Water, Water everywhere.

I turned 31 last week. Got a new hole punched in my nipple (oooh! Shiney boobie!), ate a steak and resisted the rabbit food alltogether, and laughed probably more then is healthy.

Generally I forget my birthday and often my age. It is one of the few traits i share with my father. Generally, we are reminded when someone else calls to wish us a good day. Once I am reminded, I generally spend the day dissecting, contemplating, analysing.

I weigh my actions, my thoughts, my current situation on some great chimerical scale that exsists only in my head. Calculating and assesing my own self worth as though i were Themis herself.

This year I found a pleasent unfamiliarity to the proceedings. There still exsists the familiar second guessing; "You probably could have handeled that better", "You should be finanically established, with clear cut immediate goals" "At your age, you should have this and this andthis..."

But in addition to the background noise of "what-if's", there was something new. A sense of accomplishment. Self satisfaction. Wish I knew why...but I guess it really does not matter. I certainly did not achieve anything with a tangible, material outcome. There is no measure of proof that will corraborate my sense of conquest.

But for the first time in mnay years, i feel as though i have grown as a person.

That last is actually a very heavy sentence.

I was also, last week, reminded of the growth of others.

The boi treated me to a slice of his life. Many small slices, really. Each precious little glimpse snapping into place like pieces in a jigsaw.

It was a simple thing, really. On the surface anyhow. He drove me about the city, pointing out the various houses he lives in as a small child. Buildings. Just buildings, of course...for me, faceless fronts of wood and stone with no more personality then any other on the street.

It was the in between moments that moved me. I remained silent for most of the tour (fuck you, i can too be quiet). But he did not. Lost in though for a while, he'd turn down the stereo volume periodicaly to inteject a story. Each one a small memory, many of which, i suspect he had not dredged to the surface in quite some time. All of which touched me.

I'm an open book. I ramble on and on, and rarely old hings in reserves. I lack the art of secrecy. But he is, for al his warmth and cuddlyness, a reserved person. It took me many mont of frustration to accept the fact that there was nothing i could do to force him to up; that he would reveal only what he wanted as time goes on.

But I think the walls were down that night. Dismantled, or forgotten. It matters not which. The end result is i was fed tiny litle glimpses, like broken segments on a reel of film...each a little gift of it's own.

And here's the bestest bit. Ocean. Beach and a horizon of water that made me cry wih the sheer beauty. And not only did he not laugh at me tears, but he knew to just hold me till the perfection of it all settle in my head, and then? He broght be back again the next day. And again a few days later. AND he fed me chocolae and coffee. Bliss.

He gets extra credit for having a good sense of humour about my utter inability to deal with ocean waves. They look innoculous from the beach. Disarmingly conquorable, wat with all the kids splashing abut happily.

I swallowed enough water in the first 5 minutes that my hair folicles felt like they were bleeding seawater. Unable to stand upright, i kept getting dragged over by the undertow and knocked completely off my feet by each wave. And this was apparently a fairly calm day. I laughed so much my sides were hurting, and strangers were looking at us withsome concern. I'm sure the boi was occasionally getting looks of admiration and sympathy, for having the strenth and courage to take such a SpEcIaEl friend to the beach for the day. People kept looking for my crash helmet.

The constant giggling meant my mouth was always open when the waves would hit, forcing massess of seawater down my throat and robbing me of breath so that i was sputtering and gasping in between waves...when really i should have been concentrating on the backtow and judging the arrival of the next wave so i could draw a breath and prepare for it. No such luck. Every single one dissolved me into a ball of estatic laughter. It was incredibly absurd fun.

Eventually, he took sympahy and stood between me and the waves, grabbing my wrist each time i was bowled over so I would not wash up meters downstream. Course, by that time my good ear was so full of water that I had absolutely no sense of balance anyhow, making it doubly difficult to get my bearings between waves.

I don't know how kids manage it. I kept falling over, and there were 5 year olds walking around me, cheerfully weathering each assult like it was nothing.

Unspeakable fun.