Real Talk
Another Love Song
I might have to leave this one unfinished for now. All I have been able to produce lately are love songs. Probably because I’m in love.
I’m hesitant to share another love song right now. I’m concerned it's not having the desired effect. I never mean to play with your heart. I want you to know you are the most incredible person I’ve ever met. I love every single thing about you. From the way you hold your glass, to the way to hold your head up. There is no one I'd rather go through any of this with— no one I'd rather be with. Even if it’s all just in my head and you never read this, I'm so thankful for you. For your company, grace, vulnerability, and trust. I don’t want to cause you harm. I am so so sorry for all of the missteps along the way that have caused pain. I’m reminded of that night, years ago now, after he left us alone in the parking lot, and I only wanted to communicate to you that I was not thinking in hypotheticals, and I didn’t think you believed me dtf and wanted you to understand. I wanted to protect you from myself, understanding your priority, and implemented my own safeguards.
A couple of weeks ago on the phone late Sunday morning, you mentioned problem is the presence of tension. That conversation gave me the courage that I needed to repair some marital damage. I took him to a public place that afternoon and we had a four hour discussion about what to do next. It was productive and we made a few decisions. I asked him about you. While he is insecure in general, and jealous of my time, interestingly, he said he wasn’t worried about you. I asked why he wasn’t worried. He told me "I don’t mind if you have an emotional attachment or connection— that can be really good. I know that even if your relationship became sexual, it just wouldn’t be sustainable, so I’m not going to worry about it."
When I asked what he meant by “sustainable”, he said that you need boundaries, you need walls for clarity, to protect your peace, but that I will beat my fists to bloody stumps simply because those walls exist at all.
I guess you're both right. I perpetuate the problem, the tension, because I am fighting against the structure built around us. I am exhausting myself doing so. I had hoped to be trusted to make the choices that would be the most loving in each situation. I would like to be trusted with the ability to love you and to protect you from myself without needing walls. Now it seems, in many ways, you are less accessible than even friends. But I realize, maybe that is all that you are doing as well. That you are protecting me from you, or your marriage from me, and me, her. Everyone has different threshold for tolerance and pain.
Someday I would like to be able to share a meal with you. Only you. Someday I would really like to be able to send a message to you. Only you. I just want to be closer to you. I knew from the start that all I could ever ask was to have your arm around me and for us to understand one another. I hope for more. I hunger for more. I knew that I would mess this up by not sharing enough, or sharing too much. I don’t understand what you want from me now. I don’t understand what you see in me.
I am not worth this. My fantasies are what most consider “dull”. I want all the small things, every small moment. When I wake up, I want you to be the first thing I see. I want to make your every breakfast, lunch, dinner. I want to clean your house. I want to work alongside you. I want to wash your feet. I want to talk through the day’s small problems over drinks in the hot tub, make you skinny dip with me at midnight and make out in the sand. I want to laugh over a silly show and fall asleep in your arms. I want to sleep in on Saturday and not leave the bed until I’ve had my fill. I want to pray with you through hard days. I want to grow a beautiful garden, to raise kind children, to cultivate and leave things better than how we found them. I want to discover the world with you. We can disappear into Denali and never come back.
I suppose those are things I need to continue to take captive, like you said, because these visions break my heart. And there is so much to be grateful for. We have come so far. I love you so much and want you to have it all. And so many of these things can be realized.
Your presence fills me with so much joy. It is such a precious gift.
I won’t ask anything more of you than fellowship and the pleasure of your company.
Through the recent difficulty, my therapist asked me to imagine the alternative lifestyle options available to me. When I picture the only real alternative option available to me now, I'm alone in a city apartment, just after he picked up the kids for a couple of days for his turn. I think of you, and I won't call, because it’s up to her, and she will tell me you are busy. I still feel rude even thinking about inviting myself over, and the longing will be the same.
10 years from now, when the kids are gone, and you’re retired, and I’m alone, I’ll feel even worse each time I’m denied. And I understand Pyramus.
I’m in the same position I was 15 years ago. Why not choose the option that seems to disrupt the least amount of people? I can feel it now, my chest is so tight.
How can we hold it? Because we must. There has to be a better way. Maybe one of the simplest small things I could do is to write to you? Where it landed before. Something regular. Something to look forward to. Something to build together. Share moments in the small ways we can. And every time I share with you I feel a small connection in the hope that you are out there, receiving. That it brings encouragement or peace in knowing, in being reminded that we aren’t alone. Because that’s what I dream of— that I might know you more. Learning how to trust. Learning how to live on what I can find.
I am not an interesting person. Sometimes I don’t have a lot to say. I have not, and will not, add analytics. However, there are some baked in. I try not to look, but once I log in, site visits from the last 7 days are on the top of the dashboard, and hard to ignore. I have a strong foreign readership, but many of those readers, I suspect, come for the boy who drew cats. I don’t know how to be a blogger. I’m not much of a writer. I just want connection. I feel indecently exposed in every area of our communication and I fight it. I am uncomfortable. And you are the only thing worth discomfort.
My therapist continues to encourage me to journal. I think I’m afraid that this is another one of those things that I spend a lot of time and energy pouring into, that is something you care very little about. When I have time to spare, I want to give it all to you, but I don’t know how to channel it. You don’t have a lot of time and I don’t want to ask for any of your free time because you need rest. But I sense that something about this arrangement hasn’t been working. I choose to believe there is a way that you can have it all.
I recently read a book “about sex”. I know I started to tell you about it before Taken. Most of it was about human need. Long-term human couples have two sets of needs. The first is for security, safety, stability, and belonging. The second is passion, desire, mystery, novelty. Those two things are often not met inside of one couple. The challenge is that these needs often pull in opposite directions. Love tends to be rooted in familiarity and knowing, in reliability and protection. Desire tends to be rooted in mystery, uncertainty, risk, (tension?). In the author’s framework, what makes someone a wonderful life partner is when they are not completely fused, because fire needs to breathe. Passion and commitment are not enemies. Healthy long-term relationships require both. It’s like breathing. You need the inhale and the exhale. Neither can sustain a relationship by itself. A relationship that is all security and no passion can become emotionally flat, or stagnant. A relationship that is all passion and no security becomes chaotic and exhausting. The goal isn’t choosing one over the other. The goals is a rhythm between them.
You are mine.
And
You are your own person.
I’ve been reflecting on this a bit today. I think humans need a safe harbor, and an open sea. Having someone who makes us feel safe enough to rest and free enough to feel alive would be such a wonderful gift… and I am blessed to have this in you. The paradox is daunting and beautiful. It all comes in waves, but I think that is life. Belonging, without possession. Intimacy without suffocation. Commitment without deadening desire.
I’m not sure how to end this. I just know it’s time to start again. I am going to go for a drive to find a fresh attitude, and then I’ll share a few lighter things. I’m not going anywhere. Someday when we are old, watching the sunset, I hope we look back on this time with appreciation and wonder.
I’m pretty sure this place is not appropriate to leave this. I’ll remove it in a few days. In the meantime, maybe you’ll see it, or not, but know that I’m not done trying. I love you!
And to all of the other readers: 🖕