The first time we were together was good, I will admit, if you like fairy tale fantasies and a complete and willing loss on the grip of reality, but the second time we found each other? That one ached. It was visceral. The first, to quote the great Karen Klein, was like pouring hot lava into two dixie cups – we weren’t yet strong enough to withstand the power and heat. When we were together the second time, two years later, she said it was like pouring hot lava into two strong clay cups. That first time with Dixie cups. It poured fast and ready. The cups crumpled and crushed under hot heat. It wasn’t sustainable. Yet.
The second time was that true miracle I keep referencing. How do you explain a magical whirlwind cross country romance with a hot older man, only to break your own heart and have your heart truly broken (truly, I’ve been with a lot of guys – this was my one crushed heart, other than my father), only to find him again after two years? No, he found me. I wasn’t quite ready to be found, because the unexpected phone call years after I laid all my love on the table, only to get rebuffed, sent tears spiraling down my face in a haphazard fashion. Everything was on fire then and I couldn’t rest and I couldn’t drive without loud music and body thrashing. I couldn’t sit still, but I didn’t want to sit still. It was a fevered pitch. I had a fever.
This wasn’t finding an old love. It wasn’t part two. This was a new love with an old flame. We stepped together – hot lava into clay cups and pots. I’ll never forget that miracle. I lived it for so long. It took even heartbreakingly longer to discover that the real miracle has always still been there – beneath the surface. Hot lava into metal pots – working our way to steel.
How you’ve hurt me – with more of the same.
I worry you don’t get me. I don’t get you. When we align, though, it’s harmonious. You love all of me. The goofy, neurotic, weather-complaining, moose-obsessive, sometimes-sleepless, anxiety-ridden, heart-opening, me. And I love all of you.
Holy cow (moose). Ten years. So much I thought we weren’t doing by loving freely and openly, and leaping together, and holding each other. Years of misunderstandings gone cold. Frozen. But underneath! We must have been doing something right all along – planting seeds, setting roots, letting them grow at their pace, growing ever closer together. Through pain and uphill climbs. We built something. We built this. These unfolding dreams and stars in our eyes. Our family and home.
And the love I feel grows stronger, and I think yours does too. Simply. Loving each other. What else can we build? Let’s start today. Perfectly imperfect and imperfectly perfect for me. Perfect. For me. Like no other has or could. God, do I love you.
