My back hurts

I think the title of this post is pretty self-explanatory.  But I'm a sucker for exposition, so I'll continue.  My back hurts in a way I don't know that I've experienced before.  It can be fine but then one of a variety of slight movements will cause so much pain it takes my breath away, and I hunch in that position for a few seconds until I think I can push past the pain to sit straight like a normal person.  I don't think there are any knots that need to be worked out.  Now I'm no doctor but naturally I assume that at some point I dispatched some not quite so cooked chicken and some parasitic and nefarious worm creature has found it's way to nestle into my back muscles, feasting upon my good-feeling nerves and, simultaneously, my will to live.  I'm hoping that beating my back with a meat tenderizer in a stern but pleasant manner will kill it and allow me to return to my relatively pain-free and occasionally happy-go-lucky existence.  In the face of such dire and surprising pain, though, I'll need reinforcements in the form of ibuprofen, preferably at 600-800 milligrams, STAT. 


If a doctor is reading this, call me.  I think it's entirely likely that the worms are burgeoning young alien zygotes, that will soon erupt in a flurry of guts and glory, out of my back, just below and around my shoulder blades.  It sounds gross and if it's avoidable, that would be nice.  Also, I'll need a lawyer.  There's no way I'm paying to put these aliens through college.  I can barely afford cable. 

What a difference a day makes

Something unlikely happened this week: two of my best friends got engaged…within the same week!  And two of my boyfriend’s good friends also got engaged…to each other!  So we had three engagements in one week.  Love is in the air; spring has sprung, y’all.

bling bling, motherfuckers

A little background on the couples: one couple has known each other since high school and has dated on and off since then.  This go-round they’d been together 8 months or so, I think.  One couple has known each other for about 5 or so years and has been dating for close to 4 years.  One couple has known each other for a few years and been dating for 2 months.  None of them have been previously married and none of them have any children.  The age range of all couples was from 23 to, uh…maybe 40?  I really don’t know how old one of them is and I feel bad for not knowing and I think at this point it’s probably just in bad form to ask.  Oops.    

Anyway, what does this mean?  I think it means that love is an unpredictable, wily mistress.  What corner she turns, what path she leads you down, we know not.  Any formulas for success I’ve long since discarded, and any rules about age or time or circumstance are irrelevant.  It appears as though love does not care who you are or what you think.

Some people find love at a play; some people find love in prison.  Some people finally just see something that was there all along.  Love doesn’t care what level of schooling you completed, what your primary occupation is, what car you drive, who your family and friends are or whether you thought you’d found love before or not.  Love doesn’t care if you are a male or a female or what race you are, it doesn’t care how tall you are or if you have nice skin.*  Love doesn’t care if you can spell or are socially awkward or are a social powerhouse or want to save the world or want to sit and watch a lot of television most days.  It doesn’t pay attention to if you like poetry or can tell a good joke or can draw a bitchin’ flute-playing panda or make really sweet mix tapes. 

A couple that you think the most unlikely of pairings will stay together until the day they die.  That “perfect couple” may break up.  It’s all possible; it happens every day.

If there’s a formula for love and marriage, which by the way allegedly go together like a horse and carriage, I couldn’t tell you.  I don’t think it exists.  Maybe, not to sound macabre, it’s like death: when it’s your time, it’s your time.  There’s no point to guessing when or why or how, and more than likely, you can’t alter that course or speed it up or slow it down.  Maybe you had plans to visit Madagascar and single-handedly teach the giant cockroaches to tap to “Singin’ in the Rain” all before you turned 21, but then you met the love of your life at age 18 and settled down and had two kids and now teach kindergarteners how to cut out hand-Turkeys**.  Who can guess that stuff?  It’s crazy! 

I guess love is just awesome- both in the traditional “great” sense of the word and in the more technical “awe-inspiring” sense.  Life is awesome.  You never know what the next minute could bring, or what the difference between your life today and a year or even a few months from now could be.  What twists and turns await, what exciting developments lay dormant, what new characters arrive, we couldn’t possibly know. 

What I do know now, is that this upcoming year is going to be busy, and I look forward to seeing how my wonderful friends play out their special days.  I can’t wait to see how beautiful and happy they look.  Just hearing how happy they sounded when they told me, warmed my heart.  Nothing feels better than really knowing and caring about someone and being able to sense true happiness in them.  I hope this is the beginning of a fantastic new chapter for each of these couples, and I look forward to sharing in their upcoming special moments. 

*Though I’m sure having nice skin can’t hurt.  Keep moisturizing, kids.  And wear sunscreen.  That’s a life lesson.

**Hand-Turkeys: Awesome.  Not in a million years could you convince me otherwise.

It's Good To Have A Plan