Happiness Is ...

Warning Label: this shit is sappy as hell. Read no further without a barf bucket at hand.

My heart feels so full that I'm afraid it might burst, so full that it fills my chest until I can barely breathe, so full that it hurts, so full that if I move just to speak, I might die. There aren't enough good words in the world to describe it. But I want to try. 

I said, I can't remember the last time I was this happy. 


She said, things really seem to be looking up for you. They are. I'll start at the top. 

Friday night, as far as I knew, I was just going over Jude's later on so we could go to a wedding together the next day. I guess I should preface all this with the fact that he always seems to be going to this and that cool and exciting event related to how cool and exciting his career is, and I confess I'm a little envious sometimes on account of the coolness and the excitingness. So on this particular Friday, one of these things is going on, and he asks me along. I got my hair done and I'm feeling pretty and he knows to tell me I am because he's amazing. This event happens to be an opening for one of his students, in a weird little gallery. This is the very place I called a nest of hipsters on my other digital outlets. It was fun, really, full of weird smelly people with weird smelly clothes, but all very nice and friendly, and we stood in a corner talking about the things that hipsters do and arguing about the plaid to non-plaid ratio in hipster packs. It's not as glamorous as I had imagined, it was much, much better. Drinking cream soda and making that's what she said jokes in a corner while judging everyone in the room is all I could ask for, haha. We wandered around after that for several hours, checking out bars and the people he knows, he told me about his last wedding date (prompting my determination to top that shit), before trudging home to watch TV and giggle until we passed out.

In the morning, I joked about ditching him and then we went to meet Sean at the cafe, coffee like we always do, a little earlier than I was ready to be up but okay just the same. I have to say, I fucking hate weddings. I've never had a good wedding date. I've never had a really good time at a wedding, ever. I never want to go to them. But  when Jude asked me to be his date, I blurted out, I'D LOVE TO without really thinking, and I wanted to go, and I wanted to show us both that the world is just full of tofu people and two amazing fun people like us can actually have a good time doing just about anything. And that's exactly what we did. 

Jude is a hilarious driver. We miss a turn, and there's an explosion of cursing and swerving and mumble mumble, until we get back on track. I play goofy hipster music. We stop at a funny little diner, chatting about the road trip we keep talking about maybe having someday (another experience I want to top), and sit by the mirror so I can stare at the other diners and he can stare at them in the mirror. The motel has us double-reserved. We set the fire alarm off running the shower to steam our clothes because there's no iron in the Courthouse Inn. Jude is tie-tying challenged. I can't sit still. But I know he looks incredible and I feel pretty and standing next to him in the mirror we look amazing. He drives us to this beautiful castle a few minutes late, walks me up the drive, and introduces me to his friends. His friends are welcoming, and he's got his arms around me, and I don't feel weird or scared or anything. We explore, run off and sneak under a barricade with our drinks and kiss where no one else can see, and get kicked out like kids in high school. Actually, we found every not allowed place to kiss in the whole darn place, and we found a perfect moment, through a field of fireflies at sunset, into the woods, alone ... I don't know, but my heart hasn't sat still since. We danced silly, we drank, went out, and came back, and I sleep better than ever because he's there. And we sure as hell topped his last wedding experience, and all the wedding experiences I've ever had. And maybe all the days and nights I've ever had. I was so happy that night I could have died.

Sunday, we ate bagels in the motel nook - and he took his time eating to tease me before we left because he knew we were late and I was antsy - and he drove me to Yardley to meet up with my two closest friends, Rich and Steph (or Steph and Rich, in case they're reading and have half a mind to assume the name order has anything to do with which one is my favorite). I haven't seen them in a while - Steph lives in Texas, and Rich is busy all the time - and we decided to go to Hurricane Harbor for the day. And, it was amazing. We went on every single ride. They have this new thing like a giant funnel you drop marbles in only the marbles are people in rafts! I went down the tallest steepest slide when Rich and Steph chickened out and went down the weenie little ones, and I even made friends in line. We had deep conversations about our friends and who we date - and not so deep ones about cock. We teased Rich about being in such good shape since our beach trip from last year. We had an innertube sumo match. Oh, and get this. Steph and I are so cute that we went up to one of the rides with Rich, intending to race down in our tubes, but the guys working up top were into us, they tried to steal us from Rich. And Rich got so protective! We ended up getting split up again on another ride later, but we were pretending to ignore him at the time for teasing too much, and so when we were ignoring him, we missed him fly off his inner tube and lose his glasses in the pool. We went out for sushi and ice cream in Princeton. We taught Rich how to eat edamame: Steph told him to put the whole thing in his mouth, and he realized this "as soon as it entered his mouth." That's what she said. Wehad an amazing touching conversation, dinner wherein Rich and Steph both tried new foods!, ice cream with rosemary and hot pepper ... Rich gave us each a CD, and we cried. Rich drove us home, and we talked about things I never talk about, and sad as it was, I realized how darn close I am to both of them, and writing that right now makes me want to cry. If you're reading, I love you guys.

Anyway, Rich took me back to Jude, late as usual, and ... Well, we were talking about not wanting to be those people that get upset when plans don't go right. And fuck if things didn't go as planned last night. This part is more detailed because it happened most recently and I remember it best. So here goes. We were gonna go to karaoke, but karaoke was cancelled. And there it was, a perfect opportunity. I'm not attached to my date plans, I'm really not - I've had great dates that were great because they went terribly awry - but this particular night I did something I never, ever do. I said, let's go bowling. Now, I hate bowling. I avoid it. I don't know where it came from. But I said it. And Jude said, I'm terrible at bowling. But instead of being a weenie, I said, me too, let's go anyway. It seemed like a great way to not take life so seriously and just be completely spontaneous. So we did. We took our time though, because we knew we'd suck. We sat in the Piazza. We strolled up 3rd Street. We played one game at North Bowl, we were accordingly terrible, and it didn't matter at all. It was fun! It was silly! We took crazy themed pictures in the photo booth and stared at the romance books and bacon-flavored gummies in the vending machine and Jude told me about this old video game machine that moves from venue to venue. We exchanged Mitch Hedberg jokes. I put on socks with flip flops. And then, because the night was young, we went to Charlie's and I asked him to teach me pool because he likes pool (he likes being good at pool) and he makes me want to learn to like the things he likes too. And I enjoyed it thoroughly. He's a great teacher. He never made me feel silly or inadequate, he didn't seem embarrassed that he was good and I wasn't, and he's really really cute when he makes a shot that he's excited about. Nothing else in the world mattered. And then we went home to watch TV and giggle until we fall asleep. 

I feel closer to him every time I see him. Every time I say or do anything. I'm happy. I'm having fun. I'm  getting comfortable without turning boring. I'm inspired to do selfless things. I feel safe and wanted. But it's exciting and wonderful and amazing and I haven't gotten this close to another human being since college. Since I was a young idealist. And he's got me remembering ... I still am.

And my life, even though it's not been perfect, it is great right now. It is amazing. I'm in love. I'm happy. This is perfect.