Growing Old Together - Dieting Journal

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Astrophe's Journal

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February 27, 2000 -- 2:29 AM EST

Retro flashback:

"Shit!" He screamed while jumping out bed.

"What?" I goggled from his twin bed in his dark room in his bachelor flat, sleepily naked. "What are you doing?!"

"I forgot!" He screamed, with his head stuck in his closet. "I have no underwear!" He drew on jeans sans underwear. "I have no shirt!"

"What are you doing? Where are you going?" I propped up on my elbows to get a better look at him and felt around for my glasses.

"Well, you don't have to come if you don't want."

"What!? What are we talking about?!"

"My brother is having his 23rd birthday party at their new house and I forgot it is today."

"WHAT!? We have to go to a birthday party?!"

"Well, I'd love for you to come but if you don't want to that's ok. But I have to be there or my mom will kill me. I think I missed the last couple or something."

"I'll go. What am I going to do here without you? I just can't believe you didn't tell me we had to go to a birthday party. I didn't bring anything decent or clean to wear!" I hit him after I jumped out of bed. "Can't you warn me in advance?! God, I hate it when you do this! You could have told me and I could have stayed home this weekend. Or you could have told me I might have to play "girlfriend" and I would have brought clean clothes to wear. Did you even get him a birthday present?"

"Shit! I forgot!"

"Argh! Wal-mart!" We threw all these clothes all around, him scrounging for a not-too dirty T-shirt and me trying to find a pair of shorts I had left at his house a few weekends prior because those would be cleaner than my jeans. "What time is the party?"

"2:30ish."

"Argh! It's 2:30 NOW!" I hit him again. "I don't have deodorant!"

I remember this day clearly because it was the first time I met his family en masse. At a birthday party, no less. I'd met his mom, but I hadn't met his two siblings and attachments (spouses, kid, etc.) And normally when I went to spend the weekend at Paul's bachelor flat, I never bothered to bring too clean clothes because his apartment was so messy and so dirty it was pointless. Hell, sometimes I just didn't bathe the whole weekend I was there because his bathroom was so scary. I preferred being stinky to trying to bathe in there! That was a very, very frightening apartment. I remember thinking when I first saw it that only boys would live there. Girls wouldn't dare.

I put on a grubby white T-shirt I'd worn the day before, and found the green shorts. I remember silently hating Paul for putting me in this predicament. I certainly wasn't meeting his family feeling at my best or feeling ultra-presentable.

We were lovers then, but we weren't especially involved in this big deep relationship thing. We were fuck friends. We liked it that way because at the time, that was all we wanted. But it made for handling the family situations weird. Neither one of us as going to go home and say "Oh, by the way, here's my friend. We screw." At the same time, we weren't going to go home and say "This is my girlfriend/boyfriend" because that wouldn't have been true.

So he simply introduced me as "Cat" -- which was fine. But then of course, siblings started checking me out with girlfriend glasses on. Then his brother took a picture of us in the kitchen and I remember whispering to Paul, "I'm going to get you...." and smiling really big and he whispered back, "I know." and then he smiled really big.

*CLICK!*

We cleaned the garage really well yesterday. We were scrubbing the wall by the washer and dryer with Bon Ami because it was looking mildewy. We have a circulation problem in the garage. We have to figure out what to do about it. We sorted out oodles of trash and things and I found my black velvet Mary Jane heels.

Paul found his photo album I got him ages ago so he'd start sorting all these loose pictures. His brother gave him a copy of that photo and he has it in there. I haven't seen in it years.

Teenage us. Imagine that. Me, weeks before turning 19, and him a few months before turning 20 in the fall of 1994.

This phrase cracks me up:

"I married one of my teenage boyfriends."

It sounds so funny to me for some reason.

I used to really like those dark green shorts because while they were corduroy, the nap was really more velvet-y. They were a size 12 Lee shorts I had gotten in Pennsylvania the summer before when vacationing with family. I wore them a lot because they felt comfortable. He liked them a lot because if he felt my butt it was velvet. Heh.

That Pink Floyd T-shirt was newish then -- also a favorite. He's only gotten it that spring at their concert in Tampa. We still have it, but it's in tatters and very hole-y. I used to wear it to gym before it got holes over my nipples. That's too weird for me. On him the holes are some where around his lower chest/upper stomach so it's not so funky looking on him. So now only Paul wears it when he's in the yard doing things. That was a great T-Shirt.

I used to weigh about 175 there. About ten pounds out of my healthy range for my height. Paul was underweight -- and still is. But he's put on some weight so that's a plus.

I remember any time we had to go somewhere he'd be digging in my stuff looking for a ponytail band because he always put it up if he was going to be seeing family. He had shoulder length hair then. I loved playing with it. Be cool if he grew it out again that long one day. I like his beard now even though his hair is a lot shorter. Then again, back then he couldn't grow a full beard. It came in weird and wispy and some patches were ok and others were all bare. So he was clean shaven a lot then because he didn't like looking all uneven.

It strikes me as funny to think that we caught each other on the tail end of adolescence. I got to see him get to where he could grow a full beard, broaden in the chest, and deepen a bit more in voice. He got to see me get past teenage boobs and widen in the hips. I also grew a half a shoe size.

There are also other changes I got to see in him and him in me. He's more assertive, less vague, more responsible. I'm less violent about emotional outbursts.

Today we biked all over the base. We discovered a wooden bridge and this long stretch of overgrown sidewalk. You can't see the sidewalk -- there is grass covering it but you can feel the hardness when you ride it. We did the sand stretch, went out to that hill and biked around in there and he went up and down the hill a few times while I watched.

I practiced standing on my pedals and just coasting to help me get over that fear of heights thing. I did better, but it still freaks me out to see ground whizzing so fast while I am standing. It's weird mixture of vertigo and fear of heights with me. So I certainly wasn't going to be zooming down that huge honking hill like him! Not today anyway.

Then we did the grass trails out to the old apartments, and I rode my merry-go-round and then we biked home. Ten miles on the nose. Yay. Next month we need to kick it up to 15 miles.

I love looking at him. And I like seeing how he changes as he gets older. I like getting old with him. Not that in my mid-twenties I am decrepit or something. But I really like the taste of growing old with him as my companion. I ought to take more pictures of us together.

The expression his face though, when he was coming down the hill. Priceless.

~Astrophe