I need to warn all of you: I mentioned earlier that I'll be swearing from time to time on this blog. This production of Rent has conjured up a festering ball of profanity in me that I didn't know existed. Or if I knew, I suppressed it for the sake of all sanity. I can't keep dirty things from falling out of my mouth, so I apologize in advance for offending all of you in future blog posts.
I tried to write this post a week ago. It didn't work. There was just too much information. About a million things happened.
Did I mention that I tried to write this blog a week before that?
I started this as a therapy blog to deal with issues pertaining to infertility. But I've come to realize that while those issues have the tendency to infect everything else in my life, there's still plenty of unrelated drama that can seep into my brain.
In the last month, I've had one hell of a roller coaster. And the funny thing is, none of it directly applied to me. It all happened to a friend. A friend whose life pretty much, well, to put it bluntly, shit on him. Life shit on him. Everything bad seemed to happen to him, but the most painful was the imminent departure of the love of his life, who was leaving everything they had together. He was in a very bad place (and he's still not in a great place), and he's one of those people whom many others love and care about, myself included. I couldn't let him wither away, I just couldn't. I forcibly inserted (um, ew?) myself into the situation; it's a weird mothering instinct. I like to mother sometimes. But things just kept getting worse. Then one day, while at lunch with Jacob and his coworkers, I got a phone call from him. I couldn't recognize his voice, and it scared me. So I booked it to his house (I probably drove 90 mph), and found him on his kitchen floor, a completely devastated mess.
So, I did the only logical thing. And by logical, I mean right. I took him home. He needed a change of scene. So, now Jacob and I have a new roommate for an indefinite amount of time. And yes, Jacob is okay with this. I may or may not have called him at work one day and said, "Jacob, David needs to live with us. NOW." And he agreed. Not many husbands would allow their wives to bring home another man. Although, in my defense, he's four years younger than me and gay, so that most certainly gives Jacob some peace of mind. Then again, Jacob's the one who cleaned our house when he thought I had invited a guy over for a "sleepover."
Having David around, even in his state of utter despondence, has been really therapeutic for me. I have to say I'm really benefiting from finally have a man in the house who smells good all the time, sings beautifully (he'll be portraying Angel in the upcoming production of Rent; he's been walking around my house in heels to prepare), and cleans constantly. I mean constantly. I may or may not have cried on a number of mornings (obviously before David gets up) over the fact that I am a completely worthless and incompetent housewife. But, as my house is always clean, I can't complain. And aside from cleaning, he pretty much knows how to do any other thing I could ever ask him to do, and is completely willing to do it. He's even helping me prepare for opening a preschool---he's opened a business before and knows the ins and outs of the legal crap. I pretty much cycle through gratitude and guilt all day long. But above all of that, I just feel relief that if he's here, he's...alive. Living. Maybe not functioning, but not deteriorating. I suppose that makes me feel alive too. Friends can give you purpose when you feel like you have none. And I am very familiar with feeling purposeless; unemployment and incompetence does that to a person.
Plus, I can't deny how much fun that kid is. I've been living in a rainbow theater camp for the past few weeks, listening to Rent, rehearsing for Rent, watching Portlandia, cooking tasty (vegetarian) things. I've even introduced him to real Topeka people, with whom we've had epic fun. Which, I might add, is a wonderful distraction from feeling like you have no purpose. And, mothering him gives me the satisfaction of mothering something that isn't Linus (who, by the way, is thrilled to have a new best friend; David feels likewise). My body still can't stop wanting babies, even though my mind is trying to distance itself from that idea, so being able to release some of that built up longing feels really, really good.
Jacob never lets me mother him, dammit.
Speaking of Jacob, he's in Illinois until Friday. He left last Wednesday, actually, so he's been there for a while. I drove there this past weekend, six hours both ways, just to spend a night with him. We took a train into Chicago and had a wonderful afternoon at the Art Institute and Millennium Park. It was beautiful. We don't go on enough dates. After seven years, romance gets buried under bills and business agendas, and occasionally we need a kick in the pants to rekindle it. Like weekend dates. Or, say, unofficially adopting an adult gay man. I mean, do what you gotta do, right?
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