What if Take 2

What if you are old and gray and sitting in a nursing home and you are asked by your great grand children a story you'd remember, and you say "once upon a time I met a girl, and I loved her and she loved me but we never managed to stay together. We lived separate lives until we died."
'What if they asked why not? And you say "because I was not sure until it's too late."

What if in an alternate universe I was standing next to the Christmas tree, holding hands, you and I, and you admire the tree and then to turn to look at me and say to me, "I love you so much thank you for being here with me always." I'd rub your shoulder and say to you, "I can't imagine being anywhere else but here with you. You are the best thing ever happened to me."

What if I have never loved another like you. What if when I close my eyes I can't see anything in front of me, behind me, next to me. What if this is what love really is and you are letting it all go wasted.

What if the only thing we ever did wrong is to stay apart, and not make a decision to find a way to stay together.

What if?

He said that holidays are hard for me, because I get introspective, restless, and last year, I asked to break up with him. He did not like that, so he said okay but he did not want to hear any more of it. He said that I wrote back almost immediately, or maybe a couple of days later, and asked to take all of that back, and I admitted that I made a mistake, and I did not want to be broken up with him, and I wanted just the way it was, and I asked him, what is that he said, he said, "I said okay, I said it was okay for you to be back with me."

I wondered, if my request to break up with him, and his granting of my request, broke him as much as it broke me. The threat of being no longer together, frightened him as much as it frightened me, and though he never let on, now, a year later, he'd bring it up, ever so casually, but it meant something to him too, my wanting to leave, made an impression on him, and he forever never felt as secure he once did with me, he thought I'd never leave, I was always his.

We spent so much time apart, and when I was apart from him, I used to think about him, so constantly, so much so, that I dreamed about him and weeped for my longing to be with him was so uncontrollable, that I knew deep in my soul, being with him was the only thing that ever made any sense to me at all.

He'd never contemplate leaving his life for me, his partner, and his children. I'd never dream of him leaving his lifestyle, where he answered to no one, where he doted his children, and travelled far and wide, and met up with whomever he wanted along the way, and had numerous sexual partners along the way, I don't think he could ever give that up. I knew that I could, as long as I was secure, and as long as I was loved, I could be loyal, I had proven to be loyal to one man for 10 years, until I met him.

I have been with him for more than 4 years, closing in on 5 and I never felt this way about anyone else.

I knew he would never do this, but I do it often, I weep. I weep until I have no more tears to dry and I have no more breathe. I think about what if's. I think about how he wrapped his arm around me, how he folded me in his arms, his torso linked to mine, and he just slept in that position, I stayed awake, unable to move for I was afraid of waking him up, and his heaviness made me hard to breathe. Yet I stayed motionless and let him. I know it was important to him that I was there, my being with him made sense the same way his being with me made sense.

Suppose, what if, if he believed, that I could make him the happiest man in the world, that I was the only thing that could settle him, make him happy, and no longer miss the adventures, and what if my love was the only thing he had never had  until he met me? What if we were meant for each other and we are the only type of love story the universe meant to create? What if I would make him happy, not just sexually but emotionally and intellectually? What if this was the person he's meant to be with?

Sometimes I weep for I was overwhelmed by the notion that there was some cosmic joke somewhere? What if the two of us knew this was right and we've spent five years apart fighting the urge to stay together, then we always come back to each other no matter what? What if then? What if every sign in universe says, don't do this to each other any more, this is what it means, this, you and he, are what the world needs, stop fighting it, stop, just stop, be together, forever and ever, you do what it takes to make it work, what then?

Would you ever listen to that? Would you?