Now we can swim any day in November

iFail at blogging. I couldn't bear the thought of letting all of November pass without writing anything...so here is a picture of us being a happy and married people.

We have been now been married 108 days, and we are enjoying a very sweet and adventurous existence. We live in Springville in a sweet “country” house by the train tracks. We often have deer abiding in our yard, undoubtedly drawn by the endless wellspring of eternal LOVE that is our home. We love being married and consider it a “far, far better thing than [we] have ever done before.” I wish I could write all the things I really want to say, but maybe people wouldn't understand. I don't know where I could write it. I'm so grateful. I really couldn't have imagined a better partner for myself than Jonathan. He is a kind, clever, loyal friend to me. I love how he whistles and sings around the house. Jonathan is probably not the first person who comes to mind when you imagine someone who never stops singing, but! He NEVER STOPS SINGING. He sings whatever song he heard last with my name substituted for all of the proper nouns. I love it, it makes me so happy. I also like to listen to him when he sings the hymns at church, especially the base parts, and when he whistles “New Slang” it melts my heart. I miss us being in school together and I'm a little sad we never will be again, but I am SO happy that this semester is finally grinding to a halt. It was torture to be flung directly from the island honeymoon beautiful life into the old rooms-like-cages again at the Y and only seeing Jonathan at night instead of being companeros (I know it's annoying that I even said that, because it's "real life," but real life is actually kind of crap sometimes, so I stand by it). This semester has required much more of me than last fall, when I ran blithely around all the time and practically lived at the Commune...I'm working as a therapist at Vantage Point and I have a nearly all-Spanish caseload. I work with "troubled" teenagers and their troubled and overwhelmed families. I love WMH; the people I work with are kind and fun and welcoming and I've never had such a productive internship in my life, but therapy can be daunting. It's a multi-faceted kaleidescope world. Some of the things I absorb in my heart, some of them make me feel more cynical and hopeless than I ever have before, other times I could wring the joy out of my own flesh. I am feeling more confident all the time, but there were a few weeks at the beginning of October when I was awash with cortisol and terribly anxious every night about going to work the next morning. I would mumble to myself in Spanish and wake myself up saying, "I can't do this." When I think of how sweet Jonathan was with me during that time, it brings tears to my eyes. He would let me curl up on his lap and tell me to listen to his heartbeat and it would calm me down. I love him, he is so good. I'm obsessed with being married to a social worker...not just a social worker but the most adamant advocate for human agency I've ever met...if you've ever had a real conversation with Jonathan you will know he is a philosopher and a seer of people's intentions. It's immensely helpful--sometimes I tell him about a case and he helps me click it right into place. My mind converts everything into feelings and his mind converts everything into ideas. We used to say when we were dating that I was Emotion and he was Reason. HA! I don't know if it's true all the way but I know he has what I need. Sometimes I feel sad thinking that he doesn't need very much from me. I feel that I benefit much more than he does from our relationship. It doesn't help that I'm sort of a freak, which he is everlastingly patient with. I want to serve him dramatically.
This is sort of a partial update, but there's so much more I could say, like how I cried in Modern Display when my Dad told me about his grandfather taking care of the garden in the nursing home, or how I miss weird things like going to PDR meetings on Tuesday mornings, and how I miss seeing people so much that it makes me self-loathe, and how I fantasize about moving to El Paso. I have to goal to blog every day in December, so we'll see how that goes. :) Carry on, carry on, carry on!