Akimbo Butterfly
"Do you remember the first time you told me you loved me? I had to ask."Funny how you remember things. I would never classify that as the first time I told you I loved you. Yet the more and more I think about it, the recollection in my head is different to the reality. We were lying in bed, and I had this sudden urge to tell you. I got as far as your name, realised what a momentous occasion it was and then turned away and said, 'nothing.' You had indeed asked me what, and when I ducked my head and shook it away, you eventually caught my eye, nodded or smiled and said, 'me too.'
"No I didn't. I said it out - oh.. yeh."
"I had to ask. You started to say it and then chickened out. When I asked you to repeat it, you refused."
And there I had thought I'd gotten away with it.
Later that afternoon I did get around to saying it voluntarily. And even so, I whispered it so quietly that I had hoped you hadn't heard and that I could take it back. Unluckily for me, you heard.
Often I feel very selfish around you. You give me so much. Yet I never seem to be able to give back. You rang me up tonight all excited to tell me that you're moving back into the city. Even though you love where you're living right now. You're essentially moving to be closer to me.
You commented that I didn't even sound that excited. That's because 1. I won't get excited until it happens, I know better than to just believe in words. and 2. should you really move, I don't really know what to do about it all. It means you're committing more to me. And I have nothing to show for it. I can't move in with you. I can't spend the night with you. I can't give you what it is you want. How can you do this? How come you always make such beautiful dramatic moves? When I can't respond in kind? How can my love mean anything when your actions consistently prove that I am all talk and no substance? How can this in fact be fair on you?
I've been thinking lately about how we've settled into each other. It's funny how it all falls together. I was rereading some posts I'd written up in February. All the excitement. You joked the other night how weeks ago all you had to was touch me and I'd unravel. These days I continue on like a freight train. Will everything change to the point where we get so used to each other that it will all become boring? I don't want this relationship to become boring.
In some ways perhaps we have begun to take the relationship for granted a little. We are stable. Relatively, anyway. We know that we love each other. And sometimes it seems like we forget what it was ever like without each other. And while the arguments and underlying guilt is still there, the love never diminishes.
How did we get here so fast? Where a simple chat between you and a pretty girl will get me all tied up in paroxyms of jealousy? Where lunches with you are a given? Where you pay for the majority of meals and I no longer fight you for it? Where you ring me every night and I sms you ever night to let you know that I got home safely?
Little by little we have gotten under each other's skin. And while there's still a lot to go, I have to admit, that this is by far the strongest relationship I've ever been in. The first one doesn't count because I spent the first six months fighting it. The second one doesn't count because after the first month he started fighting it. This one, despite my initial wariness, both of us haven't really fought against it per se. Whereas I've stepped a little cautiously at times, while at others gone in impetuously, he has jumped straight into the deep end. And then gradually pulled me in from the shallows.
There is no doubt that he loves me. And while he reassures me that he knows without a doubt that I love him, I often feel bad that I cannot show him as much as he shows me. My concerns no longer revolve around whether I in fact deserve him, or how can such a man love me. Or even if I am stringing him along for the wrong reasons. My only concern these days is that I will never love him enough or be able to show him. That I will never be able to show him how much he means to me, and that because I constantly have to put family ahead of him, that one day he may well decide that he can no longer handle this and move on. thereby leaving me in the lurch.
I don't think about the future so much. All I do is take each moment with him at a time. I was sitting with him at lunch in the pub today, and the feeling of surreal contentment overwhelmed me. I sat there and thought to myself, 'so this is what it's like to spend time with someone.' I just took the moment as it was. And it was nice. For once I stopped worrying about other things. I simply sat there, and appreciated.
All I want from him, is his attention. Is that wrong to want that? To constantly be on his mind? To continually be the center of his world? Is that too selfish? And all the while I refuse to let him crowd into my thoughts. I continually pretend to be the proud hard to get girl. And I love that he willingly lays down his little soul for me to step all over. "Don't you like chasing after me?" says one of his sms's.
This time next week I will be in his arms. Wrapped up with him. We're going on a holiday, with cousin in tow. But I'll be spending the evening and the night with him. You have no idea how much I am looking forward to it.
But the only bad thing about it all is that even this experience is covered with a little sadness. Because I did not jump at the opportunity to spend it with him. Rather, I immediately went into paranoia mode. And so I ruined a perfect opportunity with him. It seems I can never do 100% by him. And I am constantly afraid. I never do anything that I specifically want to do. Instead I do things for other people. But never necessarily for myself. And that is not a good thing.
I've just finished two major quarterly reports. I'm totally exhausted and don't have the time or tenacity to sit down and really nut out what it is I feel for him. What my emotions are saying about him. All I know is that from the moment I voluntarily told him that I loved him, I've opened myself up to vulnerability. And for better or worse he's come to see a part of me that doesn't necessarily open up to anyone else.
"I want to be the one chink in your armour" he says to me.
To be honest, I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.
Do I want someone pulling at my heart strings like he does?
posted by Enigmatic Butterfly @ 10:00 pm
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