If there was a way to blush in a headline, insert it here.

Mike's Mom reads the blog.

Oh yes. Yes, she does. Good heavens, the things I've said here! Happily, a quick (and by quick I mean a very through review of every word) skim of my former posts makes me glad I started a new blog! Far fewer manifestos on, say, make-out. Which, of course, I have never, ever done.

Ever.

But I shall not blog about that (Hi, Marcine!).

I'm going to gush a bit. And you're going to have to deal with it. Tonight I was talking to Mike, as usual (we talk, like, every moment we can), and we were discussing money. Yes, money. We talk about stuff like that. And how we manage it. And I didn't freak out!

To give you some background here, I'm not great with money left to my own devices. I'm not like heroin-addict bad but I'm not good. I am, however, worlds better and getting better (which I am so proud of) every year. But when it comes to talking about it, I have an instant reaction of extreme anxiety. Probably because every time I have to vocalize about it it's been to ask for help or receive some scolding. It's been years since that's actually happened (the scolding, that is, the help part played into my last, jobless year very much) but it's still a topic I can't even broach with my Mom. And that's saying something.

Something about Mike, however, leads me to believe that whatever I throw at him he'll just react rationally, calmly and it will all be fine.* It's truly astounding! When I discuss funds with him I still go to a '2' on the anxiety scale but it's about eight points less that usual. And that's just...astounding. He knows about my financial behaviors of the past, we share our present and we plan for what the future may hold. It's so nice! And it's a financial discussion!

If you had asked me four months ago if I'd be here today, blogging this, I would have laughed you out of my apartment. There is something so basic about the calm Mike gives me, so stable about our connection, that I can't imagine that I ever existed before it. It's both scary and the greatest feeling I've ever felt. And, I tell you what, it's something I'd get a little gushy (even on my blog or--astoundingly--in real life) about so that everyone (Hi Marcine!) has a chance to know how I feel.

Icky? Yes. But so true.



*That is not to say he's always a Zen master. That man can be ...um...passionate about things like, say, idiot drivers or just stupidity in general. But, let's face it, I couldn't live with bland. I'd go nutso.