i just remembered something.

a couple of weeks ago, i had a really bad shoulder injury (nothing close to today's but worrisome, nevertheless), but i totally dismissed it. i even refused to ice it, just daring it to hurt. so it didn't. and i played well the next day, was actually kind of a beast, and no one knew i was injured. it was my secret that day, what was fueling me.

the next day, i was im-ing with david and he was telling me something about happiness and parks and his usual hyper-cheerful stuff, and i guess i wasn't really paying attention. then he says that he meant to ask me...is there something wrong with your shoulder?

what's amazing is i had forgotten about my shoulder. so i said, no, i don't think so.

he asks me if i'm sure. because his right shoulder had been really aching the last couple of days and he had wondered if my shoulder was hurting.

i'm still thinking, nooo...i have no idea...when i remember oh yeah, i had a shoulder injury that i am adamantly denying the existence of. so i say, actually it is hurt, and i tell him about it. he says i should really get it checked out and we continue on to other topics, never acknowledging if it might be unusual for someone to psychically pick up someone's ailment from a continent away.

well, today i fucked it pretty badly and still, i honestly feel this injury was a warning. i knew i should tell him about it.

so he's at work and we're im-ing, and i'm telling him about it and he's slowly freaking out. he's telling me me how i have to be careful and i should take the injury more seriously. i'm telling him that i am, and i truly believe i am serious, because otherwise i wouldn't have told him about it. he's getting worked up but he's so polite about it, and he's at work juggling customers and wanting talk about this and i think he might have snapped at someone for browsing for too long because he was trying to get back on. finally he just calls. he's kind of laughing and himself when he calls but he's serious. he says he'd thought about it before if there's anything i could possibly do that could make him mad and he'd decided he couldn't think of anything, but that i'd managed to find something that makes him mad, by not taking better care of myself. he's laughing but serious and i'm laughing but serious, and it was this thing where we'd finally broken through another barrier for a small but vital victory, my fear that he might demand that i be perfect replaced with an insight that this man is happy when he's taking care of me.

i'm taking you seriously, i told him. everything you're saying, i'm taking it seriously.