective is an amazing thing.

I'm in Dallas tonight. Mike and I planned a trip here centered around a couple of client meetings that I set up in order to finagle a free trip to visit friends. In the interim, his appendix ruptured, which pretty much precluded his making the trip out this time. So I'm in Dallas alone. But I'm not alone at all.

Last night I sat down with Mike's ex-wife and talked. We talked about her life now, and the changes she made in order to get to where she is today and what she wants out of life. We talked about my life now, and my hopes and thoughts about the future. Then she met some of my friends and we regaled her with stories of our past stupidness and our plans for future stupidness. It was a fun night. Ok, there were some pretty awkward moments, but overall, it was one of the better things that has happened to me in the last 5 years.

And I did something similar with my sister in the last two weeks. We found some common ground and started moving forward with our relationship, despite the problems that have plagued us for years.

If you had asked me at any point in the last few years what weighs me down, I would have listed my guilt about my actions with respect to Jodie and my unhappiness with the state of my relationship with my sister. Suddenly, seemingly in a flash, both of those relationships are in the forefront once again, but this time not for negative reasons. Remarkable.

But I can do you one better. I have a friend in Dallas who was there for me during some tough times (see above, re: Mike's ex-wife) and we had a bit of a tumultuous relationship. Nothing earth-shattering or overly dramatic, but we had some misunderstandings and miscommunications. We've stayed in contact because her boyfriend is one of Mike's best friends, but for some time we were not that close as a result of the problems I listed above. Tonight I sat down with just her (something that most likely would not have happened if Mike could have made the trip) and we talked. Like old friends. And we reconnected while discussing how much commonality there was between her younger self and my younger self. Eerily similar stuff. And we had a great time and stayed up way too late (or the hotel just had last call way too early - I haven't decided which). And - note for 'stina - I had my first ever gin martini (Bombay Sapphire, and I didn't even ask for it dirty, although I'm generally a martini wuss). It was good.

The thing that is interesting to me at this moment is that, objectively speaking, I've had a hard year. My favorite person in the world through the course of my lifetime, my gramma, was very ill and finally died. I just sat through five hours of my best friend's surgery and helped him through a rather painful recovery. I'm not particularly fulfilled at work and I've felt some kind of awkward feelings with one (in particular) partner about the necessary time off I've had to take in order to deal with the not-so-great stuff that's been going on. Enough so that it sent me into tears while I was in Utah at Mike's hospital bedside. Oh, yeah, and I'm up for partner this year. And we aren't busy.

And yet... I am so happy right now. I feel unburdened and free. Oh, to savor this moment and remember it when life gets me down once again. Because this month has been serendipity.

Pardon me while I enjoy tonight's Texas-sized thunderstorm. We don't have those in Los Angeles, you know.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay! Did you like the martini?

I'm glad that you're reconnecting with people. There are a few that I probably should do the same with.

Leila said...

The martini was good. I'd had trouble separating which was the gin taste and which was the tonic taste in gin and tonics, and now I feel like I know what gin tastes like. Definitely not an everyday sort of drink for me, but every once in a while sounds pretty good.