It’s our anniversary today. 12 years. Lovely day for it. Not a sunny day, but the weather isn’t bad. The stormy looking clouds scooting past overhead create some beautiful views. No rain so far.

My Traveling Partner was still sleeping when I left the house early-ish this morning. I got a pleasant walk in, and ran a couple errands. I headed home when I got his ping letting me know he was awake. Efficient. One of those errands was picking up a new “spa frog” for the hot tub, and by lunch time, my partner had the chemistry adjusted and ready for soaking. Damn that felt soooo good, too. My aching back was enormously grateful.

Gratitude is definitely something filling my heart today. Gratitude and love. This relationship is pretty mind-blowing and characterized by love, loving, and mutual regard. I adore this particular human being rather a lot. Perhaps, I sometimes think, too much…? Love is the good stuff, though, isn’t it? 🙂 Hard to argue that it isn’t. I smile and think of his arms around me. Our experience of love isn’t “perfect”; we’re both human beings, and we’ve both reached where we are in life by wading through rather a lot of pointless crap, bad decision-making, and individual trauma, so… yeah… we’ve each got our baggage and our “issues”. Still… I never lose sight of how very much this human being loves me, and what a delightful return-on-investment (because I love him) this love is. We’re happy – for most values of “happy”.

…12 years…

Today we’re also, in addition to celebrating our anniversary, waiting on packages. This is a less successful or satisfying endeavor than simply loving each other, unfortunately (seems like it should require quite a lot less work all around). Packages that should have been delivered, based on expectation-setting by shippers, Friday. Weather? Nope. It’s a pretty mild spring most places. Civil disorder? Not on that level (yet) in this country (generally). With regard to at least one package, it actually looks like just maybe it’s in the process of being stolen. This is seriously aggravating. The tracking tools available these days certainly make easier to spot sketchy weird bullshit, though.

My partner finally gets a support call through to an actual human being, who agrees the particulars look exceedingly questionable. They start doing whatever is to be done to track down it’s location in the physical world. What a bunch of bullshit. Of course, the stress of dealing with it harshes the mellow of a lovely day. I step away (here, now) long enough to get enough distance from the blast of frustration and ire to (hopefully) avoid being triggered by it. So far, so good.

I think about this love of ours, and the future camping fun we’re already planning to enjoy together. That’s part of today’s frustration; the items we’re waiting on are a handful of basic essentials that we need for safe (enjoyable) off-roading, and efficient management/storage of our gear. I know my Traveling Partner is eager to take the truck out and get it off-road for a few days, looking for some great camping spots to enjoy together on my birthday (and beyond). I understand the maddening frustration of packages that don’t come when promised, or arrive damaged, or… just don’t arrive. (Just gonna say it; Amazon’s services have less and less actual value as time passes, and I no longer use them as my “go to” when I am shopping online. Between the shipping disappointments – which are numerous – and the knock-offs or scam products mixed in with legit listings, it’s just not worth the hassles, or the price.)

I smile, thinking of my partner. Thinking of spending time together in the truck, on the road, out in the woods, out on a trail… fuck I love this guy. It’s the kind of love that makes it so worthwhile to do my best to be the woman I most want to be.