There's no good reason or right season to commit treason for some pleasin'.
I'm rambling. This is my "to be continued" to the I'VE BEEN GIVEN REASON entry below that you've all been waiting for and I'm rambling. I have a lot of thoughts... some are filled with mere opinion, some are filled with pure emotion, but some are also filled with solid logic and reason. I'll try to give them all attention here.
It's only been one week since I last wrote about this subject that has taken up a large part of my heart and mind... the "subject" being a certain man and his situation in life right now. I still have to speak cryptically about the details that do not involve me, because of precisely that... they do not involve me. I know to anyone else reading this, this is just a story that has them wanting more detail, but instead you'll just have to settle for the feelings rather than the facts.
The weekend brought more change. We connected again. Deeper. Our friendship has grown by leaps and bounds even though we haven't known each other for more than 10 days now. Seems so much longer.
We talked and talked and talked, all with the same ease and pleasure as our first evening together, but this time I think we both were waiting for that moment when we might kiss. And then we did.
It was natural. No, not natural. It was supernatural. There was a sense that I was kissing myself, if I could clone myself into a man. You know how rare it is to find someone that well suited to your own style. I felt myself get wetter with every touch of his hands or lips.
I suggested to him that we not go too far, because he wasn't ready for that... I think I may have suggested it twice, without insisting. I already knew we were beyond that at the moment his lips had first touched mine.
We never stopped and the clothing came off slowly, but surely. I'd made public declarations that I would not sleep with this man, I'd told friends and I'd told myself that I wouldn't... that I could and would resist.
I couldn't and I didn't.
He showed no hesitation. He is the reason why I withdrew my public declarations. He was ready and his readiness left me without doubt. I was the first new woman that he'd been with in nearly a score of years and I knew what he had to have been feeling... how different things are and how the same they are, but the twinges of guilt that you are doing it at all. I let him lead.
We talked after. All manner of things, but of course we talked about his estranged wife as well. I listened mostly... it's what I do, I listen until I feel compelled to speak my opinion.
We slept. Not very well, but we tried. And when we woke, he made us tea. We talked more. I sensed his sadness creeping in again.
We went out again two days later and drove around looking for places that were open. Everything seemed closed. It was Sunday, but still, you'd think there'd be a place to find lunch pretty easily. We did finally eat and I talked more than he did this time. I told him more and more of my stories from my five years of dating post-divorce. I don't want him to feel that I'm just playing his counselor. I want him to know me and I want to be his friend.
At that point, we'd only known each other for exactly one week. Perhaps it's because we feel so natural together that it makes it difficult for us to believe how little time we've actually spent together.
We went back to my house this time and made love again... and again, I have to call it supernatural... or "spiritual" as he later called it. I knew by the intensity of my own experience that afterward it would probably open some floodgates of emotions. I tried to talk about sex as a distraction, but I could tell he was thinking about his emotions.
I reached over and held him and let him mourn. It made me want to cry with him, but I held back so that I could just be there for him. I kissed his tears and wished I could take away the pain, but I can't.
I worry now about writing of this moment, because I simply cannot find words to do it justice. I've been accused of being cold or uncomfortable with intense emotions by others in the past. But with this man, I feel that I have to reach out to him... it feels natural and so easy with him. Maybe because he is me in so many ways. He holds his emotions in and only lets them slip out when it's safe. His exterior shows a quiet, stoic man... but with my X-ray vision I see a crushed, shattered soul trapped inside.
I understand.
I feel that I give him small moments of safety, where he can be himself and express himself without judgment. I hope he feels that I do this for him, because that's all I want for him... to be able to find his own self-expression again. I have no other motivation.
He worries that he's reaping all the rewards of this scenario, that he gets to work out his troubles and his pain while being able to offer me nothing, not even a promise of any future, in return.
He doesn't know that I am gaining so much from this. I've been unable to reach out for probably 13 years now. I walled myself into an internal cocoon that protected me from the crushing pain of the world outside. As a result, I never connected to anyone else. I was told by people that I was "a tough read" and "hard to get to know" even after I thought I had been open and bared my soul. It hurt hearing them tell me that, but I didn't know how to fix it or reach out at all.
I've never found emotions easy, but there was a time when I could love openly and did so rather well. It was before my marriage and I cut that part of me off probably when I decided to have an abortion at the age of 21.
I stopped writing about myself back then too. I used to keep a journal and filled it with my nightly dreams as well as my hopes for the future. Then after the abortion, I wrote my last entry that said simply to the matter of, "I had an abortion yesterday. What a strange thing to say." After that, silence and empty pages. I just walled up the feelings and created a dam so strong that it took more than a decade to dismantle.
If I ever find that last journal of mine lying around here somewhere, I may post the entries. You'll see, it's so obvious to me now. I fortified that damn cocoon of mine by then getting involved and having kids with a man completely incapable of expressing any emotion other than anger or fear. He most certainly has Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism), but that is really no excuse for the levels of disrespect that he gave me. And I took it all, because I was so cut off from my real feelings that I couldn't even tell when I was being hurt anymore. I was one of the walking wounded.
It's true. I was suffering from post-traumatic stress and walking around completely unaware of the internal injuries, making excuses and rationalizations for my situation that were being fed to me by the person doing the most damage to me at the time: my then husband. I think of the state of mind as being similar to Stockholm Syndrome.
Strike that. Take two: responsibility. I was the person doing the most damage to me. I built the impenetrable dam. I lost many years of happiness thanks to living that way... I've lost a few years since ending that just trying to tear down the figurative walls.
Inside my literal walls, I live in a house in which every room is under construction. It's been this way since shortly after my ex-husband and I moved in 9 years ago... 9 years this February 1st.
Nine years. Nearly a decade of disrepair.
About 3 months ago, I was supposed to head downtown for some meeting that I was required to attend, but before doing so, I sat down on my couch in my living room to have a cup of tea. The tv was off and in the reflection of the black screen I could see me sitting there, framed on either side by two doorways that are still under construction. I then looked around my house with my eyes fully aware and I began to cry.
I talk a lot lately about crying in these blogs, yet I'm really not as depressed as this would represent me to be... not anymore. But I do feel things very deeply, which is why I had to build that dam back in 1992. When I cried three months ago, it was because I realized that my interior rooms of my soul were just like my house... left unfinished for years and untended.
I sat motionless on that couch with the tea in my hands for 4 hours... the tea long gone cold... the meeting that I was supposed to attend was over... and there I sat. "The long, dark tea-time of the soul," indeed. Actually, I'd come to be reminded of Great Expectations. How did I become Miss Havisham? An imprisoned state of mind. A prison of my own making.
That sentence had created a somnambulist -- catatonic and unresponsive for one-third of my adult life.
Not anymore. I've felt the last bits of the cocoon breaking away this past year and now suddenly as I stand poised to take flight without a clue where to go, a man comes along and he's exactly where I was. "I can help if you let me!" I call out, hoping he can really hear me.
I want to change my prison into something else. Gone are the blockades and the cobwebs and the fear... up comes a new state of mind. It's not a prison if you put yourself there in the first place and hold the key in your hand.
Shift. Change. Switch. New point-of-view. New perspective. Open the gate and suddenly the safety of your prison becomes a quiet oasis.
We were together again last night. No tears this time, just discussion of things again, sprinkled with momentary bliss. I may not yet have the lush oasis that I've imagined, but it's growing. And by comparison to where this man is right now after walking towards a mirage for the last decade or so, my little safe haven is a very real oasis. As far as I'm concerned, he can stay and drink from it as long as he wishes. I enjoy the company.
And more than that, I enjoy feeling deeply again.
Post-Script:
This will be my last entry on this subject that has been the muse for such eloquent prose. The subject matter is far too deep and complex to present in such a flippant forum. I shall keep the rest of this experience close to the breast until further notice. Back to more trivial blogging pursuits, I go... at least for the nonce!
Post-Post-Script:
Regardless of my secrecy, I still appreciate your feedback.
--She...
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