Boss! Boss! The Plane! The Plane!

Places everyone, places!

Tattoo (see what I did there?  no?  so young...so so young).  I'm here to talk to you about the tattoo.  I don't have tattoos.  By the time I decided there was something I was passionate enough about in order to justify using permanent ink on my delicate skin, I was a dad.  And I had other shit to deal with.  And it seemed...self indulgent.  And Leslie wasn't a fan.  It was something I didn't NEED.  So I didn't do it.  But, as previously mentioned, now I'm doing it.

Today I met with an artist to talk about designing something.  I gave him a deposit.  And February 26th I have my first sitting.  He said 5 hours.  Then two more sittings.  That's a lot of sitting.  And hours.  And ink.  All in.

I mentioned before that I was looking now at an owl.  And that's all I'll say for now.  From now until February 26th he's going to work on the design and when I go sit down for five hours...I hope to have a design that I'm happy with and that means something to me.

I was excited to go to the consult.  We spent an hour talking about it.  He wrapped a page around my arm and marked it off so he had the design dimensions.  And then we looked at pictures and I told him what my vision was.  And he quickly sketched up some things and asked questions and took notes.  And then I left, $100 poorer, but excited.
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Meanwhile...

On my way to pick up my weekly Pad Thai, I stopped by the jeweler to check on my ring re-sizing.  "You have your envelope?"
"No."
"Well, do you know your order number?"
"No.  But...I DO know my name."
*grumbles*

They hadn't called me, but it seemed like long enough to resize a ring 1/2 a ring size to ME.  And apparently it was.  Because my ring was ready.  Good to have it back.

Stalling

I keep putting off the wedding story.  I keep finding other stories instead.  And it's okay, but I think it's like New Year's Eve.  I think Leslie's life was in 2015 and so I was reluctant for 2015 to end even though she died then too because she wouldn't be in 2016.  So maybe I'm reluctant to keep writing about Leslie's life because I already know the ending.  Like a really good book that you love reading so much that you're sad when it ends even when it ends happily...and each story I tell about her gets me close to that ending.  And it doesn't end happily.  Or if it does, it ends in the happy sad way that a life well lived always ends.  Bittersweet...what a nice way to live a life...any ending seems too soon.

But there are things I want to say...need to say...about watching someone you love pass.  About things that we said to each other and to our children.  Some things I know I've already said.  Some things I can't remember if I've said.  Some things...when I think about them...my chest tightens and I feel like I can't breathe.  Those are the hard things.

But they'll get said.

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I took my wedding ring to the jeweler today.  I tried moving my wedding ring to the ring finger of my right hand.  It fits.  Snugly.  Too snugly.  After a couple days I started getting worried and pried it...with the aid of some soap off my knuckle.  So then I moved it to my pinky.  And every so often, when I wasn't really thinking about it...I'd make a sudden gesture and the ring would fly off my finger, rolling to a stop....somewhere.  And when I found it I'd be all panicked because I'd almost lost it.  And so I decided to have it resized for my right finger, which, apparently, is about 1/2 a ring size bigger than my left ring finger. 

I was putting THAT off too.  Like everything in this house...one step closer to absolute.  Her clothes still hang in her closet.  Her dresser is still filled.  Her night stand is more or less untouched.  I'll get to it...tomorrow.  So today when I picked up my shrimp pad thai I stopped off at the jeweler and walked in and handed over my wedding ring to have them resize it for my other hand.  I walked out of the store without it.  My hand feels naked and exposed and wrong.  That ring hasn't been off my finger for 16 years.

And again, like New Year's Eve, I was really feeling like there'd be this 'change' like when Frodo takes off the One Ring...invisible to visible.  But there wasn't.  It was fine.  More dread than anything.  And that was a relief.  But also made me feel sad.  Like letting go of it was easier than it should have been.

Still fighting that feeling that in order to go on living I need to suffer to grieve 'properly' instead of just thinking about her and being sad and sort of...homesick for her.

Hey, if you really want to cry...I was writing this from the treadmill and no lie, Jamie Lawson's song, "Wasn't Expecting That" came on.  Listen to it.  It's beautiful.  But a punch in the gut.  My friend Bec once begged me not to listen to it and I kept pretending to misunderstand her and agreeing that yes...I would listen immediately.  And then the kicker came and I was like..."WHY DID YOU MAKE ME LISTEN TO THAT???" for comedic effect.  I think she probably really liked that a lot.  Anyway.  Made me cry.  But she warned me.