it’s enough for me, baby

Yesterday was an angry day. It should have been a good day, because it was the absolute end of my teaching duties, I am done with it all. But an email from my bitchy former advisor and an email from our irritating wedding planner resulted in just a bit of rage. Sometimes I feel bloated with all the anger I’ve swallowed at my advisor and at the same time deflated with disappointment every time something wedding related falls through.

Things that helped – getting our asses kicked in an abs class at the gym. Oh my God. Most strenuous 30 minutes of my life. Husband to Be and I just giggled with exhaustion afterwards, his response being “What did you get me into?? I would beat you…if I could move.” I felt like a limp rag afterwards but in a really good way. We went out for our customary Tuesday dollar slices and my sweet, icy cold cider and being able to laugh with friends at the lunacy of my advisor went a long way towards dialing down the anger. I’m getting to the point where I just feel sorry for her and won’t take anything she says personally. If the negative emails continue, I’ll delete them sight unseen.

I made the mistake of telling HtB after the abs class yesterday that my session today with my personal trainer couldn’t be that bad after yesterday’s pain-fest. That was a stupid thing to say. My trainer decided it was time to ramp things up. I’m exhausted and sore all over. But he said my “body looked good” and I looked “skinny” and “ripped” (okay, ripped is an overstatement, but I’ll take it). Woot!!

I think I could get used to being a fitness buff, all the exertion of yesterday and today has helped drain a lot of anger and stress away. I appreciate that, just as I appreciate my stellar circle of friends. I’ve read blogs of other grad students who talk about not having any friends within their departments and I just can’t imagine how hard that would be. I got very lucky to find a core group of truly excellent peeps. There are people in my life who have let me down at a crucial time, but I recognize and am grateful for the others who have been true and steady all along.

Being engaged has been an endurance test and it has stretched us to our limits. I am damn ready for this liminal state to be done. And yet, as stress and grief and anger have raged around us, our relationship has been in a protective bubble and the maelstrom around us has never caused us to start sniping at each other or taken away the simple joy of being with each other and knowing we’re going to be married and knowing how right it feels to be together. As we’re taking walks together, going out for sushi, playing with the cat, I am always suffused with quiet happiness and everything else just falls away.

I could really do without all the crap that’s been thrown our way the past year but just as we’ve been pushing ourselves at the gym, I think all this stress has helped our relationship tone up and build up core strength and well, that’s worth something.

And every time I listen to Patty Griffin’s “Heavenly Day”, I feel so calm and am able to imagine so clearly what it’s going to feel like to stand on that beach. The song is my future joy, perfectly encapsulated. I love listening to the song but I can’t wait until I get to live it.