The First Four Years

Aren't we all just looking for something?

You know the feeling. I've had it a few times in my life. I used to get it from food, sometimes. A long time ago I got it from sucking my thumb. I got it when I was just a girl and my mom would rub my back and sing lullabies to me and I would fall asleep that way, before my parents got divorced and it all fell apart. I can (only sometimes) find it with wine although I'm afraid I always do get it from the vicoprofin I used to take for my cramps. On rare occasions, it used to happen more often, Mr. E would rub my back and I would fall asleep and the feeling would be right there, just around the corner, although I would fall asleep too soon to really grab onto it.

Every once in a while I get it from just the right manicure or pedicure (when I'm not worried about how much it's going to cost) and I've gotten it from lying under a sun so hot I can feel sweat splash off my eyelashes and there have been sun dappled afternoons in the car with maybe elvis playing on the stereo as the trees flashed by and I just felt like putting my whole head out the window of the car and lapping at the breeze like a dog. Music, drugs, backrubs, booze.

I suppose it's called relaxation.

I never feel that way anymore. Maybe after a long really good run.

You feel scrubbed out. Tired, but free. Weightless. Calm. The things you say are funny. The world loves you. You can breathe.

And I look at Eli with BOTH fists shoved in his mouth and I think damn. That feeling's something he's going to spend his whole life chasing too. I feel sad about that. And I wonder how to make it so that he doesn't have to look for it with drugs or booze or food. So he's not thirty years old and still chasing it like I am.

I thought about this for three or four days and worried over it because that's just how I am and also I thought I had pretty much figured out the secret of life. That we're all just trying to get even maybe back to the womb or since we can't do that, we;'re just trying to find some comfort, some peace, some relaxation, even five month babies are just gnawing away on their own fists trying to get high and feel happy. And so yesterday over pizza and beer I looked at Mr. E sideways and said "Do you ever think we're all just looking for something in life that we can't ever find, do you ever think in this life we're all just searching for a peace we can never quite grasp, and we're just trying to get back to our childhoods because that was the closest we ever got?" and as I said the words I realized the full import of what I was telling him and how I had finally figured it all out and how now he would finally realize just how fucked up I was and the world was and how his son would be someday be too and he looked back at me and just said. "Duh."

And so amazingly sometimes I do find that peace I am looking for, right there across the table from me, in this person who doesn;t take me and all my seventh grade angsty shit too seriously. And who really does know how fucked up I am and who doesn't care. Who even likes it. And loves it, and loves me. Not just anyway. But also because.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. E.
Thank you for being in this together with me.