Toe-Knee, Tony

It's been so long since I have checked in with this blog.  I am so relieved to have a moment to record some of my thoughts.  I have wanted to write and have not wanted to write.  I think I will start  where I left off on my last post and I'll title this section, "Toe-Knee."

Part I - Toe-Knee
The physical update on my back is that I have still avoided surgery on my herniated disc.  I am still in a notable amount of pain, BUT it is slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, getting a little bit better.  I used to not be able to bend enough to touch my knees, but as of now, I can even wrap my cozy little socks  around my very own manicured toes.  My sweet children no longer have that as part of their chore chart, that I never kept up with anyway.  I'm not winning any wogging races, but occasionally, I can walk at a regular pace without any pain.  It was telling the other day, though, when I told a friend that I walked through grass, without searing pain.  It was part funny and part sad, that I was telling her that I was doing great, because I was able to walk through a patch of grass, for crying out loud.  And one more indication that I am getting better occurred as I was trying to catch a door before it closed the other day.  I took two mildly quick steps and Maci exclaimed, "Wow, Mom!  I didn't know you could move like that."

The last time I wrote it is like I closed my computer and got on to the business of trying to heal my back.  It is such a slow, grueling process, not only in the pain, but just as much for the mind, which is why I had such a hard time writing lately.  Herniated discs are tricky, especially when they are so large that they acquire  the nickname, "The Monster," by my chiropractor.  They are tricky, because you can feel like you are making progress for a few days and then the next few days you feel worse than you have in months.    It has challenged my body, my lifestyle, more of my faith and most of all, my steadiness of mind.  The fight is often found in trying so hard to not let my pain status for the day, dictate my joy and my mood.  I am getting good at rejoicing over the decent days, but I quickly return to, "I will never be normal again," or "that's it, I'm calling a surgeon-I can't take it anymore," when the day holds frustrating pain.  For a small stretch, I was starting to feel better and I thought about being so bold to write a blog post about how I couldn't believe that I could feel a fair amount of real joy, "thanks be to Jesus," in the midst of my pain and life right now.  Then . . . . my kidneys started to react to the Advil and I couldn't take any anti-inflammatories.  That scare brought me right back to, "really God?"  And then I was back to a lot of pain and my joy meter had taken a big dip.   All of this led me to feel like I was afraid to write anything, because I wasn't sure what I would write would be true, even in the next moment. Does that make any sense at all?

So . . . . on to another update.  To tie these two threads together, I will give you a real life picture of my fickle state of being.  At girls group one night, I was crying about my back, and then one of the gals, said, "but Holly, not everything is bad.  What about Tony?"  And then I lit up and my mood was completely different.  You just get me talking about Tony and my world feels a whole lot lighter.

Part II - Tony
Tony has been such a gift since January.  Naturally, everyone's first question is, "How did you meet him?"  I have a VERY long answer to that question.  For a minute, I thought about sparing you the long answer and all the disclaimers, but I can't help myself.  I apologize in advance.  I know internet dating is how many a people find lasting love these days and I know it has lost it's desperate/creepy factor, but I still feel like if I just say, "I found him on match.com," that people will think I was actually on the prowl, when, in fact, I only BARELY was. There is a big difference.

Back in May, when clearly I was not ready for any relationships, I was scrolling through Match just out of pure curiosity.  Who in the world is out there that is single, my age-ish and relatively normal looking.  I paid and I scrolled and I wrote on my profile to not contact me, because I had recently lost my husband and was just on there out of curiosity.  That subscription ended and I didn't check in with Match for many, many a month.  Near the end of the year, I got a message saying that I had 6 emails from Match that were waiting to be read?  Evidently, your profile stays up, even if you are not paying.  They are sneaky over there at Match headquarters.  I left it alone, but then I guess I got bored one night and was curious enough to pay to be able to read the emails. I read them and then immediately experienced buyers remorse on that wasted purchase.  But with two weeks left on my subscription, I went ahead and put up a picture and added about two more sentences to my very unapproachable profile.  I amended my profile by adding that I was barely ready to maybe possibly go on a date and noted that I loved Jesus, family, laughing and was looking for someone who liked those same things.   Needless to say, Tony wrote, and now here we are.

Even though Tony is pretty cute, it wasn't quite love at first sight.  In fact, upon returning home after our first date, I bawled, because I missed Dave.  It was even a fun first date and I knew I would want a second, but that first date revealed some uncanny similarities between Tony and Dave.  Even the weeks following, I cried more over Dave than I had in months.  I cried hard, every day for a while, even though I was thoroughly enjoying getting to know Antonio.  I am not totally sure why.  Maybe it was just a natural wave of grief or maybe it was that to let Tony in, I knew I'd have to release a little more of Dave in some way?  Or maybe, these newly awakened feelings were in the love realm, which had belonged to Dave for so many years?  I really have no idea.  What I know is that I was able to talk about these things with Tony, without him running 100 miles in the opposite direction. That spoke volumes to me of Tony's character.  It was telling on date two, when I was talking about something that I really appreciated about Dave and I started tearing up. Instead of getting all awkward, Tony just listened and empathized and was just so sweet about the whole thing.  It was in that moment, that I knew I would be up for a third date, if asked.  We are now up to about date 20 and I can assure I am smiling just writing about him, right now.

I don't know where this relationship is going to go.  There are some logistics in our lives that keep our relationship tempered, which I semi-appreciate at this point. Maybe I'll be cursing those logistics a year from now, but for now, it is OK.  Hopefully, tomorrow I won't feel like I am lying, now that I just wrote all of that.

Well, I would have loved to have added a picture of my toe and my knee and my Tony, but some technology glitches are preventing that display.  Maybe next time.  Hopefully, I'll get another chance to write soon!