3:15 PM - Oprah! Oprah! I just had an A-Ha moment! (revisted)
I just read a bittersweet blog in which a girl remembers a past love with a mix of fondness and longing.As is typical of most of us, she realized in hindsight just how wonderful their life together was; a fact she was blind to when it mattered. Her feelings of regret , plastered out on the screen, for not appreciating what was right in front of her grabbed hold of something in me that was guilty of the same thing. It effectively opened my eyes, but only temporarily, to the very real blessing of the guy lying asleep in the next room.
In that moment, in this moment, I know with everything in me just how lucky I am right now. Nothing in my life before he made his entrance could have predicted me ending up with someone so....good. Certainly not the track records held by the majority of my friends and family, who with a few exceptions, don't end up with the good guy. Instead of the hero, they seem destined to hitch their wagon onto the jerks and creeps. Or at least to someone who will never be mistaken for Mr. Right. But I think I did.I know I did. Is it even possible that I could be a winner at love?
This same time last year, fate was preparing to follow up the many bitch slaps she had merely been teasing me with by landing a teeth-rattling sucker punch right to my core.I got knocked down to one of the lowest points of my life where I couldn't even afford myself the luxury of thinking of the future. The day I met Cain homelessness was literally days away and I wasn't sure I cared. Looking back I can't believe how quickly my life changed direction.
I was someone who wasn't looking for love, and honestly never believed that it would happen to me. It just wasn't in the storyboards. The writers of my story simply weren't interested in telling a love story. I was even OK with that.
Now I'm living with a truly awesome human being. Integrity is a word that defines him. He is idealistic, fair, honest, fucking A smart (if a bit long winded for a Gemini like myself who can finish his sentences for him, then still have to endure waiting while he confirms that I was right in guessing what he was going to say) funny (sometimes in a very Virgo, Star Trek loving, High School English Teacher kind of way) and warm. Did I mention he is fucking hot. Take a look at his pics in my picture section. Add to this the bonuses that he doesn't have an unpredictable temper, doesn't ever resort to violence and never makes me feel trapped, pressured or judged.(Well, I do feel judged on my cleaning habits, but I possibly deserve to be.)
I just went and crawled into bed with Cain for a little while and we held each other while I tried to grasp onto the moment. In this moment we had each other. We had our love, and we had our future together. But who knows what the future has in store for us? The odds are that every relationship will end. Most people deeply in love and on top of the world don't stay there. Those dizzying highs more often than not are followed by bone crushing falls to the Earth. I have faith that this will not happen to us, but my faith isn't blind. The reality is that we will have some bad times ahead somewhere in our path. I am resolved to fight for us, and I know he is too. Will it be enough?
Is one of our greatest enemies my self destructive, needy, selfish emotionally immature inner brat that doesn't appreciate what we have. It's the part that lurks in the dark waiting to sabotage everything over inevitable roadblocks, some real some imagined. It's at those times when that stubborn bitch side of me rises up that I need to remind myself to appreciate what I have.
As I lay with my arms around Cain, I held him as tight as I could without waking him up too much. I squeezed my arms around him, listening to his heart beat in his chest, inhaling his scent. I know one day I will look back on this time in my life and wish I had realized what I had and appreciated it. Even if we grow old and die together I know that there will be times that I would gladly pay a millions of dollars to be able to experience this moment that I was already starting to take for granted. Instead of staying in his arms all night, I had to sneak off to the computer to get these thoughts on the screen. How good are our chances of a lifetime together when I can't even hold onto rare moments of comprehension for more than a half hour? I hope putting this in writing will help make these truths part of my conscious thought rather than cheap sentiment that burns away at the first light of day. I'm committed to making sure that if this relationship fails it won't be because I threw it away in a moment of arrogance. On second thought,...I'm just committed to making sure this relationship thrives with newfound appreciation. I can make it sound so easy. Maybe it is.
update. It isn't. I wrote most of these thoughts about 2 months ago and haven't thought about them since. I just took the time to edit them and polish things up a bit. As I read this I start to remember how I felt that night in my moment of clarity, and once again I resolve to make this a part of my conscious everyday thoughts. Lets plan on checking back in a couple months and see how that worked out.
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