Thoughts

Without a doubt, Jason is my better half.  I know and understand that when we make friends it is because they like him and tolerate me.  Eventually I grow on people and become endearing - but first you have to come to know and understand my kind of crazy.  As I say this, I am hugging myself, loving myself.  Please do not flood me with emails telling me that I am good, and I am kind, and that people like me.  I know that.  I think I have even won a few people over to like me as well as they like Jason...I wouldn't dare say they'd choose me in a fight, but I might think it.

It has been almost a year since we began this journey.  I think that we got the ball started in late July of last year.  This year has been so up and so down and so everything in between.  We have celebrated and cried, laughed and yelled.  I'm ranking this as the second most difficult season that we have seen together, the first being the loss of Elliott (Jason's father).  While the lost of Elliott was not particularly difficult from the marriage point of view, it was so painful and raw that it was just awful all around.  We were not supposed to lose him, he was not supposed to leave us.  I suppose that the greatest lessons come from those lost too early - in that we have less time to take them for granted.

Now, difficult season number two.  We are best friends, and like all best friends we get on each other's nerves.  Living in the US we had a huge support network just a speed dial away.  We could gather to blow steam and smoke with any number of people.  We saw each other, but we saw other people too.  Now, it's just us.

You know how when you are at a busy restaurant you don't hear everything your partner says to you?  You probably hear 70% or so, but the other portion is just written off as lost to the background noise.  Certain things are not important enough to repeat, other things you regret saying right away so you feel grateful that they are unheard.  That was us in the US.  Now, we are the only diners and there is no music playing.  Everything I say, Jason hears, and vice versa.  It is as if we are yelling from across the small span of the dinner table - there is no, "What?" or "Huh?"  It's all, "I hear you loud and clear".  That can lead to a lot of animosity, a lot of grrrrr, a lot of annoyance.  Not to mention that it is a lot of pressure.  All my crazy is directed entirely at Jason now, there is no deflection or interference from my friends.

What I am saying is, we are making it.  It isn't easy all the time.  Some days it is downright grueling.  But, I'm pretty sure that there is not another person on this earth that I could do this with.  Advice to you - don't strand yourself on an inhabited island with anyone other than your Jason.

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