Through all the things my eyes have seen, the best by far is you…

The updates have been sparse these last few months because life is happening and I can hardly keep up with all the fun and exciting experiences that keep coming my way. One day life will be really difficult and I’ll wonder, “When were the good times?”

Well, these are it. And I’m enjoying them as much as I can.

The new place in Eagle Rock is fantastic! I love, love, LOVE our new apartment. The weather is getting cold finally and we’re not freezing our butts off like we did in Highland Park. No more seeing our breath in the kitchen! Every Saturday, I take pride in cleaning the apartment. I’m vacuuming the carpets with a smile on my face and scrubbing the toilet with enthusiasm. I love the view from our windows and catch myself staring out into sky or gazing over the green and yellow tree tops. Autumn looks good on Eagle Rock and even on rainy days, it’s beautiful. We’re hosting our first party next Sunday and all of Jose’s family is coming over to celebrate his nephew Sean’s 2^nd birthday. Some of our friends are coming over later in the month to watch Tom Hanks movies and I should be celebrating my birthday/housewarming at the end of December. I can’t wait to show off the new (not so new) place!

I’m also starting to understand Jose’s mental illness a little better. The other day he was set to see his doctor for his usual 3 month check-up and he was wondering whether he should talk to her about changing the dosage on his medication. For a while, he felt the meds were making him more tired and keeping him kind of in a sleepy state. I remember when we first started dating he would always be napping. He decided to start cutting the dosage in half and taking his half-pill at the end of each day because it helped him sleep. Recently, he felt the voices he hears in his head were talking more loudly and it was getting hard to ignore them. We were driving to his mom’s house to pick up his brother to go car shopping when Jose started telling me the new development in the voices. He said the negative voices take on the voices of people he knows, for example his boss, his parents or even me. He then asks me in all honesty “You’re not reading my thoughts, right? You’re not talking to me in my head, are you?” I say no and at that moment I understand what he was trying to explain to me back in March of this year:

"Sometimes I have conversations with you in my head...and they're always negative."

I didn’t quite understand what he meant when he said that months ago, but now it hit me. It’s not him that feels that way, it’s not me being mean…it’s the illness and it warps reality in such a way, that it’s almost hard not to take it personally.

Jose is relieved knowing that he’s right, that it’s just the voices and he resolves to talk to his doctor about it. It might be time to change the dosage on his meds. Things return to normal and I felt grateful that he decides to share so much about what he’s going through instead of bottling it all up in fear. He even asks his doctor if it would be possible to get a note saying he would like to get a cat for therapy reasons. Our apartment is not pet friendly but this might help us get a tiny, kitten-sized exception. We shall see.

I now understand why he’s so adamant about having background noise on. You’ll never see him without his headphones on while he’s studying or listening to a Pandora station while he works on a project in the kitchen. He likes the distraction because he’s not always keen on sitting in silence, alone with his thoughts. Sometimes those thoughts can get pretty loud. I’ll be sitting on the couch, thumbing through my phone in perfect silence and he’ll ask why I’m not watching TV or have music on. I smile and say I don’t mind the quiet. Jose will look at me like I’m nuts. I guess I understand better now.

Other life improvements include our 6 month transformation: Jose and I have both a lost a lot of weight since the beginning of the summer!! We started dieting, changing our eating habits for the better and exercising about 5 times a week! Jose has lost about 40 lbs. and I have lost 17 lbs! We both feel fantastic and our clothes are hanging off of us. Jose is looking very lean these days and I’m slowing making my tummy disappear. I’m loving this slimmer waist line! I dusted off my belt and starting using it proudly on the 4^th notch instead of squeezing into the 2^nd.  I reached my goal weight and got myself some cute black yoga pants. My butt looks amazing! The weight loss has done wonders for our sex life, too: MORE ENERGY!

And of course, our anniversary is today! Happy 3 years to us!!! :) We’re having dinner and exchanging presents tonight. We always tell each other what we want for our anniversary, so there’s no fun surprise but at least we both get exactly what we want. I got Jose a new Deftones shirt and a black cardigan sweater in his new size of large. He got me flowers (white orchid, my favorite!) and an iTunes gift card. But what I think is the best present is the promise he made me over dinner last night. We were talking about our future plans and he was laying out what classes he’d be taking in the next 3 years. He saw my face fall and he asked what was wrong. I had to speak up: he had all his academic goals in mind but what about ours? Would we have to wait until he gets his degree to get married? The day we finally get hitched seems like it’s getting further and further away from us. He tells me he can see us getting married in the foreseeable future, before he finishes his degree. I ask, “What does ‘foreseeable future mean?’” Five years? Three years? Two years? He says one year. A year from this anniversary, he’ll ask me to marry him and then we can set a date. OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! It’s happening! It’s really happening!

Life is happening! Life is happening with the man that I love!! The good times are here!!