For our anniversary, I was Rockstar Wife and gave Dorian a signed & personalized, Bill’s jersey. Ahem, or really, Aimee was Rockstar Sister, and responded to my random text message asking her which Bill’s player would be a name that Dorian would want on a jersey, by emailing her contacts at Jim Kelly’s office asking if he’d have time to sign a jersey for her. So, there we go. I tripped into a great opportunity to give Dorian something he’d never expect and be absolutely blown away by. Maybe I’m more like, Groupie to the Rockstar, Wife.
Anyways!
I gave him a jersey. And he skipped around the apartment in sheer glee. And laid it carefully on the couch, where it stayed until we returned from Traverse City. Upon returning, we tried to decide where to put the jersey, where it would be safe in our time of limbo between Grand Rapids and Iowa. Eventually, it will be framed and proudly displayed in Dorian’s man-cave, er, office!
Finding a place to house the jersey in our apartment has proved to be a rather difficult task. Our apartment is twee, you see. And we are trying to avoid putting any more holes in the walls as we will be vacating the apartment in the next couple months and would like not to create extra work for ourselves (you know, such as, filling in random holes in the walls). Dorian finally decided to put it on a hanger and hang it on the ledge above our closet so that he can stare at it as he falls asleep and he can have sweet dreams of Jim Kelly prancing around in his REM cycle.
And, last night – the first night in quite some time that Dorian has been gone for the evening and I’ve had to go to bed alone – the placement of that-there jersey was the catalyst of what proved to be a quite heart-attack-inducing string of events. I’d made it through the entire evening with not even a hint of nerves or worry. I was able to bask in the uninterrupted time for accomplishing skads of tasks – such as, laundry, yoga, dusting, cleaning the bathroom, making some dinner, straightening a few cupboards, watching way too much of The Office, and really enjoying the peace and quiet. It wasn’t until going through my final rounds of straightening up the apartment and turning off lights to head for bed that it even occurred to me that I would have to lay in that ominously dark bedroom, all by lonesome with no Louisville Slugger to protect myself with.
I quickly brushed that thought away and was absolutely fine until…oh until. I turned off the bedroom lights, flipped on the TV and laid down in bed…and realized that the remote was on top of the TV. So I got out of bed, snatched the remote, turned around and peed my pants because THERE WAS A PERSON! IN THE CLOSET! STANDING THERE JUST STARING AT ME! AND ALL I HAD FOR PROTECTION WAS A TEENSY REMOTE! I blinked and jerked and started moving hastily toward the door until I realized, oh no. It’s just that damned jersey. I took a deep, steadying breath, glared at the jersey, turned the lights back on just to be sure that there wasn’t, in fact, a psychotic murderer in the closet, turned them back off and laid down again. I mumbled something about needing to get that thing framed and hung ASAP. Holes in the walls, be darned. And then of course, because my nerves were shot, I heard every single noise that could possibly occur. Including phantom stomping up the stairs outside of our apartment and thumping on our door.
Even though it took a while, I was finally able to fall asleep. That is, until the murderer thundered into our room and savagely grabbed my foot, causing me to sit bolt upright in bed, swinging my arms, panting heavily and mumbling the kinds of sounds that only someone not-quite-awake can make…or, you know…it was just Dorian who gently tip-toed his way into our bedroom, whispering my name the entire time and gently carressed my foot. He’s a wise man, that one. Knowing (from experience) to touch my foot when waking me up rather than being close to my arms. Heart attack, indeed. Once I woke up enough to register that it was only Dorian coming home from his meetings, he had to sit on the bed with me and comfort me until my heart stopped hammering in my chest and my arms stopped shaking.
You may wonder why he didn’t just let me sleep. And I would agree with you, except that…well, we’ve discovered the hard way that if he attempts to slide into bed next to me when I’m already asleep, someone gets injured. It has been proved that the heart attack is rather unavoidable. I will be startled awake if I’ve fallen asleep alone. But if he wakes me up from a standing position, he can at least have a bit more control over the Fight or Flight syndrome that completely takes over my body.