I could start with the mundane bits, but even those are shot through with veins of unbelievable.

I've been stressing over this new song that Heather had given me, yelling at myself for not having practiced it enough, I'm having such a hard time with a few passages.

Saturday, while running me through my trouble spots again and again and again, she said, that's it! That's it! You got the 3/4 time just right!

And then, with fists full of that magic that only teachers have, she astounded me with:

"You're doing really well with that song. I don't usually give it to students since it's so difficult."

ANd I stood there, reeling, realizing that this simple-sounding tune really is as difficult as I was feeling, the strange rythm where you sing two notes for every three beats of the piano, the rising and falling passages that leave you with too few syllables and too many sharp intakes of the diaphragm.

Coming home I wandered into the arms of a friend with the same flames inside as I, and we spent the evening laughing and blushing and dancing (for the first time in a year, did I dance that hard) and sharing parts of our hearts that so few in the universe have seen.

Hands over our mouths, with Kitty, the three of us gasped at the words passing between us, and I tore the air with fists and kicked until my knees were jell-o and my singing lungs ragged and split at the seams. Screams from people I'd met once, last September, warmed my heart that they even cared.

Words that carried me through the hardest years came back and streamed into my brain, and the string bikini top I wore on Sunday afternoon was once again --

No Big Deal.

I needed it, despite the one hour of restless sleep that carried me into Sunday, the haphazard chaotic race through the grocery store, the sunstroke and topless/nekkid shenanigans.

Naked tattooed poi, vodka-and-everything (watermelon, pineapple, jell-o...), a twelve-foot pool of water as cold as the air was warm.

Sunstroke and drunken friends swiftly becoming Friends with every grin and wink and touching of the arm.

And then Dave stood up on the step from the door to the deck, and put the arm that will forever hold me around my shoulders,

and announced:

Our betrothal.

He announced it one-sided as though he'd asked me and I'd acquiesced, but really it was us deciding together. And agreeing together. And talking and thinking and planning together. And his asking my mom like a true gentleman and my suddenly realizing that this was becoming real and my cold feet and cold shins and cold thighs...

And I blushed and hid in his chest the way I never thought I would, and the clamouring must have terrified the neighbours.

And amidst congratulations and warm wishes and "you didn't really need to tell us we knew it soon as we met you" --

deep inside the loudest shout of all was that last set of shackles shattering.

Deep inside when I look at him now I am not afraid of anything anymore.

I never knew this... feeling existed. I never suspected, even.

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Last few Rants:

I guess this is goodbye. - 11:57 a.m. , 2005-02-10
Endorphins, stress, and magickal mystery - 5:07 p.m. , 2005-02-02
stress, incoming - 4:42 p.m. , 2005-01-28
heaving great happy sighs - 3:05 p.m. , 2005-01-24
Imposter syndrome strikes again - 1:20 p.m. , 2005-01-19