It's Friday and I get off work around 2:45pm. Super stoked because we get to have a super fancy belated Valentine's Day where I get flowers, we get dressed up, he wears a tie *swoon* and we go to a really nice restaurant and maybe drinks afteward. on the drive home i hit traffic. no worries, i know today's been a particularly rough day but soon it will all be champagne and candlelight. i call my boyfriend. honey im running late theres mad traffic i still have to go home and pick something up. i had burned him a mix cd and was going to get chocolate covered strawberries and make him a really cute fancy plate to put them on with a vday card. well what time will u be here? i dunno, how long will it take for me to get there in rush hour traffic. its already 3:45 and im not even home yet so i doubt ill be there by 4:30. why do you have to go home? to pick up something. what are you picking up? something! well i dont see why u cant just come here. because i gotta go home first! well i dont know what u want me to say. how long will it take for me to get to ur place in rush hour, u drive it all the time. one hour. thats all i needed to hear. well then what time will you be here because we have reservations...yes i know. i will get there when i can. fine well im home ill see u when u get here. fine. *click* i get home and grab my things. no time for a card, no time to pick up strawberries. so i get the brilliant idea to make some at home. 15 minutes later i have a homemade batch of chocolate covered strawberries and all of my shit together and out the door by 4:30. on my way over i realize there is way more than an hour of traffic. as im driving and the time is closing in on 5:45 i call my boyfriend. is there anyway you can push the reservation back til 7:30 or 8. why are u late? because theres mad traffic and i didnt leave the house til 4:30. well what do you want me to do cancel? no i just fucking asking u if u could push back the reservation. well the only other time slot they have is 9. 9 is too late. ok so do u want me to cancel 7? no of course not, i just asked if u could push it back did i say anything about canceling? no. did u call the restaurant? no, 7 and 9 were the only spots they had open when i called on monday. *hand to forehead* well why dont u call now and see if they had a cancellation. calls back..only open spot is 11. ok lets just keep 7 and ill just be ugly. i get to his place at 6:10. there is no way we're making a 7pm reservation. im almost in tears. its been a rough day. he says u seem frustrated and i wanted this to be a special night for us. well it aint gonna be so special with u pushing me about going home and why i needed to go home and blah blah blah. one of my friends from college died that Friday. we weren't particularly close, but we definitely share some memories. he was a data analyst in austin, texas. i wonder if it was his dream as a kid to grow up and be a data analyst. life is so short sometimes i dont know why i treat everyday like theres going to be a tomorrow. so many things i wanna do with my life, such little little time to do it in. people keep telling me to slow down, to not rush. how can i not? all i see everyday is people dying. people with a ticking clock and i am the messenger who brings them to the watchman. he looks at my pictures and tells them when they will die. some of us are not so lucky and have no warning at all. im sure my patients were living their lives thinking there will be a next year, a next decade. im made at my boyfriend. im mad at myself. i wanted tonight to be special, i wanted to dress up for him since he said he was jealous last week of how i dressed up for the mansion party but i dont dress up for him. i tell him its because we dont go anywhere to dress up for. he agrees. he holds me in his arms as we're sitting on his kitchen floor. i give him his mixed cd and the strawberries. biggest, goofiest grin spreads across his face. he points to the kitchen counter and says he got me flowers. i looked and laughed. that was enough for me. no fancy dinners, no expensive shoes, no shmoozy bar. just a boy and a girl, with a mixed cd, some "flowers" and shitty looking dessert. perfection.
