Escape from Pillville

Thanks to the presence of M who has been a regular weekend visitor, I drove away from Pillville on Saturday afternoon. The man who loves me and I met for dinner wherein we devoured a stack of panini and went to see my friend, the famous actor, peform in a show. I then had my typical anxiety attack while driving at night, nearly hyperventilated on the 2 South, and was actually relieved to be lost for a quarter of an hour in the man who loves me's hillside neighborhood. Nobody died. And I strengthened my complex love/hate relationship with my nav unit. "Turn right," she said.
"Are you fucking kidding me? I am not turning on that dark and narrow winding death trap of a miserable excuse of a city street. Figure out a different way to get me there, bitch."

I got there eventually. Nobody died.

When we were first dating, the man had to come get me after I'd tried to drive to his place and ended up on a street called Valley of the Moon or something like that. It was on the edge of a cliff and had no guard rail--and may have actually been on the moon. I was so freaked out that I felt as if I was bounding, gravity free, around those hairpin curves.

But it was a lovely respite, this Saturday night and Sunday morning, despite the hyperventilating and the getting lost, though I think the man who loves me would have, these three and one-half years later, come to retrieve me again. I believe he told me this very weekend, that he not only loved me, but that he liked me. Which is nothing short of amazing because, if I may be so retro as to dip my toes into the waters of Divorceville for a moment, it's worth noting that Mr. Ex neither loved me nor liked me.

But I no longer live in Divorceville. And I'm not sure I could even find my way there from here at this point. And if I tried I would, most probably, hyperventilate.

My respite also included breakfast with excellent coffee, perfectly toasted toast--which is always more of a miracle when someone makes it for you. Why is that?

I returned to Margaritaville/Pillville late Sunday afternoon to find everything in good order. There was leftover homemade lentil soup that M had made for dinner the night before. I heated it up, added quesadillas, and smoked trout, and there I was back in the rhythm of my regular routine. Just like that.

Today M left to go back to school. "I miss her," my mom said tonight at the dinner table. Yes, Monday is brim full of missing. And this particular Monday is also full of moon.