The Astral Factor

Two weeks ago ...and damn, I should not have taken so long to write about this... something weird was up with my usually laid-back, nonchalant boyfriend. He got really, keenly interested in whether I was working late or not, and specifically wanting to know just how late I might be working, and where I'd be going after that. Now that's not to say he isn't normally interested in my daily activities, because he is, but not to that precise level of detail. After a couple days of this, I learned why.

When I returned home late one evening and checked my mailbox, I spied an envelope among the bills and junk mail that had handwriting scrawled on it. That, along with a street name with which I was intimately familiar, made me realize who sent this missive.

No, not that. It was the word "Astral" that I recognized.

"(Gasp!) A letter from Scott!?" I squealed giddily, forgetting that my middle dorkling was in the car, too.

"Who's 'Scott'?"

"My boyfriend ... you know ... Scott!"

"The guy you're dating NOW?"

"Yeah, who else would I mean?"

"But you talk to each other ALL THE TIME! Why would he send you a letter, when he could text or email you?"

"Because HE'S AWESOME, and he thinks I'M AWESOME, too! That's why!"

He shot me this look, as if he were about to argue with me...

...but then just turned, shook his head while muttering to himself, "old people are weird," and slammed the car door behind him.

I immediately ran past him, nearly pushing him over to get inside the house, and giddily sequestered myself in my office like a rabid teen with her first love letter ever ... ignoring dogs and dorklings alike all clamoring to get my attention.

Pulling the hastily torn, yellow legal pad pages from the envelope, my eyes immediately filled with stars ... sort of like this:

It was just too damn cute to stand! First he apologized for writing in his own pen versus a computer printer, as if he didn't realize that I would find the fact that he still uses cursive incredibly quaint and adorable. Then everything began to make sense--all of his nervous questions of the previous days--as I read the line, "I wanted to surprise you with an actual, old tyme letter."

After that, the wording gets too steamy to repeat here, and continues that way for a whole page. If I show you, this might happen:

I can only share with you the last page, but that's the part that made me well up with happy tears...

Okay, turns out I couldn't share the whole last page with you, as there were more steamy bits, but you can get the gist in that last part as to why my eyes would start leaking.

With happily blurred vision, I immediately had to crow to friends about this delightful surprise in a status update, which in turn set off a flurry of "oohs" and "ahs," with people lighting up hither and yon. 

Then I believe my body turned to sparkles and floated on a cloud for days afterwards, like this: 

... heck, my body is still all sparkly-floaty like that. Don't get too close to me, or it'll look like you've been using glitter, the herpes of the crafting world.

To this day, I'm still delighted by the thoughtfulness, the tangibleness, the nervousness, the cursiveness, the sexiness, and the sweetness of it all. Honestly, he says these similar things to me on a daily basis, always has, and there was not a special occasion for him to express these words to me, so it's not that he surprised me with how he felt. He just purely touched me with his ability to follow an inspiration to take the time to write his feelings down, and to surprise me with it the way he did, when he did. 

It's just further proof that I did a damn fine job lining myself up with that imaginary, placeholder boyfriend, because the real deal who stepped into that place is everything I wanted and then some.

I don't think I've ever loved or felt loved as deeply as I do right now. Every time we part, I feel more in love than when we came together; every time we see each other again, I somehow feel even more in love than when we last parted. I don't know how it keeps expanding, and I don't care ... I just want to see how far it can go. As I like to tell him from time to time, I was happy before I met him, but he makes it so easy to stay there. 

I also tell him that I often feel like I'm about to burst into Skittles ... and that might happen, dear readers! So don't be surprised when it does, okay? You heard it here first. Please alert Weekly World News should that happen ... I hope it gets me a mention next to Bat Boy.

Right before he sent me a friend request back in January, I had a quirky little guitar song stuck in my head for a couple of days. Now I see my inner brain DJ was letting me know I was on the right track. I thought I'd close this random ode to my awesome boyfriend with that fitting ditty: "Heart of My Heart"... 

...along with some interpretive dance. 

_______________________________

Author's note: 

Many of the pictures above--though not all--were lifted from a truly terrible 1976 movie called THE ASTRAL FACTOR. Do yourself a favor and don't watch it sometime. And while you're not at it, don't watch the 1984 release of it, where they added extra awful music, and possibly changed the title to INVISIBLE STRANGLER or some nonsense. 

Remember, watching at your own risk could cause this: 

And this!: 

And THIS!!!: 

You've been warned!