and now 4 years 10 months and 2 weeks together

There's no way to easily say one way or another how this works? Is this thing on? Yes. Yes, it is. Lisa also drinks out of the Christmas tree water, and somehow the boy cat, Millhouse, tho he finds it sport to almost knock over the tree scratching at the tree water bowl, has left it alone thus far. Who knew? That trees and cats would co-exist without them climbing the thing for ornament hunting and topple it all over. So it is with us. We've stayed together, even tho with my total right hip replacement a week ago, and the removal of the dressing and looking Frankenstein fetch, he's still here. And with my fear of germs, sanitizing the upholstery with Woolite 99.9% bacteria killing pet odor reducing spray, I'm still tolerant of things touching things that might seep into the wound of vulnerability at my butt joint. The arc of the wound is almost a beautiful stapled tattoo? A forever reminder I'm getting old. No longer the ingenue. Our relationship is no longer young. It's technically not old yet either. Beyond toddling, but not yet even adolescent. And we've learned to start being more deeply honest about who we are and what we want because there's a deep foundation. We hope to be together for a very long time. Funny how sex sorts itself as we stay together, more on that another time I suppose. But suffice to say, that it gets different as we are accustomed to our naked selves, become assumptive of the contours of our bodies almost able to conjure the other in bed in sleep. I know where his lips are in the dark, his waist. We curl together at the same time in the middle of the night at that phase of the sleep cycle. I get up at the same time to make it to the bathroom just before he wakes so he can start the cycle at the sink and the commode in a rhythm that allows banter without frustration that the other is in the way. We interrupt the familiar with clear arcs of frustrations which we try to harbor too little to make a fuss. We make the time to air grievances and resolve. And so as in breathing, we are becoming attuned. And yet, we discover we each have more layers to discover in each other, and these new layers, fresh and vulnerable to be newly exposed, take time to identify, articulate, ask for their needs to be met in our ever evolving relationship, and settle in, to allow the new vulnerabilities to rise. And here we are Christmas Day 2019 with a new one for me -- I am vulnerable and deeply human and I've refused to be so to prove some sort of Superhuman lie I've been harboring since teenage times. I want to be seen as strong and indomitable. Be the big man on campus -- seems I was so afraid then of being beat, hurt, discarded and certainly un-fetch. To shed that layer, let go of the arthritic joint, replace it with something smooth, work less hard, be totally open and vulnerable, wear the scarification of humililty with grace and age and move forward -- it's simple, but hard. To let go. To let David sweep the floors and release resentment that I'd been doing that in all our apartments as a symbol of "I'm clean; you're comfortable with cat hair everywhere." It was my cross to bear and he took it up for me. He put on my socks. He got me groceries from the Farmers Market. He wanted to cook, and I would block that hobbling on crutches to make him delicious eggs. Can I ever really ask for what I deeply want? All remains to be seen. Can I deeply let go of being "the one"? Can I be one among many, an easy back and forth releasing the need to overly direct the play of life sucking the fun out of the randomness of how things hit and crack, deploy and expose, resolve and penetrate? I did some of that during this surgery adventure. I was out as they poked me apart, sliced through my flesh, sawed out bone and replaced with a more functional thing. I woke up asking if I was a good patient. Funny only because my job had just begun -- to do the daily exercises, to take care of the joint in a way to keep it functional for the 20 year warranty -- 50 - 70. That's my job; critical in the first 6 months. And I know I married well, when my husband, says he wants me to use the crutch, when I want to show I'm back to full strength 7 days in by walking around without it. I want you to use the crutch, because I want you to be around in 20 years. And I said, so you can harangue me? And he said yes. That's love.