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 �what is Man? a miserable little pile of secrets.� - andr� malraux "i desire to live in peace and to continue the life i have begun under the motto, to live well you must live unseen." - rene descartes note random entry image credit design by : ilazarn ikmal powered by : diaryland |
year four.
2013-10-15 @ 11:24 a.m.
four years with this man. i'm excited to make our first dinner again, but now, with a far more skilled hand. to feed him again in the same house, in the same place, and remember the feeling. a feeling that has grown and become so much more, but is still the same. to just look at someone and know, yes. this is right. then and now. it will always be. to kiss those lips again and remember that i have known them for half of my life. i can close my eyes and instantly be in his room again, sharing teenage angst, falling in love again. you know, when i said i was going to tell him to leave a couple of entries ago, i was serious. i was, if he didn't change. i didn't tell him that, i only told you and myself and no one else. but it was so hard to even think of doing. and i knew that if it actually came to me having to say it, then i had to be ready to be alone, because i don't say anything i don't really mean. but i just remember sitting there, trying to imagine my life without him in it. our lives without the other in them. i remember being so mad at him for making me have to even consider it. i remember thinking, we're barely a month away from our 4 year anniversary, and you're making me think of this? but every relationship has these moments, i know. it's not all perfect. nobody's is. so i cherish the happy times, commit myself to being a good partner while maintaining my own self-respect and self-worth, and expect the same out of him. i can't ask him to do more than that. i think that relationships are over when people stop trying for each other. at whatever it may be. he's a good guy and he tries really hard for me, all the time. sometimes his efforts are ... misdirected. but i can't say that all of mine have been spot on, either. i'm a girl and he's a boy. our brains just work differently, it's okay. the important thing is that i know he would do anything for me. just as i sit here writing this, a memory resurfaces. finding some of my old diary entries from this period of time last night probably roused them just enough. i am always amazed by the brain's ability to instantly recall these moments from 15(?) years ago that might have remained sealed if life had turned out differently. i remember when i was in high school, i had been dating this guy B for like 2 years or something, and then i met boy, and everything changed. i had been miserable with B. i didn't know what it was at the time, but now that i'm older, i understand that he was an insidious verbal and emotional abuser. he was super smart, probably near genius intelligence. but he was always kind of rough, unkind. super intense, but disconnected. at first, he was really sweet to me, writing me love letters every single day, you know that thing in high school. but he always put such heavy pressure on me for sex (it's not that i didn't want to be having it, it was that he would pressure me at times that i KNEW we would get caught/in trouble, and then when we did get caught it always ended up looking like oh that [racist descriptor of choice] hussy tinea getting our good boy to make bad decisions! it's just so like those people!), and was always SO condescending and rude to me. his attitude was so obviously one of: i'm smarter than you, so your opinion is moot. also, you're really stupid for thinking that (yes, i heard this one many times). boy fits into all of this because after 2 years of being treated this way by B, i was just so over it. i met boy and i had never 1) met a guy who looked like him who was interested in a girl like me (we're talking race relations in a very small town here), 2) met a guy who was so nice and respectful and courteous to me, or 3) met a guy who seemed like he got me. you know, we were on the same wavelength, and were about the same things. after knowing boy for only a couple of weeks, i told B that i needed to see other people or break up. and i remember B, upon hearing this, was for the first time contrite! and honestly took me by surprise, crying, asking, why? why? into the phone (long distance relationship by this time, but we saw each other frequently). and all i could say was, "because he's nice to me!" later on, boy cheated on me and i didn't know what else to do so i went back to exclusively dating B. he made me feel like a piece of shit and pretended he wasn't going to take me back for a while. in case you couldn't tell, our relationship was all about him asserting his power over a weak, stupid female. again, hindsight. so eventually he "took me back" and we were together again, and i was just as miserable as i was before. in tearful desperation one night, i remember asking him why he couldn't just be nice to me?? i didn't get why i didn't deserve to be spoken to respectfully by my own boyfriend. why my opinion always had to be shot down as being ridiculous. he says, oh? so you want me to treat you like [boy] did, huh? and i'm thinking, is this a trick question? of course! he didn't make me feel like a worthless piece of garbage like you do. so for like a month or something, B was super nice to me. we had the kinds of conversations i remembered from when we first got together. he seemed sweet and caring again, not critical and cruel. he just acted like a decent, normal guy. i felt like, okay. i can finally let my guard down and trust him again. so he comes up to visit, and we're out at a diner or something, and he says really sarcastically, "so, are you happy? is this the relationship you wanted?" and i'm like, yeah! i've been really happy. and this guy seriously says, cool, that's great, because i've totally been faking it. this is all a sham. i've just been acting like this, it's not how i really am, and if you're only happy when i'm acting fake then we shouldn't be together. i was like .......... ??? ... at a time like this, this story comes back to me, and i remember so much about how i became this person, and what trust and love and respect and relationships really mean. and that i have relived that moment again, this time with experience on my side. history repeated itself. this time around i demanded, why don't i deserve to be treated with respect?? and this time around, there was boy to say, you do. and i'm going to step up and try harder for you. i never want you to be unhappy. you are valuable to my life. so. here's to four years of something beautiful that is ever growing, ever changing. to a life with someone who has come to understand me and accept me exactly as i am. to love, true love, that we have been so lucky to find with each other. oh, my darling boy. i love you so, so, so much. i think we make each other so much better. |