bad times and good

This past weekend has been a struggle, at best. I was extremely depressed Friday and Saturday--depressed to the point of being mean and petty to Al, which is something I tend to do sometimes and hate about myself. I was depressed because I was lonely, and when lonliness hits and lasts for a few (or several) hours, I find I cannot be around people. It's a bit paradoxical, actually. By the time Dana and Stephanie called on Friday night to ask if I wanted to go to Dublin Bay for a drink and some food, I was too far gone. I had spent over an hour crying on the phone to my mother, several hours in bed watching dvds, and overeaten by quite a bit. It was eerily like my old depression days when I lived alone.

I'm missing Al (he's been gone a week now) and my family. I'm getting hurt by stupid little things that prove I'm not the center of (or perhaps, even extremely important to) other people's universes. Of course, there's not a reason to think that I should be. But my brother called my dad and had my dad call me when he realized that Al's phone (landline) had been disconnected (why couldn't he call me himself?) and my sister hasn't called me back, although I've been trying to reach her since I found out that we're going to be aunts. Saturday it was the fact that Al was skipping out on my dad's birthday dinner, although he had a perfectly good reason not to go--someone at work had a family member die and Al was filling in for him. All I could think was, Al would get out of work early if it were one of his family members. But that was stupid, too, because those dinners are always planned way in advance, and usually on a day that Al doesn't work (or if he does, it's overtime and he's justified in leaving early). I was also upset that I couldn't attend that family dinner myself. And I'm getting more and more nervous about getting the results of that stupid portfolio exam, which I should get this week. Like I said. Stupid little things that should not bother me in the least. But they do, and this weekend I really let them.

I did manage to drag myself out of the house to use the elliptical machine with Dana yesterday morning, and went to a movie with Stephanie last night (The Last Mimzy, which has its extremely corny moments but is good overall). I managed to have a good time with Steph, but I was still in a foul mood when I got home. Ugh. Today has been better, though. Bright, sunny, 70-some degrees (compare that to the blizzard we had at the beginning of the month), grass already plenty green. And I've managed to do some grading, too, so I'm actually getting something accomplished instead of wasting all my time. And I'm able to spend the rest of this post waxing nostalgic, because a year ago yesterday is when Al finally proposed to me.

It was in Chicago at the bean. Actually, it's not a bean, it's a reflective sculpture called Cloud Gate or something like that. Unfortunately, the bean was under construction (again), so we didn't get a great pic of it happening--although Al did manage to snap a pic while he was on one knee. It wasn't really a surprise, but that's because of my incessant worrying and complaining that, although neither one of my younger brothers had actually known their girlfriends (now wives) as long as we had been dating, both of them were engaged and had wedding dates set already. I know I'm difficult, but come on! Plus, I had known that he had purchased my engagement ring more than two years prior to proposing to me (he left a slip out on the kitchen counter) and was afraid he had changed his mind and returned it. But I said yes, told strangers on the street (since he had managed to propose in the middle of downtown Chicago without a soul witnessing the event), and we went to celebrate--first at an Irish pub and then at a bowling alley lounge. My friends from school (they were all in town for a conference, which is what I was there for, too) came to celebrate with us--Masha, Pete, and Tosh--and the bartender gave Al and I his special recipe shots free of charge. I asked what the shots were called and he said "Trust Me."

That's Al's proposal to me in a nutshell, and due to the events of that day, I'll be a Mrs. in seventy-something days. Ah, coupledom. It has its good points. :)