The hard way

I have a tendency to make things more difficult than they ought to be. Have you met me?
Sometimes, even though I'm relatively sure of a certain situation, I have to follow this absolutely circuitous route to be absolutely confident. I don't know why I do this. I don't know how else to describe it, but I have this image of me going down this long hallway and checking this endless cache of doors, over and over, to ensure they're all locked. They are all locked. But I have to double and triple check because I can't trust my initial recollection of having locked them in the first place.
Yes. I am neurotic. Yes. I spend far too much time in my head. Over analysis says what?
I'm aware of all of this. One day I will accept that my friends love me for who I am and don't think I'm a fraud. And I'll think that my 4.03 GPA is because I'm actually pretty smart, and not just good at memorizing. Possibly the 3:30 marathon I just ran has less to do with Boston's lax standards and more to do with, oh, I dunno, the three months of grueling training that I endured to get there.
But perhaps my greatest accomplishment was, somehow, getting Michael to go out with me all those years ago.
I remember how it all unfolded: we were joking around at work, sending funny emails back and forth and all of a sudden I had joked my way into a date with him. And it just went from there. I remember lying on the floor of my apartment in White Rock for hours each week talking on the phone with him. I remember how he told me that I couldn't leave his place one night because the streets had been shut down because they were taping "Josie and the Pussycats" (they were taping it, but the streets weren't shut down). He showed up bearing truffles for the longest time. I had to tell him to stop because of the fat ramifications. He started bringing wine. God love him.
I remember him taking me home one night after I'd drank too much and this car came roaring towards the stop sign that I had just drunkenly stepped in front of and he put out his hand and stopped the car and, arm around my waist, continued on. The time that I almost got hit by an asshole making a left on a red light. I gave the guy a thumbs up sign and he got out of his car (after almost killing me) and called me a "dumb cunt". Michael was putting on his shoes to go find the guy before I convinced him to let it go. I remember stupid fights that led to crying or to slamming doors or to him leaving the apartment for hours while he cooled down over whatever moronic thing it was that I had done. The time that he hobbled towards me after a marathon and apologized and I was devastated, thinking that he was saying he was sorry because he hadn't qualified for Boston, but he was really sorry because he hadn't been able to cross the finish line (after running a 3:14 marathon - qualifying for Boston by 6 minutes), hobble back to the hotel to grab the camera and make it back to the finish in order to get a picture of me crossing the finish line.
He offered to lend me tens of thousands of dollars when my mortgage broker dropped the ball and it looked like my financing wasn't going to come through in time when I bought my condo.
He fixed the faucet in my bathtub. Twice.
He rubs my feet all the time and always has treats for me.
It's everything. He's said this to me before: it's the day to day.
Somehow I got away from the day to day. I lost perspective. In a big way. It was the circuitous route that I had to take to come to the same realization that I came to almost nine years ago: I am infinitely lucky and blessed to have even met Michael.
I guess, ultimately, I am glad that I had to embark on this particular route over the past few months because it led me back to the beginning.
All the doors were locked.
And I will stop ceaselessly checking them.