Before You Go by Sarah Jaffe on repeat for about 10 minutes really get's the thoughts running wild. So much has happened... But all I can afford to care about is the here and the now.
I laid in bed and listened to the song, thinking pointedly of something else, when my grandmother crossed my mind. The meaning of the song had meant something entirely different to me until then. Now I'm not going to lie, I did my fair share of mourning, or crying, whichever you'd like to call it. But I'm not going to make this a very sad entry about very sad things. More just about fact, my very favorite thing in the entire world. Next to logic and reason, of course.
I inherited some jewelry from my grandmother. And some tea. For those of you NOT from Houston, there's an incredible tea shop in the mall called Teavana. Well my dad had bought his mom a gift set FULL of exquisite teas. They're tightly wound tea leaves that form a ball. And when you put them in hot water, they bloom! Like flowers! It's really very fun to watch.
So, I was laying in bed, hating various islands in the Pacific Ocean and feeling very, very sorry for myself. When I sat bolt upright! It was time to take the tea I had gotten from my grandmother's house out of my car. Where it has sat since before the funeral.
So I picked out some earrings, ran down and got the tea, and made some for the first time. It was absolutely delicious. It tasted like a strawberry doughnut! Hekili even sat at the table and watched me, though tearfully, enjoy a cup of my grandmother's tea. It was incredibly enjoyable and it seemed to warm up my insides a little. Which kind of brought my attention to how chilly they've been feeling lately...
I'm not known for my emotional warmth, lets put it that way. I'm very caring, I have a big heart and I'm good at comforting people. Buuuut, I have a pain threshold that's higher than my ooey gooey threshold. And I'm fine with it. I'm happy with the way that I am in that arena, truly. But it makes me think a little.... has it gotten in the way of things I might otherwise have had? Or made things, however brief, more meaningful if I'd just hugged more? or been more 'emotionally available'? (for the record, i just had a visible shiver.)
Maybe not so much available. but less abrasive maybe. I come off as abrasive a lot. Maybe if I were better at words dealing with things other than fact. I like proving things, and I like it when things are proved to me. Those things are nice, and safe, and easily worked with. Shit like emotions, I don't have much time for but really it's just because I can't back it up with some sort of equation or series of events. There's no book that says, without question, 'when he does this, it most certainly means this'. no such thing. so I have no desire to really enter much in to that area. Mostly because i don't like things i'm not good at. I like things i am good at. so i stick the basics.
I say what i mean, i mean what i say. I take pleasure in the little things, and inadvertently over look the sometimes more important things. Like showing affection in public. My definition of affection, the older i get, is just starkly different than it seems like everyone elses.
I should not be allowed outside of the house. And I should never be allowed back into Clear Lake.
