Flecks of Gold

I read once that “love means that you care for another person’s happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be”, I call bullshit on that one Nickolas Sparks. 

I look at where I am and where I started, it is like gazing at a Rorschach and a Pollock, not even comparable. I realize that my past relationships had to end in order for me to find the right ones. I realize that leaving my fiancé and calling off our engagement was the best thing I could have ever done for myself and for him. It wasn’t that he didn’t love me, he did, but he could not accept who I was and I could not love him for that. I think in any relationship it takes finding out what you don’t want before you can ever find what you do want.

So when the right person comes along, he lights you on fire. Even when he tells you point blank, “I am fully committed to (insert thing of choice here)”; you are still taken back. You respect his honesty, and are completely cool about it. Instantly this man has produced profound changes in you. Like he blew a breath of air into you. You feel like a different person immediately, like someone turned all the lights on, the colors are clearer the noises louder. How am I supposed to act like I am not taken back by acts of oddness, style and smarts. Always the boys we can’t seem to blow off casually. Always the ones we want to see more than they care to see us. He was honest, and suddenly I am left wanting more. I am left with wanting more and not quite sure where I might find it. Rare occurrences create these tiny pockets of insane connections and intertwining. He’s a kooky dude but I totally adore his oddness, his oddness turns to eccentric and soulful. He’s got style, opinion, passion, they don’t make men of this caliber today. And although he has an air about him it is not always arrogance. He’s stoically jokey in his own quirky way. And I have no idea what he really thinks about me, if at all. But where can this go? I find myself saying “Who cares “as I grimace because apparently I do. Care.

He comes over, we catch up over 2 bottles of wine, we cover the “what you have been tos”, school, work, exchange in random information, new books, articles, music. Then we have sex. The mind blowing, I lost count sex that we had over the course of 33 hours. We linger in bed, napping, spooning, and running around in our undies, ordering pizza and watching Seinfeld reruns. We drink some more cocktails, talk some more. He reads Dorian Gray to me while I shower. He watches me get ready start to finish. As I’m about to leave the room he grabs me, totally undresses me, undoing what I have just spent the last hour doing. Hot. We leave to go out, where he will then totally engage my friend in witty banter and we have so much fun. After he is gone, all I can do is think of that day, it’s reminiscent in my mind always. It’s like that every time he is here. It’s electric and then poof he’s gone. My need to control starts to resurface. I like him but do I like him because I know I can’t have him or because he’s that neat of a person? He is without question the most interesting man I have met since I moved to Chicago. I’m interested. Hooked? Not completely. It’s hard to get hooked on something you barely know. He’s very good at keeping is walls up but does open up about one particular topic, (his cheating ex girlfriend, that tore out his soul). I have just never met anyone like him, EVER. Self made so far, head strong and pretty damn self assured. For the meantime all I could do was leave the door open for him to come or go as he pleased, that I am at least willing to do. I will remember my moments, however limited, with him always. They will be the tiny pieces of gold sand locked away as a keepsake, for it is those tiny moments in life that give me hope. Hope at the idea of love, loving someone for who they are or what they promise to become. It’s these tiny flecks that make putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how hard you fall, that much easier. And realizing, that even if, I never experience that connection again, at least I had it once in my life.  Stay.Live.Love.Jump.Run.