one week, six days

I am approaching the two-week anniversary of moving to Sarasota, and the only thing I miss is the proximity to a bunch of people I love. Granted, a phone call isn’t quite what a short car trip would be, but it suffices for now. Sarasota is wonderful. Paradise, really. My life here is the same, a fairy tale. Wake up, send Tim off to work, listen to the birds and watch the backyard flood with daylight over a cup of coffee, morning edition and email, gossip, new york times. Talk to mom some days. Go for a run. Followed by a swim. Tidy up the house, read, go to the library, hit a noon meeting, hang with some friends, call women in recovery i don’t know but need to network with. Tim comes home, have dinner, hang with friends, watch a film, the end. Give or take.
Never having been in a relationship like this, my days are filled with thoughts of what is acceptable behavior, what are my expectations of myself and of him, how do i do this thing. In this instance, it’s comforting to remember our humanity and that the only way I can behave is the only way I know how to behave. I have a decent grasp of integrity and how to behave properly, so to act outside of those lines is easily recognizable as wrong, but there is a lot of play within the boundaries of good action. To me, that translates as a thousand different ways to care for someone, or to scrape by on the bare minimum of necessity.
I remember so clearly the excitement that welled up in me at the thought of moving to Sarasota, how wonderful my life was going to be, the anxiety and thrill which greeted me every morning and swirled in my stomach until I fell asleep at the end of the day. The clear knowledge, unfailing, that this was the decision to be made. And the slight wonder at how I would feel once I no longer had that to look forward to, once the dream was fulfilled. Being here, now, I take this with the same wonder and excitement I had two weeks ago, only in a comfortable, settled fashion. Amazing to feel human, really.