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?

Remember that first day

He showed me the photo. THE photo, the photo that started everything. April 1998. He said that's the VERY first day we met. "This is the first photo of our first meeting, the very first day. Then we got together the very same weekend." He continued down the memory lane for both of us. I don't remember anything because I couldn't understand why he kept that photo, why he found that photo, because after all, I did not remember anything at all. In the photo, we were both very happy, and as I looked back at him, he smiled, he laughed. I remembered that laugh, that beautiful smile. In his early days, he was very gorgeous, he would describe himself as "attractive." He liked women, and he had access to a lot of women. I think he generally dated down, as in he met and bedded women who were not as attractive as he, and many women would go crazy for him, like he was the best thing ever happened. I was not one of those women. I was flighty and less emotionally developed. It was only in the last four years, the fall of 2011 that when I remet him, we found each other, and perhaps for the first time,  I was his equal. he was smitten by me, and I was equally smitten by him.

He gave me presents. They were beautiful. Fun pencils, sun in a jar, and Alessi necklace. The necklace looked like a piece of art. He always had good taste.

I stopped writing about our trips. I should not have. But I was afraid of writing anything down, for I already love him too much. It hurts. It never stopped hurting because I know the love I had held for him had never stopped, it grew over time and now it felt very permanent and less anxious.

I was very upset with him when he asked me to take down our photos, and I was upset because I wanted the world to know that we are together, perhaps unconsciously I simply want some level of acknowledgement, for I have never loved anyone else like this since I was 22. But then he denied me. I was to always remain in the shadows, so that I could never be known to the world that I had loved him.  I thought that I'd let him go and move on but instead we grew closer. I told him that I couldn't do this seeing each other thing once a month, so we started seeing each other more frequently, and when we did not see each other, I asked him to call and he always called back.

Since September, I felt slightly more relaxed, and I don't believe that I would love anyone any more, and I don't believe that I could ever be loved like that, and neither one of could afford a change, I am finally okay.

The meetings we had were still infrequent, but I find that he started to talk to me more, about his partner, about his upcoming thanksgiving plan, and about everything else, like how he never wanted to change, and how was different and he did not want to be tied down, and now that he's a father, things have changed, and he still struggles with it.

When he was tired and sick, in the evening, he told me about his past, how he was an RA in the German house in Indiana University, how he had to go and sit in the shrink's office and listen to the girl who attempted suicide to talk about her fictitious life. How he became a father and everything had changed. How he still struggles with it and his relationship with work and being a parent, and how things have changed and now that he's older, and then when he woke up again in the middle of the night, he came closer to me and said to me, "I'm so lucky to have you."

"I love you." I'd say softly. He'd say, "What was that?" I would speak louder, and say, "I love you." And then he says "I love you too."

I lied in bed, and I listened to him talking and his mind wanders to so many places, he'd tell me that he's older but he is what is called a Puer Aeternus, and that he never thought he'd be a parent, and that now that he's older, he is less attractive and he did not have that same amount of energy anymore. He'd tell me that he's only seeing me, and I'd tell him that I think he still sees other women but he knew that it hurts me so he won't tell me that any more. I did not want to know, and I knew that in my silly mind, his love is the pure and complete and I could not tolerate the thought of him wanting to be another woman.

He would fuck me a number of times, and he says "I have never been turned on this much as I have with you." No matter how long it has been, he is still crazy about me, physically, and then there is something else about this now, it's like that we've been together for so long that I no longer remember a life without him.

He would tell me about our history, this time, and he retells our journey together, and my being with him and when I say, "Wow, you remember everything." He says, "I remember some things."

Perhaps it's from my writing, that he remembers and perhaps because I write to him so frequently and I write about our journey together so much that he now remembers.

Once he finished talking and getting tired, then he says, "we should sleep." I still have so many questions and I still want to ask a lot about him, and I remembered how I wanted to tell him, "I'd like to get to know you more," and yet, he seemed to have read my mind and he's started to tell me things about him.

I've known him for so long, yet I knew so little about him. After college, he told me that he went to work for Peters and Company, and had corporate apartment in D.C. Princeton and Boston. He went to MIT for grad school at age 24 and how he wished that he had delayed that journey and not gone to grad school until 5, 6 years later. He graduated from Sloan at age 26 and had been on the road for a long time by the time he finished grad school.

I recall our dinner just a few weeks ago, where he told me about his lives in Bergen, Norway, and then just a couple of weeks ago, when we had dinner in Philly, when I visited him in Philly, he told me about his living in Princeton. I started to piece his lives together. HOw could you have dated someone for four plus years and knew so little about them?

I think it's because I was so involved with him physically, that our interaction is so intense that we felt nothing about anything else and just isolated our lives to that moment that we were together.

I remembered as we started to talk, I began to realize how we much we were alike. We both make refrigerator pickles, we both like the same kind of herring and cod fish and fish oil, and how much we like the same kind of cheese and fish, and that we both had a thing for fermented things.

I would buy him herring from the Nordic House. I bought things from a German speciality store to bring to his mother, he said, "I'll bring it and tell her it's from you." I said, "who's 'you'? She's never met me. I don't even know if I'd ever meet her. I want to meet her but I don't think I'd have an opportunity. It's too real for me if that did happen. I know that I'd like her and I feel that perhaps she's a bit like me.

He would sometimes compare himself to my husband. And I know there are some similarities. But fundamentally I think we are very different people and my husband is very different from him. But I don't think he understands that my love for him is a very much driven by his desire of me. "The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man." And the real reason I love him is that I know that he wants me. And he's the only person who has ever wanted me that much. And the fact that he wants me, is an indication of that he just wants to fuck me. He often tells me that "I love fucking you." It's a indicator then his love is real.

I recall being in Philly, and when we fucked, he kept on saying "I love you so much." I do believe that I had never felt this type of desire from any men before.

Since August his birthday dinner I did not see him for almost a month. During that month I wondered if he thought it over and wanted to change to keep me or if he just started to miss me. We went out a few times, including him visiting me in my own house. I don't remember of it, but it would have been several times. He had invited me over and we spent a few hours in bed where I told him that I wanted to see him more and when he did not see me, I wanted him to call. Then he came to see me at my own house just before my trip to Norway. we went to dinner after my trip to Bergen, I brought him presents from his old stumping group. Then we talked more. We then met in Philly, and he took me out for dinner again. When he returned he cancelled our meeting but then we met again. So I asked him to call to catch up and he did.  He said that he wanted to talk to me too. One time he called me when I was out watching TV, and we just caught up. I think for him he needs to know that I don't want anything from him. While I know that I would like to have more, I have resorted to believe there is nothing he could give me and that permanent, profound sadness makes me less anxious. It makes me just be.

He tells me that he does not keep in touch with his ex'es any more, and that he is less of a jerk now that he's older. I told him that he's a nicer person now, and that the previous version of him, the playboy version of him, felt less substantial. He said that he was just dating. He liked women, and he dated them, and there was no implied commitment, and I told him that women in America are a bit more uptight and that they have sex and they think you should be exclusive. That was the difference. in many ways I don't feel that strongly about monogamy, I simply just wanted love and a relationship that makes me feel alive.

Once I understand him, that his perspective about women, and why he had a suite of relationships, and some sweet women perhaps got hurt along the way, I understand why I can love him and why he loves me. I think it's because I am not a jealous type and I love and understand him.

He says to me, when I asked why he has that photo, he says, "because one day we'd be together. It's the very first time we met." I wonder if history is made by accident. Here I was, in his photo, where he had kept, for 18 years. And we stayed friends. He always liked me. I had always thought that he was beyond my approach, and in middle age, we look like the perfect couple. We are good looking people now, and we look well suited. His shortcomings, his eclectic side, suits me as much as the normal side.

I stayed with him until the next morning. I didn't sleep well because he was sick. I think he might give me whatever he had and I was sick too. I did not care. I just wants to spend time with him. There has never been anyone who made me feel this way. I just want to take care of him. His desire for me, is what I desire the most of him. The rest pales in comparison.

I am not sure why I wrote down this. I have not re-read anything. The reason I stopped writing is that I want to forget.

I'm scared of all of this. He tells me that he came to visit me at my house. I gave him two German beers. And he met my puppy. We locked out the dog so we could cuddle. But that's not true. The puppy stayed with us as we made out. He called her sweetie. She liked him. Those things are the only things he remembered, and I have to try very hard to forget. I worry about remembering will make me love him more.

He lies next to me for some parts of the night. He embraced me and I lied next to him. I have no idea where this goes. I just know that it's been four years and more, and I still love him like the first day I met him.

And we now plan our summer vacation together, not because we did it intentionally. I just happen to be there when he's there.

And he asked me if I want to go to New Jersey with him. He wants to see me. He wants to be with me. He likes when I keep him company when he's away. I have no idea where this leads.

What do people do with the love story of their life time? Where do they go from here?

Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël > Quotes > Quotable Quote

“The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.”

Women feel empowered by the desire that men funnel into them. Whereas a man just wants to satiate his carnal desires, a woman's femininity - and therefore, IDENTITY, especially in a patriarchal society - is determined by how intensely men covet her. She's not attracted to the man himself, per se, but to the fulfillment she gets knowing that the man wants her. 

Dahlia O'Dell

Flower Garden

Girlfriend liked my suggestion and wanted to take her family over here this long weekend. I hit the panic button and sent a quick note over to her, "should we coordinate so that we'd strategically miss each other?" I liked my morning walk quiet and free of running into people I might recognize. Pleasantries are reserved for social events and not when you need to enjoy some of these pretty flowers on your own.

I take, apparently, decent photos of the flowers. Turns out it's not because of my photography skills or the iPhone 6, which I've already scratched, it's because the flowers are superbly mesmerizing, to the point that they felt unreal, mystical, massive, dazzling, and photogenic.

I taught him to say dahlia dell. He thought it was just some flower garden. Middle age straight men don't always know about flowers in general. They know the names of the pitchers for the Giants or the local pubs where sports are shown, but not the flowers. I told him that when I was a young girl, my grandparents who took care of me would put me in a stroller and take me to the city center park, 45 minutes each way, they spent every day in the park, watching the peonies and dahlias bloom. Peonies are a lot like dahlias, magnificent and statuesque, confident in its own beauty and are used to admirers, and they only last for a season and they are gone. They were the opposite of me. As a timid, nerdy and shy girl, and perhaps still, as a sensitive and fragile middle age woman, I was, and still am, insecure to a fault, and I linger way too long for my own good.

Dahlia garden induces awe. Splendid beauty in plain sight. A must stop if you were to visit the pretty nice open space that is called the Golden Gate Park that geographically separates the Sunset from the Richmond.

Best viewing season: late July to mid September.

Best time of the day: early Sunday morning. Remember it's car free day on Sunday in the Park. Tourists are still sleeping off their Saturday evening's bar crawl, and locals are too busy heading to brunch places, pastry shops, or play structures in the park with their children in tow.

The flowers are now in full bloom, like a ripe woman, they are going all out:  they reach their maximum seductress strength in early September. There are lots of butterflies and bumble bees hovering. However, and not surprisingly, no dogs are allowed. Perhaps it's for the best, I think my puppy Abby would have eaten it all if given the chance.

Near Break up

I lied on the grass listening to him counting the ways we were not right for one another. He could not come up with much. He thinks I did not want him enough.

I couldn’t even if I tried. He did not need to know that.

He wanted to try the no sex thing. Just friends. I said, “well that’s good but I’m out. I don’t want that you know that already.” 

He did not know what to say so I said, “let’s go. The sun is coming through the trees. It’s getting too hot.” 

We got up and I did not extend my hand to hold his. He was lost without holding my hand. I could tell because he knew that was not what he wanted.

I think he wants a bit more than what I could give him. “Something is off sexually.” He would say. I think I knew what it was. I’m too aggressive. He’s a Type B kind of guy but he wants to be in charge like everyone is. But I was once very aggressive, and when that ended, I was very laid back and he did not want to take the lead. Round and round we go.

We went to see flowers, then shopped at the Farmer’s Market, I was not happy to return that street. But he did not mind and I was trying to be supportive of it. I told him why I preferred the other neighborhood. But that was his neighborhood too. I couldn’t pick a worse location to date a guy.

He was looking at me, all pained. His eyes conflicted and I think he might cry. So I hugged him and said that I should get going. Packing everything up and leave. For good. I did not want this to end this way but there was nothing I could do. So I hugged him. The goodbye hug that came too suddenly, that surprised both of us.

“I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed this. This weekend. And many others before this. I don’t want this to end.” 

“Neither do I. We have a lot of fun together. There are many good things about us.” He began to back down on the imaginary break up.

In his imaginary world, I should be dating a marathoner, someone different than he. I knew because I began to get to know him. He was never really secure about this relationship. I think he suspected that I would move on one day anyway.

“But what if I don’t want anyone else?” I answered.

“I’m not going anywhere you know. I’m here. You do know that I care about you and I want you to be happy right?” He began to babble.

“I’m happy with you. Don’t leave me.” I began to plead.

“okay. I’m not leaving you.” He conceded.

I unpacked all those imaginary belongings I had scattered around his place.

He watched me cry. I cried like a baby. In this world, he was the only place that I felt safe and sound. He was the only one who I could trust. He was the person who was both my fan, my mentor, my father, my brother, my lover. 

He made the rest of the world seemed crazy, because when I was him, all I ever wanted to do was to enjoy the simplicity of it all. 

I had no one to count on. I had never been with a man who cared about my happiness. No one to kiss my forehead and tell me everything would be all right but him. 

In his arms I slept and slept night after night. I lost count on how many trips we’ve taken how many dates we’ve been on.

No one knew about us. Not his friends, not my friends. 

It’s self contained and untainted by the outside world.

I intended to keep it this way. 

“Promise me to stay with me.” I said.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He answered.

I knew what he did. He wanted to know that I would be affected by this decision. He tested me in his passive aggressive ways. He wanted to hear from me that I would not bail. 

No man had ever cared for me. They wanted what they wanted from me. They were ashamed of me, they hid me in the shadows. They disappeared from time to time. They were not forth front with me. They lied and cheated and they took from me. 

But he wanted me. It was really that simple. I chose him because he wanted me in his life.  And even then, we were always walking on tight rope. I was, anyway.

For now, we are okay. For now. 

Chase Ghost

Sorry internet for the delayed writing. It's not that I had forgotten to write, but I think more now and write less now.

A wise man said this to me once, "If you have nothing pleasant to say, say nothing at all."

I've been practicing that mantra. At work, in personal life, even when I'm alone. I try to think of a nice, pleasant way to describe things, a situation, an event, a person, and if that fails in my head, I think some more, and when all the thinkings are exhausted, and nothing good came out of that, I park it and move on.

It helps because I think anger is a wasted energy. Hatred too, for that matter. We all have to learn to move on from people, from situations and from our own past. But we all do that in different ways. Some men find women who are like their mothers, so that they could relive that trauma or abuse; some men find women who are totally different from their mothers, so that they could break free and be their own person. Some men had fond memories of their kind mothers, and they treat women nicely not for show or for pursuit but because that's how they feel towards women who reminded them of their mothers. At the end of the day, how you are and who you become as a man are tightly related to how your mother raised you as a child.

I hope to be a good mother to my son. Loving but not without discipline. I hope he's strong and confident and self sufficient. I hope he finds his mother loves him and gives him plenty of space to grow into a young man.

I have not succeeded in all of my endeavors. I failed pretty miserably in the adult love department. The only feeling that could describe how I feel is how humiliated it had made me feel. The man who I thought loved was not who he was, but beyond that, I am nothing to him either.

One moment he said that he loved me, the other he tried to erase me out of his life. He's ashamed of being seen with me, being with me, and he's ashamed of his desire for me.

I always thought that I could pick up the phone and talk to him, like that we were adults, but I couldn't because I realized that none of that made any sense. There was never any communications involved. I simply was not important enough. I had to believe that somewhere deep in his soul he loved me, or I had wasted my time all those years, but is it possible that I chose to believe it or I'd feel even like a bigger fool?

I think at some point, we are all just very exhausted. I'm exhausted from being so invisible and chasing a ghost. He's exhausted from all the anxiety I had given him. No one really needs this any more. I've been chasing a ghost. All is well in the end. Ghost vanishes. I'm left with nothing to chase. I'm returning to the normal. He's no longer in my life.

I purge images, emails and memories out of my head, body and soul, and in the end, I remember nothing at all. My undying love stay unclaimed and forgotten. He was not really there to begin with. His feelings, no matter how much I thought were genuine, were simply mood enhancers in the bedroom, declared by whispering into my ears just before he climaxed. Me feeling ridiculous at the end of all this was the only thing that was real.

Next time I run into him in those frequent streets and shared neighborhood, we are perfect strangers. 

Profound Sadness- Re baselined

Had not seen him for a while. He was waiting. He showed me his new running shoes. He pulled me in to kiss me gently. Then he pulled my panties off my stockings off and spanked me hard, leaving hand prints, He then entered me from behind.

Always the same sense of urgency, always the same way to fuck me. Always, the same. It's been nearly 4 years. It's been 4 years since we've been together.  The same romance. The same urgency, the same feelings, but deepened, like true love.

This feels like true love. A love story that has suffered it's fair share of headaches. A love story of a life time. I wished him to live a long time. He said, only if you live as long as well. What if he dies? What if I die prematurely? Can I go on? Can he go on? What if I would but I'd never be the same again? What if he would but he knew a part of him would be gone forever?

He held me after and told me how much he loved me. Thousands of my photos yet he still finds me beautiful. He has never felt this way before. He liked women, he likes women, but he loves me. He loves to kiss me, to fuck me, to talk to me, to go to dinner with me, to be close to me. When he fucked me there was a sense of urgency like he has not fucked for a while, or that he needed to be inside of me to feel real. There has been so much that had happened. I continue to struggle and he knows it too. He wants to know if I'd slept with others. I tell him no. He tells me that he's not been with other women. I don't believe him. I think he stopped telling me because he thinks that I would be hurt. He asked me if I would be hurt. I said, "yes." So he shielded me from that information. I told him that I knew he still beds other women. I knew because leopard does not change its skin. I know him well enough to know that he will always want to fuck others.

But he loves me and me only. If that's hard for others to understand, it's not that hard for me to understand. In truth, if and when I did fuck others, he was always at the top of my list. I'd drop anything for him.

"Why are you so good to me? You've always been so good to me." On this occasion, he asked that question. I said nothing this time.

"You know I love you. But I guess I have to show it." He adds. "Yes you do need to show me." I answered back.

In truth I know that I am now finally in the driver seat. I'm okay to let him leave me moving forward. I am okay with him no longer existing. I have seen the one outcome that I never thought I'd see, and that's the outcome that I don't exist in his life and he not in my mine, and I'm okay with it because in my looking glass, I saw not him with me in the end. I saw not him because my heart has been broken one too many times to accept the possibility that he could one day be mine.

In a way, when I don't look into my soul, and yes I do that when I finish yoga, I see a future, a happy one without him. But when I do look into my soul, I see profound sadness where he did not return to me as he was never mine.

I baselined myself. I have nothing but profound sadness.  And there, I sat. And waiting for sorrow, sadness and agony to pass over.