The other weekend while I was driving home from dinner with Sheri I started to mull over the idea for an entry. We've written that the beginning of our relationship is a little hazy mostly due to it being drowned in vodka. A lot of the times when we talk about our past I feel like we're recapping a movie. Like how you might talk with a friend about what part of the movie you liked the best, what made your heart thump a little harder with anticipation, or when you wanted to scream at the screen because the characters completely pissed you off with their behavior.
Well, I can't speak for Sheri but that's how I view our beginning. When I think about us, we were just two characters in a movie and I'm remembering the scenes I liked the best, or the ones that pissed me off the most. But there are some instances where it's so crystal clear that it's like I can reach out and hold them in my hand.
Last Saturday we visited the area where we worked together. We drove to the deli that we had sometimes gotten lunch at when we didn't go next door to Uno's and get hammered. She asked me when I had realization, that I wasn't ever getting rid of her. She playfully warned me to "Answer carefully." I stared out the window at the passing traffic and I couldn't really pick out a specific point in time. I think I always knew she'd be there. I turned to her and said as much but added "I do remember the exact time I realized you were crazy." I can't recall what the argument was about but I can remember exactly where I was when she called to scream at me. We had 5 registers in our store, 1&2 and 3&4 were back to back and #5 was a standalone register. I was sitting on the floor between 3&4 putting together bird cages when she called me to yell at me about something or other (those days it was always something) and I told her that she was not my mother, I did not have to check in with her or let her know where I was or where I was going. She hung up on me and about an hour later came into the store and stalked past me, giving me a glare that would turn someone to stone. All I did was shake my head and say to myself This woman is nuts and I need to put her in her place.
We see how that turned out.
I can also remember putting together a plan-o-gram for the cat litter products and having difficulty with the shelves. She had been chattering away next to me while I was working and tried to help me move the heavy metal shelf but starting making me laugh. I couldn't catch my breath I was laughing so hard and she spoke of her sister then. "Don't laugh! Like Doreen says when you laugh you lose all your strength." My arms felt like jelly as I struggled to hold up this shelf (which let's face it, was not as heavy as it was awkward). I remember at that point thinking She can make me laugh like no one else has before.
She also made me jealous without even realizing she was doing so. I can remember we were in the stock room preparing for Inventory and another female co-worker was leaning over next to her examining a checklist. I could hear Sheri say "Vicky, you smell so good!" I felt my cheeks burn with an inexplicable rage at Vicky who just innocently was wearing a very nice smelling cream. That night after work I went to the store to buy the same scent and made sure to be close to Sheri whenever I wore it. I wanted to be the only one she thought smelled good.
It was Inventory that we also had a huge fight. It was a horrific snowstorm and all I wanted to do was leave and drive to my boyfriend's who only lived a few miles away. It was the middle of the night, and getting dangerous, and I kept campaigning to be let go early. I can recall Sheri, flushed with rage, finally tell me that I could go, that she didn't give a shit. I ended up staying for some reason that I didn't understand so she wouldn't be mad at me. I kick myself to this day for staying because I felt like I gave her a little bit of power at that moment but I couldn't stand the thought of her being mad at me. I don't justify her anger, but I can understand how it hurt to have the one person you want, wanting to leave and be with someone else.
I remember one day all of our registers ran out of bags and there was a store that supplied them about 20 minutes away. It was a beautiful warm day in early Spring and she asked me if I wanted to go with her, knowing full well there was no need for me to go other than she wanted company. I climbed into her Durango and had the window down with my arm making wave motions as we sped down the highway. I dared her to ditch work and we drive to the beach. I almost had her convinced until her cell phone harshly rang and it was our store manager demanding us to get back immediately, that he was furious she took me with her. We had gotten stuck in traffic to make us even later and we just talked about everything under the sun.
She was the first person I could talk to about everything. When we weren't fighting, it was so easy with her.
I also remember little things, like how she looked when we were driving back from our first Yankee's game a few months after our first kiss. I can still see her turning to flash me her secret smile and reach for my hand even though her oldest child was in the backseat. I remember the way the setting sun reflected in her blue eyes and flushed cheeks and knew in that moment I could never walk away from her again.
I did end up trying to walk away . I never could stay away for long. Still can't. She's such an integral part of me that even to this day when I want to scream and cry and choke the ever living daylights out of her, she runs in my veins.
I still get butterflies when I see her. When she smiles at me, a warm smile that reaches her eyes and lights up her entire face, my heart skips a beat. It's those moments that I still know that I could never be apart from her. Sometimes I want to. I won't lie and pretend it's all rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes she makes me so enragingly mad that I wonder what it would be like if I just threw in the towel, if I walked away and started a new life. Those moments are fleeting though because when I actually think about losing her my breath catches in my throat and my heart breaks.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again, our beginning was nasty. I can't explain it though, there was something bigger than us keeping us together. I just wish I knew that then and maybe I wouldn't have fought it off so hard, maybe we wouldn't have broken each other into little pieces. But then again, maybe it's good that we did because it made us realize that we are something we want to fight for. When we had nothing, when we were completely shattered like broken glass, we still stuck by each other's side to rebuild what little foundation we had. And look at what it's turned us into.
We're better because we were so bad.
