The following four months, I spent too much of our time together fretting over a man I will refer to as R.B. and sobbing over my then present situation. For whatever reason, he continued to be there every time I fell apart...and I fell apart only around him. I was as equally balanced as I was unbalanced. I'm still confused as to why he kept his presence a persistent constant.
The progression of our relationship has seemed surreal to me and the beauty our relationship holds continues to astound me. I can't help but to acknowledge wholly that I am living within my own love story, a love story I can't believe I'm a part of.
What follows are pieces of my favorite entries from my personal journal.
December 2010:
"You're radiant, beautiful, and ineffably wonderful." It wasn't until this statement of his did I realize he was developing deeper feelings for me than what was suppose to be maintained within our boundary-less friendship.
January 2011:
Stolen kisses on rooftops under the winter night's sky and under dusk's lit streetlamps. He titles us "lovers," a word I have never been comfortable with (a word I never understood the meaning of until recently). He treats me with his homemade humus, red wine, music, and candle light as he shares with me works of his he's most proud of.
"You know how I feel about you, don't you?" he asks. I simply responded, "You like me enough." My words deflate him. "I'm crazy about you. We fit, together we are incredible...amazing" he tries again. I have no response, I kiss him instead.We dance to music only we can hear. We hold hands in private and walk down dark side walks along busy roads, the two of us are smiling...happiness, peace.
"We are the two most realistic people I know, I know we're sane enough to just enjoy in what we have for as long as we have it...," he tells me.And so we do, we don't discuss our behavior nor the pull that drives it. In it's simplicity, we just are. Our relationship strolls at the slowest pace needed to experience fully every skipped heart beat. There is no rush, we're blissfully falling 'into happiness.' We're timeless, time continues without us; when together, it does not exist.
"Thank you for bringing me happiness for as long as it lasts," I breathe.
He holds my face with both hands, "Je t'adore, Amy. Je t'adore."
"I didn't want to be the first one to say this...," he looks at me intensely. I fain shock, "this isn't how you make humus?!" "I love you," it's barely a whisper. "...I didn't say that to be selfish and have you say it back. I can't believe I feel this strongly so soon, but in the last 4 months it's gotten so that I can't not say it any longer." I'm reeling as he speaks, I don't know what think, so I kiss him and trace his face with my fingers and find what I've known I've felt all a long, "I love you too." I love that I love him.February 2011:
I see the way he looks at me, a combination of vulnerability, happiness, trust, and love.
The Blind Cafe: our Valentine's Date. After the blind meal, the music starts. In the dark, I feel him turn his body towards me, his hands seeking my face. Kisses in this environment are magnified; slow, soft, careful, meaningful. We sat, kissing in the dark, surrounded by music and strangers. The next morning, he makes me homemade pancakes, I watch him with new sight. I'm convinced that I'm experiencing what it feels like, for the first time, to love the right person. I was unaware such deep feelings were possible, though when I finally saw what was in front of me, those feelings were already there.
We walk on snow covered ground to a dormant ice glazed rose garden in the park. I'm reminded of a similar scene from Beauty and the Beast and I'm convinced I've just arrived at my own fairy tale.
On a rooftop, he sighs heavily, "What's that heavy sigh for?" "I love you, that's what it's for," he buries his head in the crook of my neck.His jawline, his wonderful dimples, his happy eyes that are soft when he looks at me...my favorite features of his face. I've been studying them for weeks. They are beautiful, he is handsome.
"I love your smile, I can look at it all day...I love how easy this is, where we are at, and where it's heading."The sound of me giggling in my sleep wakes me.
"You don't mind me hanging on you like this, do you?" he's holding me. "This is only the second time we've spent the night together, I don't know if you like your space or not." "No, I don't mind." When I wake again it's light out, he's beautiful. His eyes flutter, he can feel me looking at him, I kiss him and exclaim, "Good morning! I love you!" He smiles in peace.
It's late, we're tired and attempt to watch Amelia, but there won't be a movie that night, "We'll have to try to watch this again later...years and years from now." "Years and years?" I repeat rhetorically. "Yup."
"I love what we have together, but this is my favorite," we're entangled, both our eyes and our bodies, "how did we get here?" He pulls me into him, "my girl." "Your's, yes."March:
He expresses that he wants me to move to Denver, for us to move in together. I want it too, but he is a free spirit and I don't want to be the one to take away his freedom. I'm so foolishly in love with him, it pains all my senses.
He makes me breakfast, brews tea, and there's fresh strawberries on the table, it's perfect. He takes me to a house-band/party event where I am referred to as his girlfriend for the first time. Afterwards, we go to a night club where fog surrounds us. It's crowded but we can only see each other in this thick white blanket.
"You giggle in your sleep, and sometimes snore, but it sounds like a soft purr."I can't get enough of him. And when we're together, he can't keep his eyes off of me. He traces my face before he rests his head in my lap and takes my hand. He looks up at me as he runs his lips across each of my fingers; his eyes so full of emotions that cannot be express by simple words, it almost looks painful to me. ...His eyes close.
"[Sissy] wants a drum set," I tell him during a conversation about nothing in particular. "Let's do it!" ..."Let's"...it echoes in my head. For the rest of the night, when he looks at me, I can see 'forever' in his eyes. "I look forward to all the things ahead of us," I'm falling asleep in his arms.
"I can't wait for when I get to come home to you and the girls and go to sleep with you every night." I pause, It's him, he's it. "What are you thinking?" he asks. "That I want to build a life with you." He catches his breathe, I hold mine. What did I just say? Did I say too much? He finally finds his air, smiles slowly and exhales, "Wow." There's a light in his eyes, and he can't take them off of me.He's loving me, his kisses are whispers; I lose myself when he kisses me, forgetting how to participate, how to breathe. I cannot process thought, I only know that this is what I want, this and him. He feels like home to me, as if this was always suppose to be. I never knew love between a man and a woman could be so completely peaceful, so pure. I never knew, not til now, with him.
"I don't know why I get so insecure with you, when we're like this it goes away....it's just in my head." "Don't ever be insecure. When I look at you, I see forever." We have something real and to me, somethings rare.April 2011:
"I want to be a part of your family...I can't wait to just curl up together at the end of everyday...I love you so very much." I want it too, all that he wants. "I can feel how much you love me...I will never forsake your love for me." His words are so kind, I cannot form a sentence without the threat of crying all over him.
"We just keep getting better, and I think, 'Wow, I love his woman!'"We continue to grow in love. I don't know how I got so lucky, I don't know what role luck has to play in this. This cannot be the norm, Is this how everyone experiences love? He's confessed so much of his love to me, but I have barely voiced the surface...I should tell him, but my vocabulary doesn't seem elegant enough to express how I feel.
He talks about music and the Foo Fighters, I'm lost in his voice before he apologizes for being a music nerd, "You are incredible. You have nothing to be sorry for." He kisses me, pulls away, and smiles...his whole face is smiling, "I still can't believe it, how we got here."He plays his guitar for me, giving me a private concert. His fingers dance naturally along the strings. His feet keep his beat and occasionally he skips and dances a bit. His eyes are closed, he's somewhere else as he plays. When he comes back to me, he sings to me a quiet love song.
"I feel so insecure when I open my heart to you. I'm afraid I'll say something that'll make you run away." "I'm not going anywhere."
...........................................................................................
He didn't mean it the way it came across, the way I instinctively took it. I know this and knew the moment he said it, but it still hurt. I tell him his apologizes aren't needed, I know he didn't mean it the way it sounded, but my eyes continue to veer away from him. I can't look at him, not yet. I'm unaware that he is crying until I notice the porch light reflecting off the wet streaks on his face. I hardly speak to him the next 2 days. Saturday night, as he kisses me goodbye, his grip is strong. He holds me there, lip to lip, until I remember how much it is that he loves me and how I love the way he loves me. When I do, he's smiling; and we each know that we're alright.
May 2011:
I'm crying, the tears won't stop. I'm blubbering. I blame the tequila (not then, but once sober). Face in hand, I finally stop talking and just cry. Fears, worries, a world of stress out in the form of tears. He leans forward, I feel him breath in, and in a soft loving tone full of emotion, he says, "I'd marry you tomorrow."
His blue eyes sparkle, reflecting the small amounts of light available past the midnight hour. His words echo in my mind.
The crying stops, I'm speechless.
Moments of silence pass before he finally shakes his head, looks down, and murmurs, "I shouldn't have said that."
I'm still processing his words and the flood of emotions I wasn't aware I had. In my state of extreme intoxication, it simply swirls...a kaleidoscopic of his words with my emotions. I don't know what I'm suppose to say.
I realize my sluggish mind is playing with my sense of time and more of it is passing than I realize with me still in silence. My tears are dry by the time I climb over him in the drivers seat of his Honda Accord. I straddle him, hold his face in my hands and I begin kissing him to release the swirling mixture confusing me. Then I say the thing I've been thinking for weeks, "When you're ready, ask....just ask when you're ready and I'll say yes."
His smile is so bright, "Wow" he manages through my kisses.
He beams whenever he sees me, his love radiates and envelops me. He wants to belong, as a family with my daughters and I. He loves us. He loves me as I have never been loved.
We have a home June 11th. Together, Mister Man and I, we have a home to start building our lives together. I found a permanent job in Denver, I start in 7 days. Things are happening, everything is happening. After months...nearly a year of me in limbo, directionless in my life's path, completely lost. Back then I knew only one thing, that I wasn't where I was suppose to be, and so I changed it. 8 months later and a lot of work put into every aspect of my life, I've found it, my direction. Since then, everything has been measurably progressive towards the life I was always suppose to have. I can feel it with as much certainty as the air I breath. Everything has been comparably easy from where I was. It's in Denver, with my daughters, my job, and the man I've always known I should be with.
June 2011:
"I'm not going to pretend that I know everything about you. But I want to, over time."We've been living together for a week now. Each day he comes home from work, the rest of the world disappears when he stops to kiss me. Unpacking is going slowly with both of us working, but a home is being made with each box that is emptied, combining his possession with ones I have forgotten I had. I'm excited for our future.
We've been living together for 3 weeks now, we remain to be amazed by one another.
"We're lovers: we're in love, we make love. We're lovers." "We've been bed buddies long before we fell in love, you know." "No, we've been making love. I'm going to love you for a long time." "And I'll love you back."Rarely does he tell me how "beautiful" and "amazing" he thinks I am. But when he does, those are the words he uses. His spacing ensures I don't mistake his words as something said out of routine. Only after he's been watching me, studying me, does he sigh and express how he sees me; and when he does, his eyes look as if he's been holding those words back since the last time he's said them aloud.
July 2011:
We're laying in bed, starring at each other. He's gorgeous, so handsome, i can't stop looking...ever.
"What?" "You're handsome, I love looking at you." "You're beautiful and I love looking at you."We're lost, again, in each other's gaze. It's become a hobby of sorts. I think I see his lips move without sound but dismiss it as my imagination. But now his eyes are welling up with emotion and I'm convinced that he must have mouthed something profound to me. What was it? 'I love you...' that didn't fit the movement of his lips, it was longer. 'I want you....' no, still not long enough. 'I want...' To much time has passed, I can't make anything fit any longer.
"Did you say something?" "Wha? No, when?" "A bit ago, your mouth moved." "Oh, you caught that." He dismissed it, and we changed the subject.
"Can I ask you something?" "Of course." "Do you want to get remarried?" I pause before stumbling over an answer that mixes yes and no together. His face drops as he realizes he's not going to get a straight answer from me, this forces me to finally commit to an answer. "You make me want to remarry." And with that, he's reassured on so many things; it's written all over his face.I love him more and more each day, it seems impossible. With wet eyes he tells me often how lucky he believes he is. He's so open with his emotions, I wish I had the ability to express myself as well as he does. I only hope that my actions and the words I do share are enough. I hope he will continue to feel from me the things I cannot seem to say with words.
We're going on a date, and I'm giddy about it. Mexican food on the patio, a Troll hunting movie, and my favorite part: climbing over a wall to sit along the water's edge of a pond. There, ducks quaked, the night sky mirrors off the pond, and we sit. I'm reminded of the dormant ice glazed rose garden he took me to 6 months ago, sitting in silence and me in complete wonderment that this is my life, just as I'm still in awe of it now.
Home, I'm home. I have a home and it's our home. A late revelation, but the full meaning of it finally hit me at this late hour as I walk through our home to make sure the doors are locked. Walking through the darkness, feeling the familiarity and the comfort, I grasp it wholly: I'm home.
August 2011:
"I just want to be with you. I want to be with you forever." "Okay, I can do forever with you." "Deal."
"What do you want for your birthday? I want to show you how much you mean to me, how much I love you." He smiles at me, but only with his mouth. His eyes suddenly become vulnerable, "I wish I had [unlimited] wealth...I'd put a huge diamond on your finger." But I don't need a huge diamond! Though rather than saying that, I kiss him.September 2011:
Time together, we have some every day, but it never seems like enough. I miss him while I'm at work and when I'm waiting for him to come home. It's absurd to miss him now since we're living together. But I do. From the moment I leave for work each morning, I am in constant anticipation for the next time I will see him. We continue to cherish the time we do get together. We are still timeless, but time continues without us. And here with my heart full beyond what words can express, it occurs to me, heaven must have been created by lovers who realized 'the rest of their lives together' wasn't long enough.
