Adorable
Sine and I have been up late at night chatting these days. It's been fun, and we've gotten to know each other quite a bit better. On one occasion he told me that I'm adorable when I let my guard down, because that's when I finally show a bit of weakness. I think that it is very odd to tell someone that letting their guard down is 'adorable,' but if he wants to think so, I suppose, he's welcome to.
This weekend the ward went camping. Ahh... camping, the great out doors, home. I'm never more in my comfort zone than when I'm out in the woods communing with Mother Nature.
Sine, on the other hand, is a bona fide city boy. Having never been camping before (or, for that matter, in a very unpopulated area) he spent the first couple of hours freaking out. We carpooled together, and about the time it dawned on him that we were an hour away from Seattle he started getting a bit worked up. "What's the average medical response time?" he worried, panicked. I tried to calm him down, but nothing was working.
One of the ironic moments of his paranoia came while I was driving. I was on a slightly curvy mountain road (nothing like where I grew up driving, this was far less winding, and decidedly more gradual of a grade) looking for a gas station—which I never found. I needed to turn around, so at the first turn out I pulled off the road. It so happened that the pull out was graveled, and ended abruptly at a drop off. I was feet away from it, maybe yards. He flipped. Could not believe that I almost killed us by pulling off onto gravel and the edge of a cliff!!!! For the record: It wasn't that bad. We were, at no point, in any danger.
After that I was driving on another road headed towards our camp site. This road was decidedly straighter and much better paved. Since the paving was new the lines weren't painted on the road quite yet. No matter, it was straight, and you don't really need lines to tell you where your side of the road ends. So, I opened up the car and took the road at a little over the speed limit. We were flying down the road at a breakneck 55 when Sine started flipping out again, insisting that there were no lines on the road and this was so dangerous!!!11!oneone!!! For someone who recently got a speeding ticket for doing 85 or so on a windy road I find this behavior to be hilarious.
Eventually the road turned to gravel and I slowed down. By the time we hit the graveled parking lot I felt a little (controlled) fishtailing and one small doughnut were required. I enjoyed myself. Sine: not so much.
Later in the evening we were sitting by the campfire and he was still visibly disturbed by the thought of being so far away from civilization. That combined with the awareness that bears were about sent him into more fits of paranoia. Many of us were enjoying his reaction when he begged to know, "What's so funny about me being scared?!?!"
"Because," I replied, hearkening back to our previous conversation, "you're so adorable when you're vulnerable."
At that moment I understood what he was talking about when he said those words to me. It's seeing the person in a light you had not previously seen them: taking them out of their self-assured comfort zone and catching a glimpse of the unprotected vulnerable person they are under that carefully crafted confident exterior. Now I understand, but I still don't agree that I'm ever "adorable."
This weekend the ward went camping. Ahh... camping, the great out doors, home. I'm never more in my comfort zone than when I'm out in the woods communing with Mother Nature.
Sine, on the other hand, is a bona fide city boy. Having never been camping before (or, for that matter, in a very unpopulated area) he spent the first couple of hours freaking out. We carpooled together, and about the time it dawned on him that we were an hour away from Seattle he started getting a bit worked up. "What's the average medical response time?" he worried, panicked. I tried to calm him down, but nothing was working.
One of the ironic moments of his paranoia came while I was driving. I was on a slightly curvy mountain road (nothing like where I grew up driving, this was far less winding, and decidedly more gradual of a grade) looking for a gas station—which I never found. I needed to turn around, so at the first turn out I pulled off the road. It so happened that the pull out was graveled, and ended abruptly at a drop off. I was feet away from it, maybe yards. He flipped. Could not believe that I almost killed us by pulling off onto gravel and the edge of a cliff!!!! For the record: It wasn't that bad. We were, at no point, in any danger.
After that I was driving on another road headed towards our camp site. This road was decidedly straighter and much better paved. Since the paving was new the lines weren't painted on the road quite yet. No matter, it was straight, and you don't really need lines to tell you where your side of the road ends. So, I opened up the car and took the road at a little over the speed limit. We were flying down the road at a breakneck 55 when Sine started flipping out again, insisting that there were no lines on the road and this was so dangerous!!!11!oneone!!! For someone who recently got a speeding ticket for doing 85 or so on a windy road I find this behavior to be hilarious.
Eventually the road turned to gravel and I slowed down. By the time we hit the graveled parking lot I felt a little (controlled) fishtailing and one small doughnut were required. I enjoyed myself. Sine: not so much.
Later in the evening we were sitting by the campfire and he was still visibly disturbed by the thought of being so far away from civilization. That combined with the awareness that bears were about sent him into more fits of paranoia. Many of us were enjoying his reaction when he begged to know, "What's so funny about me being scared?!?!"
"Because," I replied, hearkening back to our previous conversation, "you're so adorable when you're vulnerable."
At that moment I understood what he was talking about when he said those words to me. It's seeing the person in a light you had not previously seen them: taking them out of their self-assured comfort zone and catching a glimpse of the unprotected vulnerable person they are under that carefully crafted confident exterior. Now I understand, but I still don't agree that I'm ever "adorable."
posted by granola girl at 12:04 pm
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