It's pouring rain and my backpack is full of strawberry kefir.
I think when we decided to take a break,
you took half my brain with you.

Kefir is a delightful crossbreed of Yop and Perrier. Creamy sublingual fireworks. A single tablespoon is sufficient to send a conga line of 5 billion probiotic bacteria boogying through your innards. But like most things I enjoy, I cannot successfully covet in small, measured portions. Which is why I went for the litre in the first place.

I imagine your face as I rinse my strawberry saturated belongings and imagine the microscopic bacterium hoopla happening between my fingers (you would laugh at my conga line comparison, because you are one of the world's only people who knows how much I truly despise conga lines).

Oh God, the water is just diluting the yogurt. It has become the great Sea of Kefir.

You would have the solution to this. When it comes to logic, you manage to beat me every time without ever making me feel intellectually inferior.

But I need to figure these things out for myself.

Luckily my other groceries were sealed in plastic:
-chia seeds
-goji berries
-cacao nibs
-wheatgrass

These were spared.

As you can see, since we have decided to embark on our own paths for a while, I have tried to be "HEALTHY!". The bathroom is a small library of moth-bitten self-help books (Thanks, Mom) and my bedtime is close enough to twilight to high-five the sun on its way down.
I've started to work out again with a little more addiction than conviction or even common sense.
And because you aren't here to regulate me, I've busted my knees (aaaa-gaaaain.)

And all notwithstanding, as I wandered down 13th avenue with my organic Hippie super-loot, feeling very smug and self-possessed in my birkenstocks, I passed by my favourite breakfast joint, and my kale-fertilized stomach was very persuasive: No, I insist.

Proceeded to savour three enormous pancakes that I could have stitched together to form a roomy buckwheat overcoat. Drowned them with a 3pm coffee. I thought nothing of it, but after all we've been through when it comes to food, you would have been so proud of me, babe. When I admit that I've got a broken heart (-darling, I know I broke my own) people are far too kind to me. 110 minutes and three sacks of flour later I float in a sweet gluten haze from my free (and freeing) lunch back to my apartment.

Which is when I discover the Sea of Kefir.

I think I'm trying too hard.

I think, really, the Art of Becoming One Whole Person isn't so much about us becoming the Perfect People we've always wanted to be. That's not why we strapped a hundred helium balloons to our otherwise incredible relationship and tearfully waved as it disappeared over the horizon. I think it's really about just learning how to regulate ourselves.

Here's one Truth: We will never, ever be perfect. And we will never find our perfection in each other. We have to let that go. We have to stop fighting against the invisible standards we create in each other.

But we can get over ourselves enough to be Pretty Great.
Just make peace with the Pretty Great folks we are. Have the 3 pancake- sore knee- kefir backpack afternoons, and still feel Pretty Great.

And when we do, I think our relationship will feel Pretty Great, too.

Because I'd rather be able to remind myself that I'm Pretty Great,
than rely on you to convince me I'm Perfect.

Yikes, there it is.

So that's my homework. It's full of errors, and there are countless agitated holes worn through by pink erasers, self-doubt, and heartache.

But I know, darling- that by the end of this, you'll give me a sticker-

(and by then I wont need it)

I'll put it right next to the one I've given myself.