fearless

The room was street light blue, soaked in middle of the night quiet. He was sound asleep. Splayed out on his stomach, facing the closet and not me. There were tiny curls in his silhouette. Poking out from his mash of dark dark brown hair. My hand on his back, he was breathing the kind of breaths that happen only in sleep. Deep inhales and savored exhales. I was tired and groggy but open eyed. Sleep had come and went with his movements. This was all new. The sleeping together. His rhythmic breathing. The wee hour silence. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

If we were a picture just then, it would have been in soft focus.

With all the power of a misspoken sentence or midnight telephone call, he stirred. I slid my hand from his back, tucked it under my head. He rearranged himself in the blankets and sleepfluffed his pillows. His legs chased around for a new best place to rest. He was a flurry of activity and blankets and arms. Then. He settled slow. His legs, still. His arms, tucked. Before he laid his head down, he leaned over with barely open eyes and half asleep kissed me. Soft, quick and perfect. Then his head, nestled in pillows.

And me. Kissed. Wondering how he even knew where I was in the mess of queen size sheets and clingy kitten and my tangle of dark dark brown curls.

Slowed by sleep and dulled by tired, my defenses were down. Clear as day. Bright as snow. True as a compass it came. Not love or hope or contentment. Not thankfulness or peace or wanting to stop time. Instead it was the fear that has kept him at arms length by part of me while being pulled close by the rest. How. Would. I. Ever. Get. Over. Him? In the flawless of that kiss and the happy it washed over me, my first thought upon returning my hand to the small of his back was of him not being there anymore.

What a waste of a moment.

Unavailable. He fits the mold. There is a river between us even when it’s cozy and quiet and smooshed together and his breathing is slow and his skin is warm and oh. There is no talk of running away or turning our lives upside down for this chemistry that makes him kiss me half asleep. That’s the safe of this. The scary is that he is perfect. For me. Curious and talented and complex. Playful and creative and whip smart. He’s a million piece puzzle. He knows how I work, like a machine, watching me push and pull him back and forth. And for all this attraction and friendship and everything he can surely feel in my kiss, he doesn’t think he’s special because he sees this pushing and pulling as something that anyone could be the object of. Any married man or long distance fling could step in and I maybe wouldn’t even notice, he thinks. Doesn’t he know I’ve passed up dozens of them in favor of the few but.

There’s nothing you can say to that once you’ve nodded your head to the pushing. To the pulling. Cat gets your tongue.

I am this day dreamy hopeless romantic sparkle filled girl who is absolutely terrified of letting myself have the thing I’ve craved my whole life. I am 34 years old and I have met only three boys who I could have loved for ages or maybe even forever. They are spaced in almost exact 6 year increments. I pushed and pulled the first and the second until they gave up. At 22. At 28. Now, again. This one is the third, and for all his thinking that is he nothing unique in this, he is wrong. He is like a comet, passing though bright and lovely.

The kind you stay up til 3am to see.

He is different in that he is here and unavailable. The unavailability of the others came in the shape of a time zone. A couple hours ahead and I was safe to bare my soul to honeyed voices and handwritten letters and hundreds of sweetly worded emails. One I knew for 7 years the other for 6 months. This one’s timeline remains to be seen but for the first time I have no control over the obvious obstacle I’ve put in the way of us. It’s not a plane ticket. It’s not a few hundred dollars. It’s a whole other life and a whole other set of issues and fears and decisions. None of them mine. So he watches the unraveling of me. The simultaneous pushing him away and holding onto him with all my might. With my complaints of the situation, my need for reassurance, my sometimes cold shoulder I must be like a carnival ride.

But I’m doing the best I can.

I hold my worries and fears and not good enoughs up the light as much as i can stand. I’ve spent hours trying to sort it out in the pale green room, sitting across from her. Her notebook in her lap, her kind smile. Her dozens of questions. Patterns emerge like wallpaper and I can see all my smoke and mirrors in the occasional light of day. The irony of this one is not lost on me. I’m as close as I’ve ever been to letting someone love me but he is a million miles further away than a plane ticket or time zone. It’s a disappointment that sits with me sometimes and I buy it a cup of tea and a few shortbread cookies to make it feel better, but it only feels so much better.

Even when the tea is perfectly steeped and the cookies imported from Scotland.

There won’t be a six year wait this time. The gaps were where I fell into relationships that were comfortable like slippers but held little real promise. I would pretend and plan lives and move us forward but I knew there was something askew. I’d be lonely sometimes. I miss something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Years and years spent trying to hold together good enough with duct tape and bobby pins. Not this time. This time I won’t settle for anything less than what I’ve glimpsed with this boy. I want the wow I feel when I hold his hand. I want the happy I feel when I see him smile. I want that connection. That bond. That’s what I’m waiting for.

That four times in a lifetime spark dressed up in blue jeans and a clever t-shirt who just happens to need glasses.