Because although your past is archived, nothing is sealed airtight

I have closed one door over and over.

This particular one was The One, except that he wasn't, and was my longest, most important relationship up to Nick. In fact, at this point I've known him longer than most people in my life ever.

There's been enough hurt passed back and forth to fill the Grand Canyon, if hurt were solid and tangible. And I have shut the door between us so many times.

I cannot be friends. I feel like I ought to be able to, but I cannot.

We had so many final-final goodbyes. So many times I steeled myself for it to be the last conversation, the last email, the last anything and everything.

I mourned the end. Multiple times. And finally, after the end end, was proud of myself for moving forward. This post, about time being the longest distance between two places, is one of the realest things I think I've written about it.

We spent so much time post-relationship in that confusing, nebulous space of spending too much time together and thinking that because that part was good, it meant it would work out in the end. Or anyway, I thought it would work out.

I don't know why. I've asked myself this approximately 372 times, and my answer is still the same. I don't know. Perhaps because in the beginning it seemed like we were supposed to?

So in the last couple years I've really, really worked on myself. I've gotten past some huge, heavy things. Not like stones in your pockets, encouraging you to Virginia Woolf into the current, but still weigher-downers. The kinds of things that prevent you from being able to offer and accept a healthy version of love.

And so I think I'm pretty close to healed, almost fixed, and very self-aware, and blah blah blah.

But what I've discovered this week is this. You can close doors and think they're closed. You can move forward. You can be really, really happy in your present.

In fact, you can have a present you never thought you'd be lucky enough to have, and the plans for a future together that you wouldn't trade for anything.

And yet a friendly email from behind this closed door of your past, offering you stuff that you left behind, which was found while moving, can still kick you hard in the stomach. Can still leave you sobbing, absolutely turned inside-out sobbing, on the floor.

Which you can only do in the downstairs bathroom for so long before your absence is questioned.

The guilt of crying in response to an email from someone very significant in your past but not part of your current life does nothing to mitigate your hysteria, incidentally. It only makes you cry harder.

You feel like a jerk. And you don't really understand why you're crying.

Is it that you just stopped contact one day, but never really dealt with it? Is this the final mourning?

Is it the fear of never having been important in the first place?

More terrifying, is it that if that person, the one who, until Nick, loved you more than anyone ever had, and who you believed was always, always going to love you, could stop. . .well, then is it possible that the one you intend to marry, who says he will be forever ever ever, might stop loving you one day as well?

You wail this fear, because it is real and present. You're practically incoherent, but it gets across. You are assured this is not the case.

And then, later and calmer, you wonder if maybe partly you really needed a good cry, and this was the perfect catalyst.

If you are me, sometimes it's very hard to tell.

In the light of day, albeit with huge swollen eyes and a fragile ego, I can say this one positive thing. I used to cry like that at least once a month, if not more often. In my really bad strung-along year, I cried like that just about every day.

And this? Was all new to Nick. He'd never seen anything like this from me.

In fact, I've not been this hugely upset in a year.

I think it's progress.

Vaseline and stripey socks

I have a number of favorite products: Vaseline, duct tape, hair dryer, yellow sticky notes, and Sharpie pens. This list gets added to occasionally, but these are the things that have been on it for years, things I do not want to live without.

Writing it out like that, it occurs to me that this could be a great list of products for a kidnapping or heist or something. Don't you think?

Anyway. Vaseline. This is a product I seriously use for just about everything.

I use it to take off my eye make up at night. If my nails or the ends of my hair are really dry, I'll put a little on my fingertips and rub it in. In the winter, I slather it everywhere, even on my face. I'm constantly smearing it on my elbows, knees, and feet, even in summer.

I stick Vaseline on keys when locks are cranky. I've put it on door hinges. Hell, if something in the house seems dry, squeaky, or in some way uncooperative, Vaseline is my answer. I realize it's probably not always the right answer, but so far it's worked.

We have a ginormous jar of Vaseline - like, so huge I could fit my entire hand in and use it as a scoop if I wanted. Clearly I am not on the non-petroleum bandwagon. I would be chagrined to give it up.

The last two nights I've slathered Vaseline on my feet, put on little footie socks, and gone to bed. Your body temperature goes up at night, the socks keep the moisture in, and in the morning, your feet are in great shape.

I definitely recommend it. My formerly dry feet are super-moisturisey happy smooth right now.

The only downside of this treatment is that if you tend to sleep in not a whole lot, and you don't sleep alone, you might bear in mind that prancing into bed in your footie socks is not a pretty look.

On the continuum of hot things to wear to bed, footie socks are on the very low end of the scale.

You could, in fact, face a significant amount of ridicule. It might surprise you to hear that it won't even necessarily help if your socks are of the cute stripey orange and red with little silver sparkles variety.

So whatever. It's not a good look for anyone.

I do realize this.

Which is the main reason I didn't do my hands at the same time.

Summer!

I love DC summer. Love love love.

Someone said it's going to be in the 90s! I'm so excited!

I feel more alive in summer than any other time. Something about the heat and sunshine just makes me feel good. I'm probably a little reptilian in that way.

There are 54 gazillion things I love about summer. Here's the barest beginnings of a list.

Sunshine so hot it settles into your bones and warms up your soul
The childhood-inducing smell of Coppertone
Breezy little sundresses
Flip flops
Happy hour cocktails outside
Watermelon
Waking up to sunshine and going home from work in the light
The smell of meat grilling
Tank tops
Walking barefoot in grass
The heat-induced laziness of a Saturday afternoon
Big floppy cotton hats
Sweating like crazy when you go for a run
Super cute platforms with flowers on them
Gazpacho appearing on restaurant menus
Sweet corn, especially grilled till it's crispy
Diving into the pool after getting so hot you can't stand it another second
Hot sand sliding through your toes at the beach
The cool dark of the movie theatre on the hottest evening
Fireflies
The lovely lazy stretch of an entire sunny Saturday with nothing you have to do

Can you tell how much I want to be stretched out in the sun with a book, an icy iced tea with lemon, so cold it sweats the second you walk out the door, and no agenda?

Sigh.

And then we'd all get home and fix ourselves a nice gin and tonic and light cigarettes

Yesterday we got all the way to Nick's office in downtown DC before I realized I wasn't wearing my seat belt.

Somehow I was distracted when I got in the car and forgot to fasten it.

I always wear my seat belt. Always always always.

Not only am I a first-born-rule-follower, but whenever you're in the car, you realize how many stupid people are driving around you. Fully half the people on the road drive like they've had head injuries. No?

So the seat belts, air bags, and of course, just in case, those hammers to break your windshield, one if which I have, thanks to Laura, are a really good idea. There's no reason not to be as careful as possible.

But as a kid? I don't even think our car had seat belts.

This post is going to make our parents sound incredibly irresponsible, but you need to understand, it was a different era entirely. Before people knew that smoking causes cancer, for example.

Not to get all public safety on you.

So.

When we lived in Bangladesh, we had the oldest VW bug you can imagine. We inherited it from someone who had just left the post. The top half of the headlights were painted black, because of cautionary blackouts during the war.

The floor of the back seat rotted out one monsoon season, and for a while we just drove with it like that. You could see the road underneath.

My father would joke that when he yelled "stop!" we should put our feet down, like the Flintstones.

Us kids, we loved it. It was very exciting.

Eventually they got it fixed. With plywood. It was post-war Bangladesh - what do you want?

Nick said that his family had a Chevy Corvaire, which I'd never heard of, but apparently is partly how Ralph Nader made a name for himself, with "Unsafe at Any Speed." Turns out they were really tall cars that tipped over shockingly easily.

What Nick remembers about their height was that as a little kid he was able to stand up. In the passenger seat. Without a seat belt. While his parents were driving.

This was rivaled, he said, only by the excitement of "surfing" on top of the station wagon. To be fair, his mom was driving really slowly while weaving down the driveway.

I also remember that my dad used to let me drive. In Bangladesh. Not in Egypt, because there was just too much traffic craziness. But I'd sit in his lap and steer the car. Nick said his parents did the same thing.

You think about how Britney got in such trouble for fleeing from the paparazzi with her kid in her lap. And then you contrast this with a five-year old me steering the car into the median, panicking.

Meanwhile, my Dad was all shockingly calm. "Turn a little more to the right, sweetheart."

The kind of cure-all you're reluctant to embrace

I have this sore spot right under my nose. The technical term, one Maude and I made up years ago, is nose rot.

Rot is actually a great word. It sounds alarming when paired with a body part.

For example, if you had a rash on your elbow, you'd have elbow rot. You see what I'm saying. It makes your issue all the more official.

So my nose. It's red and slightly raw, like when you've had a bad cold and blown your nose too much. Except that I haven't actually been blowing my nose.

I think it's allergy-related.

When I saw the doctor last week she said it was just an irritation, and to put a little cortisone on it. But not too much, because then you can have a rebound, where it calms down but then after you stop the cortisone, comes back that much worse.

I knew what she was talking about. I've had that exact thing happen to me. I had rosacea years ago and a doctor recommended daily cortisone. And then when I stopped, it was terrible.

The doctor, when I asked if this bout of nose rot is likely related to rosacea, said she thought not.

I've been holding off, though. Because now cortisone scares me a little.

So the last time we were at my parents house, my dad pointed out my red nose.

He is incredibly observant. Always. Because it's a really small red spot. You have to be looking for it, practically. Or looking up my nose. But not that many people are shorter than me, so that rarely happens.

I think about these things. Because I spend a decent amount of time peering up taller people's noses.

"What's with your nose?"

"I dunno. I have some kind of nose rot."

He takes a closer look. "You what will clear that right up?"

"What?"

My dad worked in public health for years. He knows a remarkable amount about medicine. I'm delighted he seems to know exactly what to do for this.

"You could just stick a little Preparation H on it."

Um.

I had at some point read in a women's magazine that in a pinch you can use Preparation H to combat really bad under eye circles, because basically it restricts blood vessels. However, it still seems like something designed specifically for your anus might not really be what you want to stick on your face.

I'm just saying.

So I've been holding out on that advice as well.