The game.

I don't know where it changed, or how it happened, but there is a strange shift that is arising.

While going through The Great Sewage Flood Purge, I have to let go of a lot of 'stuff'.  I'm very sentimental, which is part of a hoarder's mentality.

I keep little love notes.

this has always come in handy when relationships end, and i get to have the great bonfire of 'fuck you very much you slime sucking bitch', proving to me yet again, that you never know when you will need it!!!

I found one that would normally be kept on the fridge.  Papi had given it for no reason at all, other than to make my day brighter and more beautiful.  It was a love note written on a piece of paper that mi esposo had cut into the shape of a heart before penning.

It told me how much Papi loved me.  On the flip side, I wrote I love you so many times that it filled the little paper heart, and slipped it back to mi esposo.

When I found it in the bag of fridge magnets, I was charged with tingles of emotion.  When I read what it said at the bottom however, I was mildly confused.

It was signed, "Love, your girl."

My girl?

No that's just weird!  I had to turn it over and put the millions of 'I love you's face out so that it was still feeling right.

Mi esposo is not my girl.

I'm not ready to see my love as a male being, but Papi is not my girl, and I'm finding myself in this place of limbo.

Papi is just Papi.

When I realized that I had cringed after witnessing these 3 words, I found myself looking at how far I'd come in my healing of what was at first, the end of my world.

Something else I identified as healing happened yesterday.

I was trying to have a phone conversation with the 95 year old g'ma that we live with normally, ...

normally, but we shipped her off to calgary while they put the house back together

... and there I was yelling into the phone speaking as slowly and with as much enunciation as possible, and mi esposo was off tending to something.

Then g'ma asked for her voting number.  I bellowed at to Papi to get it.  I heard this extremely frustrated sigh, and then, "Really?  Right now?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my love leave the kitchen, pants halfway down as the trek up the stairs was about to begin.

I realized what was going on immediately.  I interrupted my love administering hormones.

Papi came back down with the pants up and number in hand, accompanied by a look that was pure embarrassment.

I was giggling the whole time this was happening.

When I was off the phone and got my speaking voice back after all the yelling, Papi said, "You know, your timing is fucked!  I try so hard to keep you from seeing this happening like you asked, and every fucking time something really fucked up happens and you know about my hormones!"

This made me laugh so hard and I felt like this was now a game.  Not the stress that was attached to it before, but a game of Papi trying to hide something from me, and I foil the plan every time.

But the most important part?

I laughed.

I didn't cry, I didn't feel nauseous, I didn't feel like the ground is opening up and swallowing me into the pit of doom.

Laugh.

Heal.