SpecRACKular

I'm feeling oddly sentimental today (well, who am I kidding, if you've read my blog for more than un second you would know that I am a sentimental sap through and through), and after sending a partially weepy e-mail to Kellyn--a fantastic wife, mother, and human being who is also about to be a first-time homeowner, and who was also my sidekick in many (mis)adventures in high school--about the fact that we are becoming grownups, I took a dazed stroll around my condo.

For the first six months that I lived in my condo, it did not in any way resemble home. It was huge and dusty with industrial strength lighting and eye-frying white walls. It echoed strangely, and I was locked out of all of the other rooms. When I had friends over for a dinner party, everyone was highly amused by my lack of decor, as were various sets of visitors. But it didn't feel like home, I was reminded in not so subtle ways by the owners that it wasn't REALLY my home, so I didn't bother nesting.

It's certainly no secret that Peter had wanted me to come back to the U.S. after one year instead of completing my two year contract. It's understandable why he would want this, especially given the fact that things had not, well, gone EXACTLY as I had hoped out here. However, I also knew that I had to stay. That there was something bigger than me pulling the strings in all of this. Over the summer when he (and two of my best friends from grad school) came to visit, I told him this. He hugged me and kissed me and told me he would wait for me. Then, he looked around my condo and said, "Let's see what we can do about making you feel more at home here."

He got to work hanging the pictures that he had bought for me in Cambodia, and covering vast sections of white wall with batik sarongs from Bali. He assembled my paper lamps, hung up some fabulous string lights, and bought me a hanging picture frame where I could put pictures of my nieces.

My friends Cayla and JJ gave me their plumeria tree when they left Thailand to return to the States. I have a bit of what you might call a "toxic thumb" with plants, and I had bet that within in a few months I would have figured out a way to kill the poor, beautiful thing. During the fall and winter it had lost all of its leaves and flowers, and I was pretty sure it was dead. I stopped watering it and tried to figure out a way to dispose of it (and by "tried to figure out" I mean I stood there with my hands on my hips feeling guilty and then thinking to myself "I should find a way to dispose of this dead tree" before shrugging and going back inside). Then, in recent weeks it began blooming again. It had miraculously come back to life. OH, THE METAPHOR. I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

As I was watering it last night I remembered that Peter had ridden through the streets of Bangkok in the back of a pick up truck to hold the tree steady while we transported it from Cayla and JJ's place to mine. The next day he also bought me a drying rack so that I wouldn't have to drape my wet clothes all over the living room furniture.

Sometimes true love and romance is all about violins and fireworks and gazing deeply into each other's eyes. And trust me, there is PLENTY of the above. However, sometimes you know that someone is The One because of a drying rack. And even though Peter has been on the other side of the world from me for two years, waiting patiently for me, he's also always been right here.