jianantonic | (no subject)

I painted my fingernails bright red and bright yellow yesterday. Every time I look at my hands, I think of fire trucks.

Things are going...okay? McKenzie and I are communicating pretty well, and things have been nice between us for the past few days. I know he got to talk to some people and unload some thoughts, and we've had a couple of counseling sessions now, and we're getting better at handling this shitstorm together. We like each other and love each other a lot; that's not in doubt. But can we be happy in our marriage? We don't know, and not knowing is hard and it sucks and this is the prevailing state of my mind lately. But I know I will be okay. I am okay now, mostly. Just really sad a lot, but not void of happiness, either. It's a weird time.

We leave for Italy on Monday, and we still don't have much in the way of a plan for when we get there. I had wanted to go to Pompeii, but it looks like that's not going to work out -- it's about an 8-hour drive from Milan, where we're landing, and lodging options where that's a reasonable day trip are more expensive. So the vague plan is "tour northern Italy." I'd love to cross over to Switzerland for a day if it's feasible, just to say I've stood between more different imaginary lines. But anyway if you have any suggestions for the general area of northern Italy, hit me. My main request is that I want to see ancient things. Oh I'd also like for my marriage to hold together at least through the vacation, because if it all implodes over there, that's going to be a super fun 16-hour plane ride home. Or however long it is.

I really think it'll be okay, though. Indications are that things are going better. McKenzie's even keeping a spreadsheet with formulas. The math says our marriage is improving. (I love my husband. I love that he keeps a spreadsheet of his feelings and mathematical formulas to indicate how we're doing.) We're both looking forward to the trip. I have therapy tonight with my therapist, then we have joint counseling tomorrow online, then Saturday and Sunday I have the best therapy ever -- nieces! So I'm going into this trip all therapied up, and I think we'll experience it in a healthy way. Our game plan is to just enjoy each other's company, and without brushing things under the rug, treat the trip like we are a happy couple in love and on vacation, and see if we can really work out what that feels like. This could be just an epic disaster, but I am optimistic. Even though things are questionable, we're being kind and respectful and loving, so there's no reason to expect we'd make each other miserable on this trip. And if it was a movie, this trip would totally be the climax where we discover our certainty in our relationship and everyone lives happily ever after -- Thanks, Italy!! That's totally how it's going to go down, right? Totally.

Anyway I'm running 5 miles with Rigo today at lunch. He went with me on my 5-miler last Thursday, too, and it was definitely one of my better runs. He let me dictate the pace (last time I ran with him we did 8-minute miles, and I was DEAD at the end). We finished our five miles in 46 minutes -- on my own I run slower than a 10-minute mile pace, so I guess there's something to this running buddy thing. I felt better than I usually do, too. Here's hoping the same goes for today's run. I have Indian food for lunch when I'm done, and a massage scheduled for tonight at 7. Heh, if you count massage as therapy, I have three therapy appointments in the next 24 hours. I might be addicted to therapy. I wonder if there's therapy for that.