If I live to be 102

It's been raining all day, and I've finally come inside and taken off my wet socks for good, I hope. I'm not the kind of person who remembers an umbrella, I guess, and I've been running to and from my car all day. Getting rained on makes you look bad, like you don't have your act together, I think.

I had Implanon training right after work today, so I drove over to the hotel in my scrubs. I figured, everyone else has had a long day too, right? I'm sure I'm not the only one who had to park and walk in the rain. So I walk into the Marriot's conference room wiping the rain off my arms and, uh, face, and said hello to all the drug reps and other doctors and NPs. I sat down, and realized there was a mirror directly across from me, and....you know those times when you're kind of in denial about how bad your hair looks, because that morning it looked pretty good, but then it's like ten hours later, and you haven't really checked yourself out since you left the house, and you think it's probably still at least decent, but actually...you're wrong? Yeah. And no one else was wet, either.

So I was kind of a mess, but then the PA sitting beside me was talking about her latest dog show, and I got distracted listening to her. She has 9 dogs, and she shows them, and she was saying that she's gotten into all this weird music because you have to have instrumental music on in the background when you show a dog, and it has to fit the dog. Right now she's showing a toy poodle. So you can just imagine what kind of music goes with that.

Anyway, this weekend I went back up to St. Louis, to see Bechtels and Steph and April. I thought it wouldn't feel that weird to go up there, because I used to go up there before PR and see them all, but it did. It was hard, and I didn't really get it, because I loved being with them. I don't know. I guess it's been good to be far away, and wrap myself up in work and life in Dalton. I've been trying to be careful with how I think about the relationship, so most of the time it feels like it requires too much effort to wonder about it carefully, and I end up telling myself that God's always been in charge anyway and shifting attention back to whatever else I was doing. It's okay. It's unromantic. It's kind of crappy.

But my life isn't kind of crappy, it's actually okay. I'm interested in what's going on. I went on a hike with Kristen last week, I went to St. Louis, I'm going to hang out with my godbrothers soon, I'm going on a cruise in 4 weeks, and...here's some pictures. From my interesting life.

Saturday in October

It is getting to be the time of year when I watch the sunrise on the way to work in the mornings. I forgot about that part. But I don't have to go to work today.

I'm eating breakfast. It's my favorite kind of cereal. Linda brought it to me on Monday night after work, along with flowers, chocolates, Halloween pencils, and ice cream. She and Manny made me dinner and folded my laundry and stayed until I started to wander up the stairs towards my bed.

Every day this week, I've had friends calling and coming over and inviting me out and talking to me on the phone. I feel like....my friends really love me a lot. And I feel grateful that God is making his love for me so easy to pick up on right now.

Six days ago, PR and I decided to break up. And afterwards I went to work, and I caught babies, and I read my library books, and I went to church, and I went out to lunch with my coworkers, and now I have a big pile of scrubs that need to be washed like at the end of any other week. Everything is the same. And it's not how I expected it to be, not that I was really anticipating this. But all the pictures of us don't bother me that much; while the sight of that book that we were reading together, that kills me.

And I have all those questions, those millions of questions I've gotten after every other break-up, those ones that you don't ask him because the answer wouldn't be satisfying, the kind that fade in importance once you really let the thing go in your head.
So I am sad. And I have laundry to do, and a shower to take, and cereal to eat, and later, Lewin boys to babysit. It'll probably be okay.