You could say I'm a little overwhelmed. Or as I said to one of my colleagues here, "I'm surprised all the time." What is probably the most obvious surprise to me is how much brain space I need to process everything I see in a day and distill it down to one or three important bits. I want to be over my systemic shock, but I am not sure that I am, but anyway, here is something that has sat on my writing pad for six weeks:

This morning he says "I'm in love with you" and it's in the context of something else and the conversation spins off to a corner of the room and while he is looking into a box the words are still lying in my lap.

There is a difference between loving someone and being in love with them. I know this, and I know he loves me. He says it easily and often. And one could say that just the invitation to be here, never mind I am sitting in this new house, with my new car in the garage, that is the proof. But this man lets his responsibilities weigh on him considerably and I would not want to mistake what could be the gestures of accepted obligation for something much more precious. And even though I know I am on the bottom steps of this escalator myself, I don't think I have said that I am in love with him.