This week, I have been working from home because my car messed up last Thursday. I just parked it and didn’t look back – I had no time for bad news. Well, just before 5 PM I see that I have a text and check my phone and it is my aunt telling me that my grandma fell and hit her head and was on her way to the ER but my grandma wanted her to tell me. being stuck at home, trying to remain calm and work became extremely difficult. I didn’t really have any information and I knew that my aunt was busy dealing with that so I tried not to ask too many questions but I was in a panic. I certainly cried on many calls today – quietly but I think something you can tell.

Tomorrow, the 2nd is my grandmother’s wedding anniversary. I am pretty sure that it would be her 74th wedding anniversary but she probably only got to celebrate 51. He passed away a few months before their 52nd, unexpectedly – and I have been terrified of losing her ever since. None of her children thought she would live that long without him. They were so in love and the most positive influence in my life. For every time I have heard, “Damn, you’re pretty normal to come from all that” they have always been the reason. My father’s siblings included but I was a poor trailer trash kid that was barely making it that got to spend the weekends and summers in a very structured environment. It may have lead to plenty of psychological problems, but it wasn’t due to anything that ever happened there – I was very well taken care of. They all knew what my brother and I had to go through and they did everything they could to make sure that we had everything that we needed. My grandpa picked us up from school every Friday to go stay the weekend with them nearly until he passed.

Well, I am crying writing this and really need to get to bed but when I felt like I needed someone, I knew that she would be okay me with me needing a little support. I never expected her to actually read it past seeing it in a notification but she did more than that. I spent a few moments wondering if it was a dream but probably only due to my level of physical exhaustion and possible disbelief. I was actually getting into a U-Haul to drive it when I saw the message come in. I set my phone down nervously – I knew that I had to wait at least a few minutes before jumping to read it. That was hard but I am sure that I waited at least 5. Because – I was driving the U-Haul. When I looked at the notification, I had to screen shot it for that future love story that I am writing. It’s completely in my head but forming more and more every day. Today, during my attempts at being innocent, I used an octopus emoji and a turtle emoji – because how else will I say – all the things I wanted to say.

It wasn’t long before I thought about the irony in this match. How the turtle can hold its breath for many hours and is aquatic, it can not actually stay under the water forever. Then I had to go the other way, I have heard that an octopus can walk on land when it really needs to but it can’t stay out of the water long. It wasn’t long before I was wanting her to read The Little Mermaid to me and I don’t know the Disney version. I never even let my morbid day dreams of the drowning turning drift over to her digitally but I did spend the day writing up an email. There was lots of deleting – I wish I had a type writer so that I could rip the page out of it and crumple it up and throw it across the room each time I start over. Selecting all and deleting all of my words is just less satisfying.

My heart is beating a little different today. I don’t feel so alone. When I was stuck at my house – trying to work, thinking about my grandma in the ER, I was a mess. They sent her straight back and passed up everyone but I guess that is what 89 and 3/4 gets you. I actually can’t think about it at all without crying but I know that she is holding my hand and I am sure that she understands more than I do how important moments like this are. They wanted to keep her overnight because she has a concussion but my aunt didn’t want her staying in the ER with so many sick people – There are nearly 1,000 new cases reported in her county just in that day. It’s so sad that we are afraid of hospitals now – well, I always have been but I am afraid of most things. Like scheduling an appointment with a new doctor – that’s a catch 22 or something. The up side is that my boss thinks I am extremely dedicated when in reality, I am just afraid of getting kicked out of another one of my comfort zones.

On a completely different subject but related to an email that I sent that kind of makes me blush thinking back on it – I wonder if she knows that I haven’t been interested in a single woman since I met her? It’s a confusing fact because I have some self-defeating defense mechanisms and back in 2013 I was a much different person. I did run out to remind myself that people still wanted me. Then I ended up with Maddison because I thought that if I tried hard enough, I would eventually have feelings for someone – which in a way is true, I have plenty of feelings about her but none are romantic and they never were. I can’t find my point but in my email I am pretty sure that I told her that I had been messaging two girls to try to leave her alone. I hope someday she finds out how ridiculously innocent they were. To start with my profile only said friends because is by far all I want – unless our name is that one name, I will make any exception for her.

She is such an artist and with my heart is no exception. When I ended up reading the message that I spent about 20 days checking for, I just stared and read and reread. I told myself that’s not what she means by it. I reminded myself it was no accident and then I just let my weird R&B song that has worked it way into my days.

This is not my normal musical preference but in about middle school, I was all about r&b. There are 2 stations near me and when I hear a song I know, I stop to listen but when this one crossed my radio – it was the first time I could actually understand what the heck Nelly was saying but when I hear songs that speak to me like that, I just freeze – I can’t imagine who is picking out this sound track – they have me.

You win this time Nelly but I don’t plan to be touched by any more of your music.. but tonight, I am.

Then she said words to me. I need to go find her in dreamland. What will be the next 20 year old song that I ‘hear’ for the first time?

The last one was live and still has me slightly beside myself when I think about the way I felt as I understood the lyrics in the hardest way possible.

Sometimes I wonder about the subliminal messages that music has embedded in me: no reason.