Thoughts on Love

This has been a hellacious 12 months. It was exactly 12 months ago (plus a few days) that my car got totaled when I hit that 17yo on a brand new license that ran a stop sign. I fucked myself up pretty good in that wreck too. No lasting physical damage, but I still can’t approach intersections where I have the right of way in confidence.

And the thing of it is, the bad things just kept happening again and again, not just one after the other, but with a frequent overlap in the months that followed. I still haven’t really caught a break.

2021 truly has been a shitty year!

Except, it’s also been the year where I learned how much the people in my friend group love me, and each other. There are really, by this point, dozens of examples, such as how we’re working hard to master communication skills so that we can navigate any conflict with love, compassion, and understanding. We all require a slightly different form of communication as we are all neurodivergent, and we are also all trauma victims, but we are dedicated to figuring our shit out and resolving conflict in ways that validates everyone and doesn’t lead to actual huge fights.

But that’s not even the love I’m here to talk about. I want to talk about Scissors. Scissors is an important member of our friend group, but he’s very reserved. This is fine, but I honestly kind of thought that when it came to our relationship, he tolerated me. We weren’t not friends, but I wouldn’t have assumed he REALLY cared about me, even if he didn’t not care.

Then a week and a half ago, he warned me that he predicted I would cry in roughly 2 days. Well, the two days came and he cursed that whatever he had sent was late. It showed up another 2 days later. It was a large somewhat flat box. Scissors, and my best friend who was in on the shenanigans, as he wanted to be sure it would have the desired effect (happy tears) were almost giddy with anticipation while they waited for me to get home to open the package. Finally, my shift ended, and made my way home. When I opened the package and saw what it was, I started bawling.

See, roughly 9 months ago, or so, Iris learned a physics lesson the hard way. Sammy sent me a message at work and told me Iris had broken my blue glass baking dish, and to please not be mad, it was an accident. Iris was scared to tell me themself because they come from an upbringing full of abuse and is still learning to trust me that I won’t abuse them over a mistake or accident. I took a deep breath, knew Iris wasn’t careless, and while I was devasted, I wasn’t mad. I love blue glass more than anything, and that baking dish was the favorite thing in my kitchen, but it just wasn’t worth being mad over an accident.

I messaged Iris and learned that it had gone from hot oven to cold rinse with water, and shattered. Ah. Ok. I made sure no one was hurt, assured Iris this was a failing on their bio mom’s part, and that I knew it was an accident and that I wasn’t mad. Then I went ahead and told them the physics lesson that was to be had out of this.

Then I went to amazon to see about replacing the damn thing and they had nothing. Ceramic? Sure. But not blue glass.

I told a few of my friends what happened, then basically let it go. Until it happened to come up in conversation like a month ago. Scissors asked a couple of questions at the time, but I didn’t think anything of it.

Until I opened that package on my bed a few weeks later and found a blue glass pyrex baking dish in the exact size I had lost that looked brand new, despite me being pretty sure Pyrex doesn’t make them anymore. I don’t know where he found it, but he did. And he was right, I did have a good (happy) cry about it.

Some of us are loud in our love. Some of us are just hurt from trauma and more reserved, and therefore quieter in our love. But when those who are reserved with their love show it, it is a grand statement. Like a blue glass baking dish.

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