That girl

Today I had to go to Walgreen's to pick up a prescription, so once there was a break in Monsoon Redding, I put on my running shoes and drove to the pharmacy. Roads were quiet, parking lot practically empty, got a primo parking spot, went in. And that's when the ENTIRE place heard it. *scritch scritch scritch* Frick dang suck. The ridges in the bottom of my shoes, the same ridges that keep me from falling on my keister on the wet cement, have now made me THAT GIRL. The one with the ridiculously loud shoes. I even wiped my feet before I went in! Kid you not, people were staring, that's how loud they were.

I've been that girl a lot lately. Not the one with attention whoring shoes, but the one with lots of life cliches. The newest one is how absolutely incomplete I feel without Husband around. He's back in Oregon for two months, and I am here with the girls and I AM LONELY. Before I was married, I could go weeks with minimal human contact and be happy as a clam. Fast forward to now and he's so much apart of my life, I sit around having one sided conversations and asking for opinions from my breakfast. Who does that?!

When we first got married (and lived in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment with two people's worth of stuff and a dog), we used to get on each other's nerves. Too much togetherness. We were so used to doing our own things and sometimes it was hard to consider the other when making a decision (hence the Great Meltdown of 2009, which resulted in the migration to a bigger apartment and more breathing room). I know some of you are reading this and shaking your heads and feeling superior. Go ahead, judge me. Doesn't affect me. Know why?

Because I'm the first to admit I was part of the problem and it was my mother who hit the nail on the head (sidenote: my mother is not the milk and cookies with a sympathetic ear mother; no mine is a milk and cookies with a HUGE dose of realism mother). After I made the mistake for the umpteenth time of calling my mother for consolation, she said a phrase I'll never forget. "Of course you feel this way; you're a free spirit." Now I have never thought of myself as a free spirit, I have too many neuroses. Free spirits are hippies dancing in fields or hippie-like people who write poetry and do bohemian things. I dance in my living room (and sometimes weddings) and hate poetry and I can't even tell you what bohemian things are. I said as much to Mother, to which she replied, horse puckey (she didn't but that abouts sums it up). Free spirits go where they want, when they want and heaven forbid you try and tell them no or ask them to operate within confines not of their choosing.

Holy crap. I hope when I'm as old as magma, I too am that wise (that's for not being a sympathetic ear mom). But what do I do with such wisdom? I live it. I had to let myself be me and Husband be Husband, which is why I miss him so much. He's pretty awesome.

Perhaps, we should have figured this out before we got married. Chalk one up to inexperience. And as far as cliches go, well, this is one I'm not breaking free from any time soon. That person who walks around Walmart on the phone not paying attention, that's one I'll work on.

Happy anniversary to us.