She's a GRUMPY regirlfriend!

(You have to read that in the tone of "He's an ANGRY elf!").

I got an email from Urbana on 11th today. It's one of those "We are unique! Just like everyone else!" shots in the dark. I was thisclose to writing back with something sweet like:

"Congratulations. You are one of the 7,000 properties in the valley competing for the 400 households that can make enough money to afford them. Good luck, because 300 of them already own homes."

But I didn't. Although, it reminds me of going to college and dating in Utah. It was the dating scene that should have been called "A whole lotta '5's, waiting around for '10's."

Even though I work for a wonderfully stable, large company, nobody is safe in this economy. Everyone is nervous. And I look around and think "The stupid housing market did this to us." I'm bitter.

Then I have a memory of Rbf that makes me want to cry. For a sec my heart melts, then I just get more bitter. I can't hold on to that fleeting meltage moment. Trust me, I try. I realize that my pain is fermenting into anger...finally. 

I remember that, at least twice a day, he would pick an innoportune time to smack me in the butt, and I would simultaneously make a suggestive little Betty Boop-ish playboy bunny sound. If you knew me well in person, you'd know that this is done in jest. Very much in jest. I'm not very Betty Boop. Maybe that's why he thought it was so funny. He was always trying to catch me off guard, especially in public. Or like, pumping up the bike. Walking into the model home. Showing me how to operate the riding mower. In Walmart. At his cousin's wedding. Anywhere I'd expect it least, or where I'd be too socially aware (etiquette-wise) to make my risque little noise. If I didn't do the sound, he won. If I hesitated, he got points. So I brought my A-game to the ass-tapping. I'd do the whimper when and where I got the smack-dat. The more I called his bluff, the funnier it became to him. The less I hesitated--the better. His usual victory cry: "I love making you squirm!"

And I mean it about the hilarity thing. When I defied social norms with my pornstar sound, Rbf laughed like a 5 year old rewinding on a funny part in a movie ten times and laughing just as hard each time. He seriously thought it was the funniest damned thing I did. And he never got sick of it. I never got it. I just didn't get it. But I had a 100% success rate. Go figure.

The time that has passed since our fun times together, is getting longer and longer. And I am finding less and less strength to be cheerful. I miss him so profoundly much, that I have no more ways to describe it. It is just raw, and it is unbridled and merciless. I wake up in the morning and think "I can't do this again." I can not do this every day.

But I do. A massive part of me died with him that day, but I get up and do it all over again every day. I do. I hate it, and it's not rewarding. But I do. It's what I feel him telling me to do every time I consider anything else. Dammit, Jed, you dirty trucker. Boy, do I love you.

A few of Reboyfriend's favorite things:

Healthy food like blueberries, brown rice and raw honey

Peterbilts

Kenworths, but only if there isn't a Peterbilt instead

Hard, hard work

Flying

45 minute showers (not with me)

(Well, probably with me, but that wasn't my point. He just took everything so seriously when washing up)

Brazil, Brazilians, Portugese, all things Brazil

Conspiracy theories, like 9.11 and maybe us not walking on the moon (I was kind of rude about this...how sweet was he to shrug and let it go? I will never meet another person like this again, I do realize that)

Stuff from the 90's

Blue Moon

Being late for everything

Me speaking French (it would make him laugh like the butt smacking thing, and he'd say "say it again")

My Hudson jeans

Snowboarding until you break something on you

Wakeboarding until you break something on you

Me doing his Excel spreadsheets

When the bed was made

Me driving the semis

Me bringing us toast and coffee to bed every single morning

Me

Indy, oh how he loved Indy...and Indy loved him

His grandpa Floyd, and the hope that I might agree to name our child after him

Dirtbikes and riding

Anything I ever wrote him

Jake's kids

Freedom

I just realized I could keep writing that list until it bumped all the other posts into archives. Reboyfriend loved so many things. He loved life. He loved health and vitality. He loved learning new words with me. I loved that little pause he always gave before he tried out a new 5 dollar word on me for the first time. He tried to be sly, but it happened so often I could tell instantly when he was about to work one out. He would look at me intently, waiting for me to tell him if it was used right. He loved it. He loved me, and it was glorious.

I think of this hideous pain, and I understand that, by its nature, it will have to be as powerful as the bond we shared. My future is gone and my present is crippled, but it was worth it. He died so incredibly happy, I am certain of this. I would not trade my unlimited pain for his last nine months of happiness.

The last month of his life, something changed about his intensity. Even under some of the heaviest work, family & economic stresses of his life, he was finally happy again. He explained to me that everything in his personal life had finally become exactly what he wanted, and how blessed he felt. Imagine what that means to me.

Because somewhere, at some point, Someone pulled me aside and said I would have a chance to be the reason someone died with a full heart, in love, at the top, and at peace. I would have power to be the difference, but it would come at a dear price, a monumental, immeasurable price. At the price of my heart breaking, my body weakening, my future disappearing and a piece of me dying inside. And I must have been asked, would you do this for someone you loved? And this pain, this story, I guess it tells us what my answer was. And if asked again, I would say it without hesitation, like the little noise I made when he spanked me in the bookstore. Without thinking, without batting an eye.

I love that truck driving, ass-smacking, astronaut-doubting, baby hungry Reboyfriend of mine. I just love him.

Sorry for all the sap...sometimes it takes over, but I'm still my grumpy self. Don't worry. The end.