I'm out of words and out of sweet tears, and out of digits on my overheated mental calculator to keep counting my blessings.
The risk of none of the following resembling any form of coherence is staggeringly high.
How could I not be happy to be turning twenty-five (19 in hexadecimal so maybe I can squeeze in one extra year of adolescence before switching to a new number system) when such staggering heaps of wonderful have repeatedly, insistently, brilliantly, tumbled about my head and ears and curled up ever so cosily in my overflowing and overwhelmed lap?
From the billion hugs that began the yearly birthday d�marche two weeks ago in MonStreal, the carefully chosen gifts of priceless science fiction gems that remind the hungry traveller just how powerfully we are not alone --
To letters and tears and an armful of animated and bandwidth-hogging e-cards, just enough effort to elicit hypercharged giggles and the spreading warmth of the realization that I didn't just pee my lacy frog underwear, I'm just really, really touched to be in so many thoughts.
There was a doubly salty tang to the pistachio nuts with our ap�ritifs yesterday evening, lichee liqueur and pineapple juice for the young sprites or port for the women in their second quarter century. The tears from chopping onions for the tomato-fresh-mozarella penne did a wonderful job covering for the already gathering mist in my eyes.
I'm not sure which touched me more -- the gag gift of pink heart-studded hairband and the thought that went into it, or the beautiful yellow-and-bloo fondu pot that came after with spurious black chocolate squares and and a saliva-inducing array of immaculate fruit for dessert... (next time when I suggest you bring dessert, I'd recommend just stopping at the patisserie sur le coin...;)
...there are chocolate stains on my kitchen wall that closely resemble my heart bursting with laughter.
The wine was perfect. The appreciative sighs at slow sips of homemade cherry liqueur even more marvelous. The laughter and hugs and kisses and sweet wishes made the evening leading into my 25th year as sweet as the sherry.
And then...
...my first conscious thought this year was how his voice thrums itself into the deepest annals of my most hardened coronary corridors.
"Are you comfortable"?
And then that telltale scrape of guitar and that voice poured over the ocean-drowned wires and directly into my tearducts.
"You make me scared, that's what you do..."
A song that has elicited so many tears, frightened ones and frustrated ones, and melancholic ones -- and now, tears marvelling at the heights which joy can reach.
The mp3 of that shining voice singing that song that made me fall in love months before I would ever let myself believe I was going to, that added a dimension I never believed in to the past year, that softened the sharpest edges of the previous lifetime, so much effort and care, even a place to download it just in case -- I didn't realize that this new dimension grew exponentially outwards.
(I never imagined I would merit such meticulousness.)
I haven't enough words to explain the glowing echoes of his efforts. I haven't flow'ry phrases nor sweetly simple syllables that could ever convey how desperately lost I am in marvelling...
So much effort. So much care. The sort of thoughtfulness that in my idealistic dreams is enough to change the world, but that in my last wakeful moments of every evening I despair to never see manifest, let alone ever in my direction.
Le comble du bonheur... I've always believed in fey, but even my most fevered and caffeinated afternoons could not have dreamed of this.
(I couldn't even begin about the perfectly picked bouquet of my favourite flowers [not that I'd ever told him, he's gotten good at this magic thing] that are currently hiding behind Martine's desk because my cheeks were burning with the rebounding questions. A week ago il les a envoy�... David, are you fey? David where did you come from... How can you really exist? Don't matter much, cuz I'm keeping you... And I say that now with so much more force than those shy bedside mutterings so many months ago.)
The kisses and wishes and first ever contact with normally reclusive coworker's perfumes coloured my morning ever so gleefully, even before the songs and flowers, as my stomach unknotted from the past week's deadlines and bank-kaffufles frenzy. With that telephoned voice crooning absolute happinness into my head -- even if Mlle Corinne from ze Credit Lyonnais hadn't repaired every erreur and signed attestations to the fact that a shiny new card will adorn my mailbox first thing Tuesday morning along with every other bank-related souci, I could not have been atop a brighter cloud.
So when lunchtime rolled around and despite the current deadlines weighing on everyone's heads and turning the general murk of the atmosphere into something tangibly stinky, a sizeable chunk of the company clambered into pre-organized cars to fill up the back room of a sushi restaurant (since I'd been whining since forever that we never go out for sushi � midi)
my head nearly burst open like a pi�ata
and when they brought out a beautifully decorated scarlet box filled with candy and bath oils and hand cream of my favourite perfume and a card with too many names on it
I just went quiet.
I was out of words, out of breath, out of everything but glistening eyes and careful french bises.
Even had yesterday not began so terrifyingly creux, I could not have been more lifted and filled to the brim with love and wonder at the incredible people that I have had the fortune to be surrounded by.
I have never dreamed of this, and cannot even begin to understand it -- but
I had no idea there could be so much love in a world that I have spent so many years railing with fury against
And even more, I had no idea I could ever earn even a cobblestone by the blazing fire of this warmth.
I am overwhelmed. Truly.