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ecologyofabsence · 3 years

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thoughts on two years prior

I wasn’t expecting anything from talking to you that night. I was already a little drunk, a little stoned. I always was at those things. I had seen you around work, but any time I caught a glimpse of you, I thought you were too cool, too unattainable. I wasn’t so sure of myself back then. I was still stuck in some chrysalis, some self-loathing bubble I’d enveloped myself in. Why would I have looked twice at someone as beautiful and so comfortably themselves as you?

But our eyes met across the teacher table at the bar. I can remember the way we gave a sidelong glance at one another. It is one of the three most vivid memories of that night. We talked until the bar closed, and you walked me back to my car. I don’t know what caused me to be so bold, but as I started to get in my car, I turned and asked if you wanted to keep talking. I was staying at my mom and dad’s place just up the road. I snuck you into their basement, and I gave you the grand tour, drunk on my courage and the shared beer.

We ended up sitting in the closet under the stairs, rummaging through wedding mementos and the old Beanie Baby collection. We were sitting so close to one another. I could feel my palms growing damp, the hair on my arms standing on end from how electrified I felt.

You asked me what I was thinking about at some point. I was quiet for a moment, probably giving some drunken laugh before telling you I was thinking about kissing you. And I eventually did, though rather spastically. I remember lunging into it, but your lips were so soft against mine. I was still with my ex, though I had moved out and things were decaying rapidly. In that one kiss, I saw this brilliant light. There was this tugging on my heart, something pulling me away from everything I thought I knew about love, about myself, about the life I’d constructed so messily. In my drunkenness, I didn’t realize how scared I was. I could only feel myself falling down the rabbit hole, this newness unmatched by anything that had come before. Was there anything before? Was I even awake before then? It’s hard to say. It’s hard to remember myself before I met you. Well, that’s not entirely true. I look back on that version of me and wonder how I could have wandered around in that daze for so long.

We curled up on one of the sofas, wrapped up in my old galaxy comforter. I didn’t want the night to end. I couldn’t bear closing my eyes, falling asleep, afraid I’d wake up and find the whole evening was made up. We talked until the sun came up, our arms around one another, before you left so I could get at least an hour or so of sleep before I had to go to work.

My mom found me on the couch a few hours later, wondering why I was still in my performance outfit, wondering why I was downstairs at all. I made up some lie, saying I’d wanted to watch TV or play a game because I couldn’t fall asleep.

The beginning of our relationship was beautiful. I have never known kindness, tenderness, or safety such as this.

I grew fearful of how I began to feel, how stable and safe I felt with you. I sabotaged myself early on, because something as good as this could only end in ruin for me. Or that’s what I used to think. That I couldn’t be happy, or didn’t deserve to be.

Now I see how foolish I was. It’s like I’m a completely different person. I’ve discovered things about myself I’m not sure I could have without you.

I love you. You are the purest soul I’ve ever met, and every day I spend with you is a gift. There’s this Rick Bass passage I found myself thinking of this weekend, as we celebrated a mere two year anniversary:

“An excess in the tanks, yes; in the jerry cans. But underground? How could anyone be fooled when stopping to consider it? We fall asleep hard, tired, holding each other. But underground, because she is Elizabeth, there is only so much. I do not give prices based on daily happiness but, rather, on what is left in the world, in our lives. Each day, each time I see her, becomes increasingly valuable because some is gone, and I am happier. We may have twenty years left, or three months, or forty years, or more, but it is a finite unit, like the quantity of anything in the world. As I use the time up, I do not take it for granted. Rather, I try to be surprised at its continued presence and thankful that, at the surface anyway, its waning is not apparent.”

There is a finite amount of time we have together, whether we are together for the rest of our natural lives, or much shorter, but each moment with you is precious, and I am happier because of you. When we wake in the mornings together, I am still beside myself with happiness to see your face leaning in for a tender kiss on my cheek. You’ve touched my soul, and I am grateful for your continued presence.

This post is a shout into the void of tumblr, because who really uses tumblr anymore, and it almost feels silly to even write this. But sometimes these feelings bubble up in the pit of my stomach and I have to put them somewhere.

I am happy with my life. And that is all.

#my dad calls him jesus

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