It’s very hard telling the man you’re in love with that you’ve met the man you’re going to marry.  Tougher still that it doesn’t bother him.

The long-awaited list:

1. A vintage bowling ball and bag
2. Three winter coats I haven’t seen since last winter
3. My favorite green raincoat that has been missing for-ev-er
4. Two pairs of emergency underwear (you gotta keep those around, you never know when you’ll need them)
5. Bucket full of Ya-Ya hat-making supplies that I remember putting in the trunk on Jennifer’s wedding day
6. The bouquet I carried in Amanda’s second wedding
7. Eight pairs of shoes, three which I have never worn
8. A flower pot and doll stand that I was supposed to drop off at Amanda’s house after Hope and Need (in September)
9. A red sweater my sister bought for me when I was a freshman in high school
10. A small saucepan
11. Nine unfinished wooden cabinet doors
12. An extra spare tire. . . seriously, I have no idea where it came from
13. A book I started reading when I was first hired at Humana
14. The lease agreement for my first apartment
15. A black vampire cape from Halloween (which Halloween, I do not know)
16. A scrapbook full of really old family photos
17. The business plan for Help The Ville
18. A computer mouse
19. Three scarves, a belt, and no fewer than ten pairs of socks
20. A mason jar containing a spare key to the car
21. A City of Louisville parking ticket from July 21, 2007;  the day Amanda and I camped out at the 4th Street Borders to get our wristbands for the new Harry Potter book (unpaid, by the way)
22. Copy of _Mere Christianity_ by C.S. Lewis. Yeah, that seemed like such a good idea at the time.
23. Copy of _I, Lucifer_ to balance out the above
24. Two half-used jugs of windshield washer fluid
25. Three ice scrapers
26. One glove

No dead bodies.

Here are several things I discovered in my bed upon waking this morning, and are still here at bedtime. Some should be here, some should not.

1. Humana-issued laptop computer
2. One fuzzy blue sock
3. One fuzzy red sock
4. Theodore E. Bear the panda/teddy bear
5. Three socks, none matching another in the group
6. One pair of green fleece pants I remember wearing to bed Wednesday night but haven’t seen since
7. One Harvard Business Review case study on Colgate-Palmolive
8. Charger for my iPhone
9. One wife-beater tank top I remember wearing to bed Friday night but haven’t seen since
10. One pair of perfectly matching white socks
11. Fluffy feline named Fancy… on MY pillow
12. Pair of reading glasses in conspicuous proximity to HBR Colgate-Palmolive case study
13. Tags from a new article of clothing
14. Plastic clothes hanger from said article of clothing
15. Of course, myself in all my glory

. . . And one mechanical pencil stuck between the mattress and box spring.

Clearly, I need to start sleeping in the middle of the bed, rather than rotating on one side of it all night long like a rotisserie chicken.

And oddly enough, I honestly did not notice all of these things in my bed. Makes me wonder what (or whom!) else may have sneaked into my bed without my knowledge. Hmmm….

I never cared about what it was doing to her.

I do now.

So, last year sucked, and it sucked looong and hard. A brief moment of elation in the early Spring, harrowing health-related event in July, and general suckiness throughout the year. Mostly romance related.

Grad school proved to be a mistake, but by the time 2008 was over, I was halfway through. Too late to quit now.

Fancy was sick most of the year. But seems to be better now. Lying on my belly as I type.

Things started turning around before Christmas. Since then, they’ve gone a bit more South, but overall I’m doing okay.

One thing worth mentioning – Quite some time has passed since I’ve indulged in the guiltiest of pleasures. With time, the urge and desire has waned to nothing, the motivation has disappeared, and a resigned acceptance has set in. I’ve started dating again and have met someone I may be able to tolerate in large doses. For all accounts and purposes, I’ve moved on, and there is no room for relapse.

That being said. . . I once predicted, privately, that I would become an empty, emotionless shell of a human if he weren’t a part of my life. I was right. Nothing has ever hurt as much as it has hurt to watch him gradually write me out, to go from an important person he appeared to care about to a nuisance he was completely indifferent and apathetic to. In all fairness, I haven’t made this an easy year for him either. I just wanted him to hurt as much as I was hurting after the summer and I tried to inflict that and get his attention in a million wrong ways. But to be ignored, discounted and rejected by someone I would gladly give up anything for has been the impetus for some extremely dark days and the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever lived through. If I could, I would tell him what happened, why I put him through this, and how incredibly sorry I am for it all.

But I did live through it. At a macro level, I’m really much happier as a result. There’s a certain comfort in hitting rock bottom, and a calm moderation in finally just knowing where I stand. I’m happy with the friendship we share now and look forward to the days ahead. Examining my life at a micro level, I’m unsure whether or not I’ll ever have feelings for anyone that come close to those that I had for him, but a friend once told me that we only get to feel that way once in our lives. And I’m okay with that. In the meantime, I’ll explore the way I feel about others. Maybe someday I’ll find someone who laughs like him, with the same kind blue eyes and quick wit and mature demeanor. Maybe not.

In short, having lived through 2008 gives me confidence that I can live through whatever 2009 throws my way.

Kicking and screaming.

The scene is this: it’s the day before Thanksgiving, 2008. A Wednesday, naturally. Over the four days prior to this particularly dreadful day, my heart and mind had been trampled by a vast array of assorted traumatic events and emotions: having potentially lost one of the most important people in my life, dealing with new breeds of stress at work, trying to decide whether to stay in grad school or not, several family issues cropping up here and there. And in dealing with this, I found sleep impossible. So Tuesday night I took my standard three over-the-counter sleeping pills. Long story short, by the next night I no longer trusted myself to be alone. So a benevolent friend invited me on a short road trip the next night and my immediate mental reaction was “Of course I’ll go. That increases my chances of being hit by a large truck.” Sharp as she is, friend made me take one of her kids in the car with me. Good call.

Grateful for the change of scenery and happy to see this friend’s sister for the first time in ages, I was already feeling a tiny bit better by the time we got to Columbus. I hauled my overnight bag into the guest bedroom and friend and I collapsed across the bed while her two kids piled on top of us. The oldest (7), snuggled up next to me as I stared at the ceiling fighting back tears. He looked at me, took a deep breath and said, quite randomly:

“Hey, Leslie, you know how when you’re playing a video game the first level is really really easy? Then the next level is still easy, but not as easy as the first one? Then the next one is a little bit harder than the second one? And then the next and the nextandthenextandthenext….”

“Yes, Sean, I know…”

“Well, they do that on purpose, don’t they?  They make the first level really easy so you’re ready to do the second level, then the second level is a little harder so that you can handle the third level. So each level is just like practice for the next level. So if you can get through this level, you know you’re ready for the next one.”

Then he got up and ran into the kitchen.

I remained there for quite some time after my friend, too, departed for the kitchen, ceiling-staring and thinking about what Sean had said. Either he’s very intuitive and perceptive or totally random, or I’m reading way too much into what he said. Regardless, I stayed still, trying to imagine what level could possibly be worse than this, and the last of the tears I had for that situation fell from my cheek onto the nondescript, guest-bed comforter. Then I wiped my eyes and stood up, shook it off, and followed the crowd into the kitchen.

I beat this level, but not without sustaining some pretty major damage. But that’s okay. I’m taking time to heal, and when I’m powered up again, I’ll get back in the game. Significant health already restored, prognosis promising. And as much I hoped that week would be the hardest level I’ll have to get through before beating the game, I keep in mind now that it’s just practice for the greater challenges that lie ahead.