Fan-Fucking-Tastic

"So your boyfriend...he's divorced now, right?"

Yes, thanks.

In case you're just catching up or didn't know or forgot or whatever, when I started dating Ish/Pete, he was separated. Several wonderful and yet terrifying months later, his status changed to going through a divorce. And then, a mere year and nine months after we met, he was officially divorced. Piece of cake! Just like that! La la laaaaaa!

< / sarcasm >

So but here we are now. On the one hand, he's only really been single for a little over four months.

On the other hand, the hand that I happen to be waving at the moment, we've been together for over two years.

I have written comparatively little on our relationship because I wasn't supposed to, back when he was separated and then getting divorced. But now that we're more or less a "normal" couple, I don't even know where to start. I spent so much time and energy blocking him/us out as a possible blog topic that it's like I don't know HOW to write about him/us without sounding stupid or boring.

The plain truth is that our relationship has been overall great, and fun, and really, really funny.

But it has also been scary and sad and hard. Because right, it is a relationship.

One day last April, without warning, I found myself writing about the hardest part. I wrote this post -- about feeling on the outside, when we were so very unsure, when we were not going to Europe, when we were maybe not going anyplace.

The gist, if you don't want to read my heartbreak directly (and I wouldn't blame you), is that Ish is the kind of guy who can and would take the right girl to Paris. And I wrote about how I wish I could be that kind of girl. And how I'm afraid I'm just not built that way.

That post exposes my deepest fears and greatest self-doubts. And it is brutally honest and true.

But I think it's probably time to say, here in writing, that it's not my only truth.

As much as I have this horrible dread, this deep-down fear that I am never going to be "good enough," well. I have this other, deep-down belief, too.

The one where I am fan-fucking-tastic.

SO WHAT if I spill nearly anything I ever sip because you know what else? I am not about my clothes. I am smart and interesting and funny, and no pair of designer shoes are going to make me smarter or more interesting or more funny. Yeah, I know I need to lose weight, but have you seen me dance? And what good is having a fantastic body if you still insist on lights-out-only sex? What's that all about? Lights on, covers down, let's rock this casbah, baby!

I am a mess, sure, but I clean up okay. Sometimes I have my feeling down, feeling fat days and I don't want to wear anything but pants with elastic waistbands and t-shirts and no make-up. But that doesn't mean I don't also have my cleavage-exposing, curve-hugging outfit days where I blow out my hair and rock the smoky eyes and seductive glances.

I have baggage and I have strength. I have sadness and loss, and I have hope and an unshakable belief in love, good, and a glass-half-full tomorrow. I have some pretty good talents, some pretty good stories, and I almost always have something to say. I am vibrant and present and every day, I show up for my life.

And so I have my doubts, of course, but I also have my fierce conviction that if he doesn't see it, doesn't get it, doesn't want it, then we're both better off moving on. No matter who that "he" is.

Right now, that "he" is Ish. And for all his path-wending, he does, totally, get it.

"I really do love you," he will say.

And sometimes I think that's amazing and hard to believe. But most of the time I just say, only half-kidding, "You'd be pretty dumb not to."

We leave for Paris in two weeks.