...she said
"Oh, baby, I feel so down.
Oh it turns me off,
When I feel left out"

I'm in a weird place. He's in a weird place. But we're going to make it work. It's on both our ends.
I am profoundly insecure. I'm terrified one day he is just going to "wake up" and that will be the end. I keep waiting for it to happen, that's the way it's always gone. Just one day they open their eyes and it's all over. He swears that will never happen, but don't they all?
Last night we talked, I drank, then he drank, we laughed, I cried. It was girly and shit.

I'm pretty nervous about going back to work tomorrow. I haven't worked in 2 weeks between being sick and vacation. I don't know why I'm so scared to go back. This time of year is always the hardest for me, the beginning of the holidays and all. I wish I could just skip over to January.

I'm going to chalk it up to post-vacation blues.

treat yo selfday

I'm back after spending 5 days on the Eastern Shore (that sliver of land across the Chesapeake that doesn't show up when you look at a picture of the state of Virginia. It's our little secret). R's parents have a house down there. It's become my favourite place to vacation. It's so secluded and it's rare that you ever see another person out and about. I've lived in some one horse towns before, but this beats them allllll. I love it.

Here are the pictures I took. I'd love to learn more about photography and maybe take lessons or something one day, but for now all I have is my iphone.

Dinner

I'm fucking sexy and I know it.

View from the hammock overlooking Masden Gut.

This egret was about 15ft away from me. I took this while I was in the hammock.

This place has awesome smoothies and the best tie-dye t-shirts (you can sort of see R's shirt on the left. Cool, huh? That's also about the most I saw of him too ) I'll have to take some pictures of the shirts I have from past trips sometime.

Another Machipongo Trading Company sign.

Only sunset I had my phone on me for. Took this from the dock on Masden Gut looking out towards the bay.

R and his brother found this whale jaw bone out on the Barrier Islands a few years ago, and then they hung it up in their house. I just love it.

Kelly's Gingernut Pub in Cape Charles. The only bar within hours of the house and the only restaurant in Cape Charles that I'm aware of. They have DELICIOUS She-Crab soup. Like the best. Period. If you're ever there, get a bowl. You'll thank me later.

The beach at Cape Charles. R and I made up half of the entire population of the beach. The water was still comfortable and we waded out about 20 yards, the water never even reaching our knees. This was my favourite night, just standing in the gentle surf in his arms watching the birds and the sky.

All in all it was a very "lonely" vacation. I spent most of my time reading in the hammock while R paddled around the gut and bay. I was still very weak from almost 2 weeks of not being able to eat or move so we didn't do much of anything together. I did finish books 3 and 4 of the Song of Ice and Fire series and am a couple hundred pages into the 5th one as well as a good way through the first Compendium of the Walking Dead (Oh.My.God.)
It was just what I needed after all these months of chaos and crazy; quiet time to reflect and read and read and read and read and read.
It was nice to be alone, together.

I've always had the desire for privacy. I never had it growing up. I shared a bedroom and bathroom with my little sister (actually come to think of it I've never had my own room). Our door was taken off once, I don't remember why, but I remember my dad saying that privacy was a "privilege", not a right. Even my diaries were read by my parents if they came across one. My mom told me it was her duty as a parent to read my diaries. I never understood that. I never even had the chance to keep anything from my parents. The first time I actually had any sort of "right" to privacy was when I began going to community college. In VA it's law that parents can't access their child's files unless there was paperwork filed by the student giving parents access to all their information. Needless to say, I didn't file that paperwork. Regardless they still demanded all my passwords to my emails, my FaceBook, and for a while, my Xanga. That was part of living in their house, absolutely no privacy. Because of all this I'm keenly aware and respectful of people's needs for privacy.
R and I share a computer now. The computer he was using went belly up the other day. When he said his computer had died I immediately made his own user on my laptop complete with his own password. I don't care what his password is. I'd almost rather not know it. I trust him, he trusts me, and we both respect each others privacy. 
I don't understand girls who feel compelled to know every single thing their boyfriend is doing or every person they are talking to or all the websites they've gone to. That just sounds like too much work! Why do I need to know all his information? Why can't people actually just learn to trust each other? Why is it more common for couples to have to share all their personal passwords and information that it is for couples like us who just don't? We don't have anything to hide from each other. Hell, we can barely keep presents a secret from each other. 
Do I get curious? Sometimes, I'll admit it. There's been a couple of occasions where I may have skimmed his history or looked through his texts briefly, but I never felt good about it. I always felt immensely guilty. How did I feel when that was done to me? Violated, untrustworthy, bad. It's not like I ever had anything to hide, but I never had the opportunity to even hide anything. And even now that I do have privacy and the "opportunity" to hide stuff, I still don't. Again, it's just too much work. It's so much easier to just be honest. It's so much easier to just trust R than it is to keep constant tabs on him and everything he does.
I don't know if this means I'm naive and dumb or if I'm just awesome.

This has been a super frustrating week. I started off Sunday by waking up and just feeling off. I had that "tickle" in the back of my throat and I knew that was not a good sign. And it wasn't. I ended up staying home that day instead of going up to my mom's house and visiting with my grandparents. Monday was about the same except with a fever. Now my lungs are so packed full of crap that it's hard to breathe, let alone anything else. So far nothing I've been prescribed or have taken over the counter has done anything to move it. Steam and tea aren't helping much either.
And I don't know what it is about me being sick that turns R so mean. Maybe mean is too strong, but he is a lot more grumpy than usual. I didn't go to the doctor as soon as I wanted to (I wanted to go Monday) because he thought I was overreacting and was just generally not encouraging about it at all. It's just discouraging. I'm already miserable enough being sick, and on top of that I'm bored out of my mind and lonely. I haven't been able to play with the critters because I literally only have enough energy to crawl to the couch in the morning and then back to bed at night. It doesn't help that I'm not able to eat anything solid, and very little of anything liquid.
Tribble as fleas. We rinsed her in boiled rosemary (don't worry it was not boiling hot when we rinsed her!) and then it took an hour and a half to dry and brush out the mats. We gave her some flea meds we got from the vet last night. Hoping those will start killing the little buggers soon.
We're supposed to go to the beach on Monday with R's parents. They have a house out on the Eastern Shore. R has been so grumpy and aloof I'm not sure if I even want to go. I feel like everything is a fight and all I do is apologize for breathing (but I already apologize for that anyways so it's not like that's anything new. I need to apologize less). I think it'd almost be more relaxing to just stay home and work. At least I'll be useful.
I'm just lonely, discouraged, tired, and feeling like death. I think all that combined is making everything seem worse than it really is. I just want to cuddle and take a nap, but I feel like I'm on trial, and I have to walk on eggshells. I'm too tired for that. I've tried asking what's wrong and if it's anything I've done, but all I get it, "It's been a rough week." 
Maybe I should just leave it at that. It has been a rough week.

And the winner is...

Tribble!!!

I look terrible because I'm sick, but this is the first picture of me with the literal definition of a "dust bunny".

So far we have yet to settle on a name. Some of the ones in the running include, Tesla, Wompa, Tribble, Dust, and Gandalf. It doesn't help that we haven't yet been able to figure out what sex it is. We have been referring to it with female pronouns but it's still so young that it's almost impossible for us to tell (at the same time Wedge was over a year old by the time we finally determined he was a "he". That's due to the fact that he HATES being picked up, much less flipped over and prodded in the nether regions.
All our pets are named after some form of fandom, we don't want to break the cycle with this one!

9/18
~~~

It's official! The name is TRIBBLE!!!!

I'm irked right now, fevery with the full blown flu and some of the worst body aches I've ever had so bear with me.

I'll get straight to the point; It offends me to the point of anger whenever someone demeans my relationship with R based on the sole fact that we aren't LEGALLY married. Last night is case and point. A friend of mine on FB made a status addressed to "married womenz" asking if anyone else gets weirded out by the fact that other men find them attractive other than their husbands. I chimed in that yes, I too am a little weirded out and confused when someone other than R finds me attractive and says so. Her response was vague, and probably not meant to offend at all. It was a quote from Arrested Development "Don't get egg all glittered up for Easter." I'm probably reading way too much into that (I took it as "don't put your cart before the horse, cuz you're not married yet") but there have been legitimate times where this particular person (and others) has told me that my relationship isn't anything like hers and her husband's based on the sole fact that we aren't legally married on paper.

R and I live together. Both our names are on the lease. Both our names are on the utilities. We split all the bills 50/50 when we can (eg. R has just returned to work after 5 weeks out with a compression fracture. During that time I paid for everything, that is what I'm supposed to do as his partner, regardless of whether or not my last name is the same). We've stuck by each other through sickness and in health. He went with me to every doctor's appointment and emergency room visit when my migraines were out of control. He moved in with me to make sure that I ate and took care of myself when my depression took a horrible dive. We've stuck by each other for richer and for poorer. We lived in a house that had no electricity to the front part. We've gathered up every piece of change we could find just to get something to eat at McDonald's. We have  good jobs now that do more than just pay the bills. We get to go out on dates every once and a while now, as well as small trips out of town. We love and cherish each other. We consider each other's feelings with the highest regard. If something I want to do would really upset him, I don't do it, not because he told me not to, he will let me do whatever would make me happy, but because I respect his feelings and the fact that he honestly tells me when something would make him uncomfortable. He does the same for me. We love and support each other with every fiber of our being.

I really hate it when people tell me how we just don't know what married life is like because we aren't married. THA FUCK???? NOBODY would know we aren't married if we weren't totally upfront about it. I don't think there is any difference between our relationship and that of a married couple. We sleep in the same bed, we have sex (awesome sex), we kiss each other goodbye and miss one another when we're apart. We take vacations just for "us". We're going to get married, that was always the plan. We were going to elope as soon as I got into Tech School while I was in the Air Force. Since that didn't pan out, we decided to wait because I really need health insurance, and I'm covered under my stepdad's plan so long as I'm not married. Neither of us are receiving benefits from our jobs. We're not married because making sure we have insurance is MORE IMPORTANT THAN A PIECE OF PAPER.

Seriously, what is a friggin piece of paper going to do to our relationship other than the fact I get to change my last name? I hate my last name now, so I'm pretty psyched to get a new and cool last name, but I highly doubt that a name change is going to all of a sudden magically transform my relationship with R and make it more "legitimate."

Maybe I'm just naive. Maybe marriage really is magic and when we say "I do" we will be transported to a wonderful magical land filled with unicorns and rainbows and we'll shit skittles and the clouds are cotton candy.

I still call bullshit. 

R worked an 11 hour shift yesterday. This is not an easy task in a busy restaurant. Last night he came home late, completely wiped out. His brother G came over to meet and play with "baby" (still haven't thought of a name that "sticks"). We were so antsy for R to get home and meet his newest critter child. I didn't say one word about it all day. That was hard. I wanted so badly to sent a text saying, "I have a surprise for you!" or, "You're gonna kill me when you get home" but I didn't. When R walked in the door he was so haggard looking, and his foot was bothering him. We met him at the door and told him we had something he needed to see upstairs in the bedroom but he quickly said, "No, not right now. I'm starving and my foot hurts." So that kinda killed the way I had planned to surprise him. Instead, I went upstairs and picked up Baby and brought it downstairs and told him to close his eyes.
These are the pictures G took when I told R to open his eyes.

When he saw Baby he started to tear up a lil bit and said, "Oh my god, what is it? It's the cutest thing I've ever seen! Is it ours?!" It was love at first sight. Which is clearly written all over his face in these pictures. 

I can't wait to see the look on his face when he holds his first human child for the first time. It's going to be a sight to behold. <3