Girl's Going to Guatemala

I'm starting this post from DIA airport. As usual, people are waiting to board the flight to Minneapolis with one seat in between each party. It would feel impertinent and rude if I should break the universal unspoken rule and sit right next to the sleek looking girl with the black and white purse and shiny pink wallet to my left.

My flight is about to board. As soon as Justin Kwahan (that's how I want it to be spelled) checks in.

I just left behind my boy. He stood at the security line and watched me wind my way through the sluggish maze of people, luggage and ropes. I was so busy looking at Boy and trying not to cry that I set off an alarm when I inadvertently walked right through a stop sign.

"Excuse me, wait behind the line, please," the woman scanning passports asked me, feigned politeness dripping with less feigned annoyance.

"What?"

"The line."

"Oh... I'm so sorry," I abashedly took three steps back and deliberately avoided the eyes of the middle-aged gentleman, smirky-smirking behind me.

Boy's last date for Girl was a home-cooked, out-of-this-world French meal that totally and completely knocked my chaussettes off. He dressed up in his uncomfortable pants (I wore my uber hippie comfortable pants) and coerced his roommate (Meester Kelley) into wearing a bowtie (he looked all manner of dashing).

Side story about Meester Kelley.

Commence.

Boy lives with Meester Kelley. Whilst Boy and Girl were in the trenches of pining for each other during the "WE'VE SPENT APPROXIMATELY 98 PERCENT OF OUR RELATIONSHIP IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, WTF?" phase, Meester Kelley was subjected to listening to....ummm... more than one of our Skype conversations. Whenever he came in the room and saw Boy with his laptop open and his earbuds in, Meester Kelley would start serenading me with Nat King Cole's, "Unforgettable... unforgettable... that's what you are...."

However, it always stopped there.

"If you're gonna sing to me," I remonstrated Meester Kelley via Skype, "I want the whole song."

He never sang me the whole song. He must not have been able to feel the full power of my remonstrations via Skype.

He never sang the full song until Saturday night, that is. When he sat near the dining room table and played the whole damn thing whilst Boy and Girl awkwardly danced (I take full responsibility for the awkward) on the creaking floor.

My tear ducts have been through the wringer this month. Oof. I don't usually cry this much (or for such a smorgasbord of reasons), I swear.

But...

The candlelight flickering romantically in the dimly lit room.

Boy's warmth and smell and hair that insists on draping itself to the right of his face even though I always spike it straight up the middle (ALWAYS).

The just ridiculous, fastidious, fancy-pants French food... gluten-free toast topped with slow-cooked duck smeared with foie gras and garnished with truffles...

Meester Kelley singing what will probably always be "our song."

What am I gonna do without this boy? 

I buried my head in his Boy smelling shirt.

Two and a half months. Two and a half months without this smell. Without these hands. Without that feeling I get whenever he walks through the door. 

Fuck. 

We spent Sunday dinner with my family (my older brother had just finished a half-iron man. So he's halfway to awesome) and then drove to the other side of town to visit with some old friends.

People I sincerely thought I wouldn't see again or five + years. Boy, how you've turned my dreams inside out. Good thing for us that my dreams seem to be reversible. The inside-out suits me just fine. 

We had dinner with some of Boy's friends Monday and Tuesday nights. It was so healing for both of us to meet and eat with people who simply encourage us. With whom I feel accepted and loved in the context of my relationship with Boy.

What would these two months have been like if all our interactions had been like this? 

And Wednesday.

Boy drove Girl to Denver on Wednesday.

The wind buffeted his three-cylinder Geo, so we weren't able to hold hands for much of the 300+ miles (which is usually how we drive. Stop barfing, Janet), so I rested my hand on the back of Boy's neck and just deeply appreciated being in the same space (almost as much as I deeply appreciated what might have been my last hot shower for two and a half months).

We stopped in New Castle and ate a small picnic of cheese and wine and charcuterie at a park with a pond. The grass was green and glistening with raindrops and the bench was soggy, so I spread my green yoga mat over the soggy and we did what we do best together.

e.g. consume massive amounts of cheese in one sitting.

Poor Cumberbund (this is the name of Troy's Geo) did not exactly frolic up the passes between Vail and Denver. He made sad funny noises and then unfortunate funny smells which resulted in Boy and Girl pulling over for a few minutes to let poor Cumberbund cool down.

Due to car trouble and road conditions, we didn't arrive at the home of my friends until well after 10:00.

"I'm sorry we're so late," Boy and I both apologized to Amanda and Jeff as the tired couple welcomed us into their beautiful apartment. Jeff's mother had just relocated to Fruita, so the master suite was offered to us for our last night (in two and a half months) together.

There was a fireplace. And a balcony. And a Bialetti coffee pot.

Boy and I stayed up until midnight.

We set the alarm for three o'clock.

We stayed up until four o'clock.

We set the alarm for five thirty.

We stayed up the rest of the morning.

We didn't want to sleep away our last night (in two and a half months) together.

So I'm bonkers tired.

BONKERS tired.

And also feeling a wee bit empty. It doesn't make sense that he's not here. It doesn't make sense that I'm wearing his grey shirt with strings, and he's not around to tell me how good I look in his clothes. It doesn't make sense that my hands are f*cking cold and he's not around for me to... ummm... caress with my frigid zombie fingers.

"I don't have to go to Guatemala," I told Boy over and over our last couple of weeks together. "I know it would be good for me to go, but if you don't think you can do it or if it would be too unhealthy for us, I don't have to go."

"No, you need to go," Boy told me over and over. "This is what makes you come alive. This is how you love the world best."

So I'm going to Guatemala. Nervous and excited as usual and desperate for the day that Boy can join me on the adventures that give me so much life and love.