how do I explain this. . . .

I cried more tonight than I have in months. He terrifies me.
The things he asks of me are more than I have ever given to anyone else in my life. Complete forgiveness when I would rather hold a grudge. Trust when there is absolutely no reason why I should trust him again. These emotional battles are the most challenging things in my life now and maybe ever. . . so far.
Giving my heart and soul into the care of another, I have never done this with anyone. He brings so much joy into my life and it was a shock to realize I could be so happy with anyone. Dinner with a guy who I have eaten an uncountable number of meals with and I have a million butterflies inside at the idea of seeing him. After everything we have been through - that you still make me feel this way is beyond my comprehension. I was with someone for 8 years who never affected me this way.
When I was 20 years old I met someone who is a truly wonderful person. We started spending time together and really liked each other. Then we started dreaming together, we created all these dreams for our life and what we would do, what it would be. . . then I ended up married to those dreams. When it all fell apart, I mourned the loss of those dreams.
I realize now that relationships are not made of the stuff of dreams. They are made of those tiny, breathless moments and in the best relationships, they happen over and over again. What we have leaves me breathless, over and over again. Every moment with him is timeless and amazing. I have never had this before and I am not sure that I will ever find it again.
Can I walk away from this and live my life knowing that I decided not to give him another chance?
So when he tells me that he is sorry for everything, that he is sorry for being afraid, that he is sorry for being his dad, and wants to do whatever he has to do to be with me, to heal this, to get back to where we were and then keep going all I can do is sit, with his arms around me, and cry.

talking to my "big brother"

I don't have a big brother. I grew up as the oldest with just one little brother. I don't ask him for advice - it is not how we are. So when I need big brother advice, I find that I am stuck.
Tonight I called a friend of mine, he is just a few years older than me, and I asked him to be my designated big brother. He has a way of listening, asking questions, and giving advice that I imagine to be what an awesome big brother would do.
Our conversation boiled down to this:
"Life is a coin. You can spend it anyway you wish, but you can only spend it once. Can't remember where I heard this but it couldn't be more true. Don't be afraid to get your heart broken, if it happens time will fix it."
I think my big brother gives awesome advice.

it's my birthday, bring the filet mignon. . .

My phone rang on Monday and it was the last person I expected to hear from. I felt ill. What does he want? He calls me after a month of absolutely no communication and wants to see me that very evening. Why? Why could he want that and why would I agree to it? My birthday. I agreed to spend my birthday with him. We spent nearly four and a half hours together when I had planned to give him no more than two.

"I am so sorry." It was the first time he has apologized. The apology was unexpected. It was honest. It was out of desperation. He is not happy. How can you be happy when you walk around trying to be the person you think everyone else wants you to be?

He is so stubborn and arrogant (as am I) that there had been no admission of wrongdoing over the past four months, all along defending his actions as his process. I have done this very same thing so I must forgive him for it. It is the fact that he was, by his own admission, intentionally deceitful that pains me. We made agreements and spent months building trust in our relationship and it took him less than two weeks to destroy it. Can I accept that it might happen again? There are so many things to talk about, so many questions.

The truth is that I love the boy who hides under all the bullshit. I know the person he keeps hidden away from the world who is so passionate about food and wine, the boy who wants to sit in his garden on Sunday mornings drinking english breakfast tea, the boy who lectures me on the molecular structure of organic solvents when I wonder aloud about rubbing alcohol removing ink from my fingers.... I love how we finish sentences (correctly) for each other and laugh until we are rolling on the floor. There was one night I thought we would get thrown out of a favorite restaurant because we were laughing very loudly about something that made no sense at all. ("I have a monkey, bring the filet mignon" whatever that means.) The hostess kept rolling her eyes at us and I was sure they would ask us to leave. They didn't and we just kept laughing.

When you find that person who is such a joy to be with, how can you be stubborn and angry and unforgiving? I try to be that way and I fail. We all have our bullshit in life and somehow I am willing to forgive him for all of his. I do not know if we can be together but I know that I forgive him.

I asked him, "what the fuck do you want, what happens now, why are you here?"
He responds, "I'm in love with you and I want to have you in my life. Can we just spend some time together, maybe we can get together and cook. . . just start there."

How can I deny him this? I love to cook.

what? really? oh my. . .

I have these moments where I have to wonder about what I am thinking. I reflect on the things I would rather ignore or imagine to be a different way. I had one of these moments earlier this week.
It was so odd, somehow a nearly complete stranger sat down and asked me a question that I felt like answering honestly. I sorta know this guy but we are not close friends by any means and to have him spend the next hour discussing some of the core issues in my life was shocking.
He rattled me. Every word out of his mouth was the truth. The advice he gave was intense and personal and every bit of it right. I don't understand experiences like that. It was incredibly cathartic. I left feeling ripped apart and by the time I walked a couple of blocks, I felt this sense of relief and lightness that I have not had in months.
I have to say that he was incredibly open about his life and the stuff he was going through. We talked about jobs and relationships and life.
He called me defeatist and made a reasonable case for why he was right. That I believe that no matter what I do, no matter how good something is, it is doomed to fail. The goodness of that particular thing can not last.
He is right.
I also believe that in the face of all the crap, the only thing to do is find something to bring joy into your life, the smell of flowers in the air or an exceptional cup of tea. . .
There was something about hearing the truth. Perhaps my friends can't see this truth. Perhaps they are unwilling to tell me. That's okay though, because he said it and I listened and it changed how I look at the world a little.

things i think about you

i think you live in fear of living the life you want and dream. i think you are afraid of loving me more than i love you. i think you are afraid you can't live up to whatever expectations you imagine i might have for you. i think you want to walk away before i might have the chance to hurt you. i think you can't understand that i accept you just the way you are, that i love you for who you are and want to be.

you go out into the world and surround yourself with superficial relationships and then you call me to talk about how they don't understand you or relate to the things you care about. i wonder why you do this. why you chose this path. i accept it but i don't understand it.

sometimes music makes me weep

i love music. it is a huge part of my life. i spent many years training to be a professional musician and my heart was broken by the reality of what that life would mean for me. i decided that i could not emotionally withstand the life of a classical musician.
the intensity. traveling, competition, isolation.
my friend steve called me up one day and told me he had gotten a job and i started to go on about how great it was. . . he said it was in Tokyo and he didn't think he was going to take it.
Tokyo is a long way away.
the choice to let it slip away was hard - letting go of dreams, well that is never easy. i don't think about it often but sometimes i will remember and it makes me weep. sometimes i hear a piece i played or something that reminds me of that part of my life and i just cry and cry.

i still love music. all kinds of music. i am always looking for something new. lately I have been spending a lot of time at Daytrotter - and tonight i found something i feel like sharing. they are playing in bloomington on March 31.

distractions

sometimes i think these 'feelings for someone else' that you keep talking about are how you avoid whatever is really going on. they are irrelevant to me. i don't believe in or care about the excuse that you create. i care about us and what is really going on in our relationship.
talk to me about that.
tell me about us and what you think about,
what are you afraid of, and why do you create this distraction rather than dealing with what is happening between us?