Not to be all maudlin, but...

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to those of you reading this whom I have been neglecting or ignoring lately. I am never very good at the communication thing, and it is the very first thing to go when I am faced with difficulties in my life. The past several weeks have been a bit of an ordeal, forcing me to ask some really hard questions and face some uncomfortable truths, and I had to let something slip away. Unfortunately, that something was the connection I cling to in order to maintain my usual equilibrium. I am sorry. I cherish you and I love you, and I was not deliberately shutting you out. I just only had enough strength to do what needed to be done. Now I'm through it, and maybe things will be sort of back to normal. As normal as things ever are for me, anyway.

Sometimes the Universe gives us gifts, you know? And sometimes She gives us lessons. Occasionally, She hands us a pop quiz in order for us to appreciate what we have before us. I feel like I just came up on one of those quizzes. I have come very close in the past several weeks to ruining something glorious because I am insecure and gun shy. I keep throwing the door wide open so he can walk right out if he wants to: telling him flat out that I was keeping an open mind about what happened when I was out of town, telling him that I thought he didn't want me enough, telling him I am full of jealousy and irrationality. Then I needed him really badly and didn't know how to tell him, and somehow he knew anyway. The Universe handed me a giant platter of humility and told me to choke it down and understand that I have been graced with his love and respect. She is offering the both of us the chance to be better people with each other than we have ever been with anyone else, and it will behoove us not to fuck it up.

So thank you, ell and vee and S.F. and K.D. and Em and H. and Meemah and Roo and the other ones who read this and worry about me and love me and hold me up. The Universe is teaching me again and again and again that love is what keeps this incomprehensible rock spinning in space. Before I learned that lesson with him, I learned it with you, and I am unspeakably grateful for your presence in my life.

And thank you, Z., for standing up and standing next to me and being what I want and need. I can't believe it took something this huge and dramatic to convince me that you are being 100% honest when you tell me that you are in it to win it. I hear you. Finally. Stick around, okay? I have a feeling big things are in store for us.