When I was thirteen years old, I fell madly in love for the first time in my life. It was horrifying. At first I didn’t recognize it. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I had no idea how to handle it once I was into it. I was young, too young. I had hopes and dreams and a checklist to live by. I was imagining the box beside “love of my life” being checked off at the ripe old age of thirteen. I was so naïve. Of course, it wasn’t what love means to me now but I was on top of the world, head over heels in love, terrified and hopeful. That relationship, for what it was, ended rather quickly but the memory of how I felt in the beginning lived on because damn if that wasn’t the way it’s supposed to be.
Instead of holding out for that feeling again, I spent eleven years of my life in two relationships that I knew weren’t going where I wanted to go. The mountain moving love I dreamed of was nowhere to be found. I fell into that first relationship when I was eighteen. I was maybe out to prove a point. I was sure he would love me someday. The problem is that you can’t live from a predetermined checklist and settle into a doomed from the start relationship. And no matter how much you wish he loved you, he doesn’t. Or, to be fair to him (which he doesn’t deserve but whatever), he didn’t know how to love me. I tried to move that mountain by myself but it wouldn’t budge. I finally gave up the idea that someday he would be able to love me the way that I needed him to.
The next relationship was given to me. I didn’t fight for it. I didn’t work on it. Nothing. I wasn’t loving this one the way I knew I was capable of loving. It was easy to ignore most of the time. He was comfortable. He bought me things and took me places. We had fun together. He loved me. But no matter how hard I wished I could stand up there with him and help him move that mountain, I couldn’t. At one point during that relationship, I let go of myself. I tried to become who I thought I was supposed to be for him. It seemed only fair. He loved me. The least I could do, since I couldn’t love him back, was to be the person he thought I was. I started to become a person I didn’t recognize. I had no fight. I simply quit trying. I let go of the kind of love I knew I needed and started to take what was given to me. I knew that love was out there somewhere and figured maybe someday it would come to me. I didn’t have to fight to get into the relationship. That part came easy. So maybe I thought the love we had would be enough and maybe someday that mountain-moving love would come too. If I just waited it out, it would come to me. I started writing about love. Even though that love I wrote about was fictional, I reassured myself that it did exist. No matter that it didn’t exist for me. Besides, that kind of love means that you could get hurt. It became easy to play it safe and stay with him. And playing it safe wasn’t the way I wanted to love. I wasn’t allowing myself to be me anymore. I almost gave up on that relationship at one point to be with somebody else. Somebody I had dreamed of being with for quite a long time. But that somebody else would have inevitably hurt me. Maybe it wouldn’t have been on purpose but it would have happened and I would have felt unsafe. I didn’t feel like fighting for love. I didn’t feel like being strong. I didn’t even know where to find the strength anymore. Instead I stayed with the safe one. “Stable” was the word I used when I broke the news to that dream guy. (Not that he’s a “dream” guy… just that he was somebody I dreamed of being with. But that would be a whole other chapter of my life. That little bit of time I spent vacillating on a relationship with him could fill pages.) It didn’t matter that I didn’t know who I was supposed to be. What mattered was that I felt some stability. Maybe he eventually gave up on us because he knew the me he loved wasn’t really me. I thought I was going to die when he left. Who cares if I didn’t feel about him the way I wanted to feel about somebody? He kept me from being alone. Being alone is scary. Being alone when you don’t like who you’ve become is terrifying. Being alone when you can’t even remember who you were before him is maddening.
Relationships look clearer when they’re in your rearview mirror.
So anyway, there I was, creeping up on thirty and hating myself. I fought to stay somewhat sane. I didn’t give myself the chance to recognize that there was somebody out there for me. I guess I’d given up. I had my chances to break free of that relationship but I didn’t. I had given up a lot to stay with him and when he left, I didn’t have anything left. My “safety” and “stability” were taken away from me. I had removed myself from the friends I had before him because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have stayed with him. I had nothing. I didn’t even have myself anymore.
I met Shawn and I had no idea who he would be. I hadn’t given myself permission to go back to that hopeful feeling I had when I was thirteen. Or maybe it’s more like I forgot those feelings existed. There is something to be said about holding out for mountain-moving love... if you can stand yourself enough to be alone long enough to find it. I never really could until I went through all that I went through. I allowed myself to find the strength within and stopped feeling like I had to be with somebody to have worth. I was starting to like myself again. I wasn’t looking for a relationship right away. I had to fall in love with myself before I could fall in love with somebody else. Shawn was a surprise for me. He was there for me to find. He let me into his life and together we turned it all upside down. He made me feel the way I forgot I was supposed to. He picked me up off the ground and helped me move that mountain that had been there for so long I just started to ignore it. Since the moment we met, I have been myself. He knows me. He was patient with me in the beginning while some of the madness was still there. I have never had to try to be somebody else or apologize for who I am. And I do know who I am now. Who I am is madly in love with who he is. We know each other enough that it makes me wonder why everything else can’t make as much sense as we do. He cares what I want but he cares more about what I need. And how awesome it has been for me. I’m not with him because I'm afraid to be alone. I am with him because there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be. And if I hadn’t thrown that checklist out long ago, I would finally be able to check off “love of my life” and “happy”.
"I'm not perfect
I'm no saint, babe
I don't wear angels wings
I'm no hero in shining armor
All I am is what you see
I would lay down my life for you
Take it to the wall if you asked me to
I'll stand beside you when gray skies are blue
All my life I will stand by you
I'm just a man, babe
That's all I am, babe
I won't try to hide my scars
But I swear I'll love you
Place no one above you
You have my soul
You have my heart
I would lay down my life for you
Take it to the wall if you asked me to
I'll stand beside you when gray skies are blue
All my life I will stand by you
God knows I've made mistakes
This is all I can say
No matter what it takes
I'm gonna stand beside you always
I would lay down my life for you
Take it to the wall if you asked me to
I'll stand beside you when gray skies are blue
All my life I will stand by you"
She's around a year old. We got her from Pet Friends. She was picked up by Animal Control. Nobody came to get her so Pet Friends went to rescue her. She's very smart and mostly well-behaved. She loves to run around the yard (she's fast!), play ball, go for walks, and cuddle when she's tired herself out. She favors her new pink tennis ball over the balls that have been hanging around the house. She tore her pink ball into a few pieces but still prefers to play with the pieces of her ball over any of the old balls. *must buy her new balls* Every time I open a bag or a box, she's right there looking to see what kind of new toys or treats there are for her. (Sasha was always like that too.) When I get home from work, she wags her whole butt and gives me kisses.
