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You are here: Home / Personal / off-topics / people / elise / Engagement / In Pursuit of Bliss, pt. 1 – Permission

In Pursuit of Bliss, pt. 1 – Permission

November 2, 2007 by krisis

I tore open the basement door and was met with darkness and the mews of sequestered pets. He was definitely was not in the basement.

He hadn’t been in the kitchen, or upstairs in his bedroom, or in his office, or in the garage, so I was positive he would be in the basement.

I shut the door carefully so Elise wouldn’t hear the noise, noticing with a certain detachment that my hands were shaking.

Time was running out.

.

I haven’t felt stage fright in a while – physically felt it like an affliction, or a holy ghost moving within me.

Now it’s just a spare butterfly in my stomach, or a certain anxiousness – probably because these days my on-stage appearances involve strumming and squawking my own songs rather than reciting 115 pages of memorized dialog. Yet, even in my theatrical days my slight stage fright was nothing debilitating. It was more a survival instinct than performance anxiety; it kept me aware, kept me from being complacent.

Or, maybe I’m just a natural performer, and I’ve never really understood what stage fright really is.

Until that Sunday.

.

Back in the kitchen now, with Elise a scant wall away in the bathroom. Even washing her face or futzing with her contacts wouldn’t keep her in there much longer. I had another minute, maybe two. Desperate, I looked out of the window.

There he was. Walking the dog.

I don’t think I’ve ever moved so quickly in my entire life. Out of the kitchen, into the hallway, and out into the pitch black garage, stealthily shutting each door behind me as I went.

A sole trace of light radiated from around the edges of the outside door. In the relative blackness I nearly tumbled over a box. Or a car. Or some sort of inert garage gremlin, for all I knew at the time. I was completely fixated on the outline of the door, which he hadn’t shut completely. I should have noticed it the first time I peered into the garage.

Heart racing, I grasped the doorknob.

.

Despite my near-OCD about consistency and personal habits I don’t believe in carrying on a tradition for traditions sake. Just because everyone does something a certain way – have always done something a certain way – doesn’t mean I plan to adhere. In fact, it probably means that I plan not to, especially if the tradition is religious or patriarchal in any way.

Yet, even with that inherent rebelliousness, there are a few traditions I just can’t bear to break. Am I actually polite on some deeply-repressed psychological plane? On some even deeper level do I buy into a few traditions just so my rejection of others is more profound.

Or, are some traditions that way for a reason?

.

I burst out of the door and into the daylight of the driveway, breathless.

From across the street Elise’s father looked up from a cell phone call to regard me quizzically, the dog hunched in the grass by his feet.

As I met his gaze my entire body shook uncontrollably. The physical, rational part of me was having a grand mal seizure. Somewhere beneath that a combination of instinct and basic motor functions took over.

I started to walk down the driveway.

.

It was over before I knew it. Like being stuck by a needle, or surging down a rollercoaster. Or getting on stage. All the anxiety in the anticipation, and none of in the act.

My recollection of the actual event is vague. Did I speak with confidence, or was I shaking like a leaf (and possibly dry heaving) the entire time. I would say that we could ask Elise’s father, but I’m sure he had his own collection of involuntary reactions to contend with at the time.

.

Five minutes later we walked back into the house together to find Elise seated in the kitchen, reading her book. She raised an eyebrow at our entrance, to which I replied, “I didn’t want him to have to walk the dog alone.”

She went back to her book, apparently unconcerned, unaware of the mad hunt that had lead me outside or the motivation behind it.

I resisted the urge to shoot a look back to her father, but couldn’t risk giving my mission away.

.

I had permission. We were getting engaged.

Filed Under: Engagement, NaBloPoMo, Year 08

Previous Post: « Spinning Off (or, Welcome to NaBloPoMo)
Next Post: Our Upscale Bar Crawl »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Amanda says

    November 4, 2007 at 9:10 am

    where’d you go? I worry when you disappear in the middle of a project that you are pouring all your OCD into…

    also, I love your use of “holy ghost” as stage fright.

  2. Lindsay says

    November 4, 2007 at 10:10 am

    i was wondering the same thing…

    ?

  3. krisis says

    November 4, 2007 at 11:11 am

    Apparently I had a little hiccup last night wherein I thought I was scheduling a post to go up in about an hour (giving me time to think about editing it, although I actually wound up falling asleep on the couch). However, I was really scheduling it to go up tonight. Fixing presently.

    “Holy Ghost” totally stolen from “Hallelujah.”

Trackbacks

  1. Crushing Krisis › In Pursuit of Bliss, pt. 2 - Planning To Be Surprised says:
    November 7, 2007 at 12:21 am

    […] (Continued from Permission) […]

  2. Crushing Krisis › I am Peter’s beleaguered abdomen. says:
    April 15, 2008 at 6:57 pm

    […] DDR in front of him over Christmas I felt like a cow skipping rope. Oh, and did I mention that their father runs marathons, and that when he deigned to run my company’s ten mile race last year he […]

  3. Crushing Krisis › Happy Birthday To This says:
    August 26, 2008 at 10:01 am

    […] began telling the story of our engagement, further chronicled here and here. I disclosed my previously deeply personal delight in hot food […]

  4. Crushing Krisis › Weary, but without wedding woes. says:
    October 23, 2008 at 1:51 am

    […] site that matches the overall look of our wedding “campaign,” and on it she placed the first three entries in my series of ten engagement […]

  5. Crushing Krisis › Hitching: Groom Team Style, pt. 1 says:
    November 9, 2008 at 4:18 am

    […] only do I have to finish telling the story of how Elise and I got engaged last year, but aside from touching on our invites a few weeks ago I […]

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