18.5

1.  She has the most perfect smell.  I'm not even sure my own kids could smell this perfect.  I realize this is a weird statement, but hey, at least I know my limits.  

2.  After getting this dog, I'm not sure I could handle the intensity of having an actual child, and all the fear, love, emotion, and metaphysics that go with that.  Dogs might be the cap on my ass.

3.  She reminds me of myself.  We even sleep the same way.

4.  It's a lot of pressure.

5.  His very presence has a soothing, almost an ordering effect.  

5.5.  When we have a deeper, more intimate conversation, I feel relieved afterwards, like a pressure has been alleviated; a knowledge I'd been seeking has been obtained.  Until that happens, I actually feel frustrated.  It's subtle, but it's there.  

6.  He comes with advice, insight, revelation, and an instruction manual about himself.  This is even better than I could have imagined, even though it's not easy.  It's like a continuous test that I feel well-equipped to take.   

7.  I'd been at a point recently at which I would say I "arrived" at my life. 

8.  I embraced exactly where I am, and what I do.  But I stopped searching.  I stopped writing, stopped wondering, stopped painting.   The hunger went away.  The desire went away.  Is that a good thing?  Buddhists say yes.  I say maybe.

9.  I never realized the delight inherent in the search.  I also never realized contentment could feel so empty.

10.  I have to constantly remind myself of how to think of you:  as a treasure.  As I would think of a friend.  As a gift to be held lightly in the hands, not with a clenched fist.  

11.  And yet...there is a deep path behind you.  The mystery and beauty promised on that path are something I cannot have with a friend.  

12.  It's pretty simple: if you have good thoughts about someone, you're going to love them.  If you indulge in negative thoughts about them, you're going to want to get away from them.  In this sense, you can absolutely choose whom you love and whom you don't.   

13.  I need to nap.  A lot.  Since she arrived.  I didn't think adoration and love could be so exhausting.  Again: not helping the whole kids situation.

14.  I think of you now, and I'm not sad.  The emotion is not right under the veil.  I don't know if I've put it away permanently, or if I've realized you and I could never have been, anyway.  But either way, I've remembered my life.     

15. I miss the agony of grieving you.  It was a very, very close, and very pure embrace.    

16.  He's not perfect, but he's determined to be better.  I keep thinking, when I witness him, "This is a man".   

17.  Last night, when we first got her, I was playing with her and kissing her and Diego so much, that I actually had to pull dog hair out of my mouth.  I imagined coughing up a hair-ball this morning.

18.  So, strangest thing: I coughed up a hair-ball this morning...