As I told you earlier this week, we met First Wife and J for dinner the other night ... so that we might all meet the future Mrs. J. And, believe it or not, I don't have anything snarky to say. I know ... shocking.
Stitcher is nice. She was quiet ... but most of us are when meeting new people. I've apparently met her before. We both belong to a local charity and she said she remembers meeting me at some point. I don't remember her ... which, I assure you, is not an indictment of her. I'm a delightful combination ... someone who is both forgetful and terribly unaware of her surroundings. I swear at some point I'm going to look up and find myself in Narnia and have no idea how I got there.
Anyhow, Stitcher seems to be a nice enough woman. My only criticism of her ... or rather of them as a couple ... is their insistence on spending every spare moment together. Everyone's had a relationship like that ... but we usually burn that shit off early in life. At some point in your evolution from teenager to adult, you develop the ability to be okay with your own thoughts ... and spending time alone isn't a punishment.
Okay, let's take a step back. Maybe that sounded harsh ... and I don't want to come across as criticizing just for the sake of criticism. What I'm trying to say ... is that I worry about him. I worry that the pattern is less about him wanting to spend all his time with her ... and more about him wanting to spend time with anyone as long as he doesn't have to spend a single moment alone.
Before he met her, it was obvious that he was developing an aversion to being alone ... as if there was a problem if he wasn't at someone's house ... or doing an activity of some sort ... every single night. He's met someone who apparently shares his aversion. And while on one hand that's good ... on the other hand ... it's not entirely healthy.
I've talked him about it the situation ... asked him to talk to a counselor ... or a grief therapist ... something. I loved my friend with all my heart ... but she was confined to a wheelchair. She needed assistance to dress and to bathe. She was getting worse ... she was struggling to feed herself. At one point, she had me lift her hand to her face so she could scratch her nose. The road they were traveling was not an easy one.
So he's gone from a lifestyle of having someone who depended on him twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty four days a year ... to total, absolute freedom. Some people would embrace that freedom ... and, in some ways, he has ... to the extent of alienating almost all of his friends and family. But at the core, I think he's just trying desperately to get back to the place where another human being is with him all the time. It's like he has post traumatic stress disorder ... only with a ridiculous amount of disposable income.
So ... if love really is finding someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours ... then maybe these two crazy kids have fallen into mutual weirdness. Only time will tell ...
For thinking that my love could hold you
I'm crazy for trying
And crazy for crying
And I'm crazy for loving you
Patsy Cline - Crazy
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