Hey I - I'm still alive

A lot has changed.

I work for a new company now. I listen to rich people complain about their luxury cars for a living. Morally, I'm pretty much opposed to luxury brands even existing. But it pays more than I've ever made before - that is, I am finally earning enough to pay my bills. I may even get my credit card entirely paid off this year. That would be nice. So I suck it up.

I'm engaged. I honestly really wasn't expecting that. My last marriage was a disaster. I know nobody knew how bad it was. I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone about it. But like one of my friends said - when life without someone is just unthinkable, when it's not that you want marriage but that you want THEM so much...you marry them.

And on the possibility front, Steve got a new lawyer and will be sending his ex the divorce papers soon. His first lawyer...fell through. We'll put it nicely.

I am still working at the Renaissance Faire. It is still exhausting, but it's much easier than it was last year. The drama isn't about me, so I can easily avoid it. I'm 35 which is about 35 years too old for drama.

I've been up for an hour. Time for another coffee.

Journal name change

I used to use the name Platypus. I started in 2002, right after the movie Dogma came out. I viewed myself and my life as a big cosmic joke, and as Kevin Smith says, the platypus is proof that god has a sense of humor.

Well, no more of that. I'm not a joke. I can be very silly, and sometimes irrational, but I'm a human being and worth taking seriously.

I'm an atheist and a skeptic. I don't believe in astrology. Still, birth signs are useful shorthand for consciously forming identities. Holly is my Celtic birth tree. Holly people are supposed to be noble, high-minded, confident, generous, and affectionate. I'm happy to apply that particular inkblot to myself.

As for evolving - I've hit a point where I can see that I am good. I can also see that there is always more room to grow and do better, and I'm going to keep trying.

Engage!

We've been having the "well, if we ever did want to get married - which of course we don't" conversation for over a year. What sort of ceremony would it be, what would we do for a reception...yeah. Really sounds like the sort of thing the unwilling do, doesn't it?

So a couple of awesome friends got married in June. Steve and I went and had a wonderful time with a lot of wonderful people. We sang, we danced, we felt that amazing feeling that happens when a community of people is connected and you get to be a part of it and feel that connection.

On the drive home, we talked lots and lots about how wonderful it was, and played happy music, and were happily silly and mushy together.

And then he asked me to marry him.

At the time, I was doing around 80 mph on 84 heading home out of CT. So I did not get to freak out on the spot, because that would have killed us.

But I was freaking out. I still am. I said yes.

Despite everything that I've tried and failed to get right in the past, despite the difficulties that he and I have encountered (and overcome!). I said yes. Of course I said yes.

God yes. I love him, I love him, god yes I do want to marry him. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I want the whole world to see us and know our love. He is my rock and my anchor and the sweet fragile man I will protect with my life. I will love him with every breath.