If you were counting the days...54 have come and gone.

Hi –

It’s been close to 2 months. Not that I’m exactly counting the days or anything, but if you were curious it’s been exactly 54 days, 1,296 hours, 77,760 minutes, and 4,665,600 seconds. Again, not that I’m keeping track or anything. And Friday was the first time that I could feel part of my old self-present. Maybe I shouldn’t say my old self, seeing as how I’m definitely not exactly the same or ever will be, but I can feel that ‘rachelness’ that was totally unique to me returning.

My old self wasn’t there the entire day, but there were definitely a hand full of moments where I was my old/new self, and there were some people who even recognized it.  I was totally on at work, which was part of it I’m sure. I was productive all day long, and it felt good. I proactively ran reports, was on top of my email all day replying as soon as possible, pulling information on SKU counts from the recess of my brain, thinking about our future email’s and promotions, I was there and accounted for. It was the first time since everything that I felt good about my job again.

Of course after work I went to the Pub with Ila, Nancy, and my Adult Swim contact Alison who is in town, we all threw a few back – ya know the usual.  In the course of throwing back my drinks I was bee-bopping around to the new Taylor Swift song, and Nancy looked at me and said, “I haven’t seen you like this in a while, monk. It’s nice.” I looked her straight in the eyes and told her she was right. And she was, but as soon as the old/new self surfaced, she went right back in again. Hopefully, soon I’ll be able to be that person for longer bits of time.

Leaving the pub was really hard to do because I was at that exact drunk point where I would have called you during my walk. I would have called and rambled the entire way about the Trisha Yearwood cooking demonstration I had tickets for. I would have gone on and on about what I was going to wear, what time I wanted to get there, if I wanted to get there super early to make sure I was in the front row, my usual neurosis, and you would have laughed at me the entire time and told me I was ridiculous. Instead though, I put my headphones in and went to the grocery store to get dinner for Honey and myself. I felt you with me though knowing that we would have been on the phone then. I felt you so much that I donated one of those dollar charity things they always ask you about at the check out counter. The ones that are various colors depending on the charity and hot air balloon shaped. I don’t even know what the charity was for, but I know you would have been sucked into giving the dollar yourself, so I did it for you. I almost even signed your name to the card, but in the last second I put mine instead.

I know Dad wants me to call him in those moments and tell him my meaningless chatter, but I’m not there yet. The only thing I can compare it to is how Diane doesn’t grocery shop on Sundays at 11am anymore. That was your time together. Well those calls were ours. Plus, I’m pretty sure 2 or 3 calls in and Dad will be begging me to stop. Sometimes you didn’t even want to listen to me ramble on, but you didn’t have a choice in the matter. You are after all my Mother, comes with the territory. I’m sure somewhere in the rulebook of being a mother ‘must listen to inane chatter’ is listed.

Today was a really good day too, not because I had more old/new self-moments, but it was a nice relaxing Honey and Rachel day, which we haven’t done in forever. We had the Trisha Yearwood cooking demonstration today, which of course was awesome – as if it wouldn’t have been. Plus we hit up an ‘all you can drink’ brunch which is always a good idea. Trisha was great. She made a 6-layer carrot cake, but no tastes were allowed because of food allergies or something. Who knows, sounds stupid to me. She was great though, very personable and funny. Honey even said to me that she seems like a very nice person, and that she would be fun to hang out with. From Honey that’s a pretty big compliment, especially since she likes to bust my balls on my love of all things Trisha Yearwood. 

After the demonstration we went to her book signing. I was a bit resistant to wait in the line and everything, but Honey pushed me to do it, and she was right too. I’m pretty sure the hesitation came from knowing that I would have had her sign the book to you. Admitting that to myself has got to count for something right? I’ll be sure to tell good ole Judy this story on Wednesday. 

Honey and I also went to New York Comic-Con since I could get us in for free with my work badges. It was ridiculous. I saw and accidently brushed up against way to many grown-up, smelly, fully dressed in costume, men. Pretty sure Honey saw more than she wanted as well. Nevin keeps saying that one day he wants us to be able to have a booth at both Comic-Con’s and sell merchandise there. It’s a good business idea, but all that runs through my head is the Ellen DeGeneres season premiere central park show from hell where we had a booth for the shop. Ugh is what I think and feel about that.

More I want to tell you, but this is getting long, and its 3am. Perhaps my bedtime on the weekends is why I have such a hard time falling asleep during the week.

Love you forever, miss you always

Rachel