Broken... Well, not yet but it's coming. I can feel it looming and when I think about it too closely, I can't breathe. I can feel the cracks in me, like fault lines. When I think about you, and us, and where we are going, I can feel the cracks and I know that one day, I'll shatter.
It's not like you've been anything less than honest with me. You were. I just didn't see you coming. How can I feel like this for someone who was just a voice over the phone? I have a little voice in my head, and she warns me when it's time to run. Always before you, I listened. I ran. Usually across the country. (No intimacy issues here!) And it worked, and I stayed whole. Untouched, really. She tried with you, and I didn't listen. I didn't believe her. Yeah, we talked for hours and hours, and no one has ever managed to keep up with me the way you did - intellectually, and with your sheer randomness and your goofy sense of humor - all so like mine. But you lived in my "friend" box, and there you were going to stay. I was safe.
And then your facebook status changed to "in a relationship" and unlike a friend, I was not happy for you. Not even a little. I wanted to scratch her eyes out - which is an entirely new feeling for me. And then she posted that picture of the two of you, and you were asleep, and she was smirking into the camera with this "he's mine" look on her face and it nearly killed me. And I thought, "oh, shit." I have very strong feelings about poaching, in that I don't, and feeling like this for someone I'd never met who lived across the country AND who now had a girlfriend wasn't something I had any intention of nurturing, so I pulled back. A lot. And it hurt. A lot. And you kept calling. Friend. *snort*
Sometimes, the phone would ring, and I'd see your face on the caller id, and I'd curl into a ball on the couch and just stare at the phone. Then you'd call my home phone, and I'd cave and answer and just say that my cell was charging. And then we were off on the random talks and deep philosophical debates and pointless bickering and next thing I knew, it's 4 hours later and I was going to hate myself in the morning. You told me that I was your favorite female. And like a lovesick teenager, I held that to me.
She lasted about a month. You gave me several perfectly valid reasons why it didn't work... she's too young, she's too vanilla, she's going to be moving out of state, she didn't "get" you. And you dropped a bomb: "She wasn't you." And our nightly two to three hour conversations resumed.
On October 29, you told me that you loved me, and I was your best friend. About an hour later, you told me that you were IN love with me.
November 3 was an awful, wonderful day. I had no idea what we were doing or where we were going but it hurt. It was the least productive day of my professional life to date because I spent the whole day on the phone to my brother, my dad, my mom, several friends... all spent freaking out over you. Yeah, I told my parents all about you. They haven't heard about a guy I was interested in since Jeff, and he's been gone a long time. And then you called. So I now find myself in an "open" relationship with someone that I really truly fell in love with.
We all have a history. Yours is not one I ever suspected I'd be telling my mother about. YOU are not anything I ever saw myself bringing home to meet the family. A lot of your past, while not something I'm happy about, is not something I will hold against you. Or at least, I'm trying hard not to. You were a dumb kid, you screwed up... and your brain and your very different perspective on things were what attracted me the most.
But some of the things that you like scare me. YOU scare me, sometimes. Safe, sane, and consentual are words that I live by and I'm not sure, entirely, that you do. That is probably part of your allure.
The thing that will probably be the deal-breaker, though, is that "club" that you took an oath to. I've lost friends to motorcycles, and I hate them. My family has a history with those "clubs" and we're not even remotely fond of them. The worst, though, is that pesky oath. You told me that if I made you chose, I'd lose. Fair enough. I've been warned.
You have already planned the tattoos that you think we should get to go under the wedding bands. And that, my love, is where you will lose me. I love you. I've never felt for anyone the way I feel for you. I'm looking for jobs in California to be near you, in spite of swearing to never live there again. In spite of my family being in Ohio. In spite of loving my life here in Chicago.
As you've said, I am not exactly the poster girl for monogamy. I am, with a like-minded partner. But that's not you. I think you think that marriage to me would be like open relationship with me, except with rings and matching tattoos. But it's not. I'm much more conservative on some things than you suspect. If I take an oath to you, you have to be free to take an oath to me. And you can't. I'll never be first for you. Also? Not into open marriage. And I highly doubt I'll ever be the only for you.
I'm going to enjoy this ride while it lasts. I may as well; I've never been here before and may never be again. But it's a very bittersweet ride. Because you are going to break me into a million pieces. I hope I can put them back together again.
