Stress relief

Every once in a while we need stress relief.

It's not the act of sex mattered it's what it represented. It represented hope, passion, desire and escape.

When love fails, when you cannot give more than you could give, when you fear what you truly feel and when you know the inevitable is near, you try to escape, you try to go for that one person, one place, where love is not in the equation, and time tested passion lingered.

We should and ought to have that one person we all feel comfortable with, with clothes on or off, with faults and no faults, with history, and a possibility of non drama.

We should know who that is, and when to get together with that person. It could be weekly get together or it could be every few weeks. Time passing is not important, there is never gift exchanges or promises made, it is just all for fun.

I think we all have friends like that, friends, with benefits, but significantly more friends, than benefits, or benefit with friends but not with some level of trust or lack of expectations.

Not like he who loved me, he said that he missed me but did not want to see me, sometimes months passed and he did not call or email or want to see me.

Not like the boy who has grown so dependent on me, that not one day pass did he not call me or text me or want to hang out with me. He tells me everything and more. He said that he was not good at keeping friends and then I said, we are friends, what about us? he said, "but we are more than friends." I looked puzzled. I was unaware of my effect on the boy. I was not sure how to tell him that one day I should be bored of you, just like I had been bored of everyone before you.

I was not bored of B because I loved him. I love every decade or so. The rest I get bored but I won't leave them. I simply just started to prolong the gap between each visit. I did not care about anyone else. I only cared about B. I would do everything for B, but not others. So boy don't get too tangled up on me. Please don't.

I take care of the boy like he was my third child. But we have grown too close too fast. I had already lost my interest in him. I wanted someone, something else to substitute B with.

A cute friend asked me out on Friday. I was busy. So I said no, He said how about Saturday? We'd go and have dinner. Boy was curious but not sure how to handle that. So he wanted to know if I should change to lunch and invite him along. He wanted to be with me and a man. I asked the other friend whom I used to bed with, he said maybe, he would not be bored of this boy and he would be interested in having the boy to blow him.

"Have you told him about us?" He asked.

I had not. Not that specifically. I did not tell him that I had another younger lover once, who was very tall and very successful and we got along fabulously. He was married but he liked men as much as he liked woman. We were together for sometime until I got bored. I always got bored. The only person I could not get bored of was B. B was the real deal. The one who broke me.

Boy did not know that. Boy did not know much. Really. He was only a boy. He needed someone to take care of him. I was there to take care of him.

One day, one day he would fly away and he would leave me. I must leave the boy before he could leave me.

Someone always comes along. They all do. They all seem to appear and reappear.

Like C, D and E. When they were gone, they were gone for me. Except B.

There was only one B. 

In the End

In the end, what are we all looking for? Faith? Love? Someone to care about you? To care about someone?

To love and be loved?

In the end, we are always looking for that meaning of being loved and cared for by those who we love and care. It's that simple.

I love B. There has never been any doubt about it. I love being able to feel that level of intensity for as long as I rediscovered myself. But I know that my existence in his life is extremely limited. He's managed to put me inside a box and only takes me out when he wants to. He does not formulate any meaningful conversations with me. He treats me superficially and does not really want to be part of my life, not a real one anyway. I have convinced that the reason I allow it to happen is that # 1. I am in any rush to change my life, neither is he. # 2. I don't think he wants me full time in his life.

I know that he loves me back. But it's a limited capacity type of thing.

He approves my interaction with boy. Boy who has been very sick and I've been taking care of him. He's so sweet. Keep on thanking me.

I told him that I cared about him. He said, I care about you too. He says "You are so nice." I can't tell if he meant it to be a compliment or if he'd get bored.

I do care about him. Like he's my third child.

He's skinny bones. He won't eat when he's sick. I keep on thinking why is he so sick and when I see him suffering it hurts me.

I am concerned about him. I do think in the end we just want to be cared about and loved by those who care about and love us.

And another year is going by.

I want to ask B - "For Christmas all I want is for you to spend a day with me. Just a day. A day date. A proper day date."

Sickness

"Am I E?" Boy asked.
"No you are not." E was taken. I knew that.
I had everyone indexed. Everyone but Boy.

Boy was sick as a dog.
He was articulate still but drifted in and out of things.

I read my stories of him to him.
"Do you wonder how I feel about you?" He then asked.

"Yes." I said.
"You are the first person I met since I moved here, that reminded me of home. And since I met you, I started to think about a future."

"What do you mean about home? Am I the bridge between your past and your future?" I asked.

"No. It's because at home I have people I did things with that I enjoyed. I enjoyed nearly everything we did together." He elaborated.

"You don't like this, do you? You don't like pragmatic ways of describing things. You want romance. You want me to gently touch your face, your neck. you want romance. You want me to kiss your cheeks. I can give you that too." Boy was sick but not dumb. He's observant.

I read stories that I wrote about my love, B. I used to call him B. Boy knew his name. B's first name was Boy's middle name. Boy showed me his mother's photo. She looked quite a lot like the photo I saw at B's place. B's mother. They were both German. As I quickly learned.

I read "It has always been there" to Boy. Boy said, "This is so beautiful. I had not expected that." He critiqued a little bit but then he said, "You paint the world with your words. Your writing is so vivid."

I also wrote to record the stories that occurred between people and me. To keep my memory intact, I started to write down everything, just like B said that I ought to do. When I terminated my therapy sessions, I wrote even more, sometimes in multiple blogs to keep things separate and real.

Boy thought perhaps I was using him to get to B. I wanted to tell him that those days of "using" was long over. I had no interest in playing that game. I was sure of my feelings. I loved B and B only. I like being with Boy. He was an unique case. He did not bat for my team. Boy liked boys.

I liked Boy because he would never love me, like B did.

But Boy also had other encouraging characteristics.

Boy thought that I was special. I was the only person he felt that true connection with and the closest person he had on this side of the coast. He told his brother about me. His brother who apparently looked like Leonardo Dicaprio. "One day in a diner, someone approached him with a pad of paper and pen" In bed boy was wondering about his illness. What he had why he had not gotten better. He was not amused by my man flu video. He thought that I was making fun of him and he was upset. He snapped at me then by saying hurtful things but then tried to apologize. I ignored him until he panicked and texted me over and over again.

Boy did not make any plans to see me. He wanted to get better than we could do fun things. I did not make plan to see him because I didn't have time.

Boy grabbed my phone to record everything we'd done together since we first met.

List looked like this.

Blu drink

Hike

Naked Fish

Drink Oakland - District

Reported miles

Vista

Leopolds

Soup at the park

Kitchen fire

Stayed over

Haircut

Monkey king

Armory - beef jerky/wine

Sushi at purple roof

Stayed over wine & cheese

Berkeley Bowl

Pt. Reys Station

Driving BMW

Made fancy kale salad dinner

Falafel

Billy Collins

2nd dinner - Korean on telegraph

V stayed in 453

Uber to drop off

Return from bliZcon

Tuesday milk

Halu Wednesday

Saturday autumn Salon at johns

Green gulch zen center and miur beach

Uh oh .. Koreana plaza. Sickness!!

Visit. Tried poki and kombucha Russian, beard papa cream puffs, salad

"What is this?" I asked.

"Not writing. But recording. Key words so that I could remember every event." 

Boy made me dinner but set the kitchen on fire. 

We had cheapest vending machine food at the Armory one night, eating fifty cents jerky and having neighboring watchers to pass along their wine. 

Twenty four times of unique times we spent together. All platonic, all events driven, all had meanings and purpose, all kosher.

What now? recorded events so that we could eventually tally everything up to justify this fast growing friendship. 

His room was a huge mess but it took me about 2 minutes to clean it up. Dirty clothes in the hamper and shoes back in the clothset. I hang his rope and belt. I took out his cell phone from his jacket and put it on the charger. It had long been dead. Then I made a make shift garbage can in the form of shopping bag from the fancy food store in the mall. 

Boy got up and was feeling shocked. "How long have you been cleaning?" He asked.

"About two minutes." It was about that.. It did not even take that long.

But boy was sick and time flew by when you pass out.

Boy reached his arm out to call for me. He wanted to lie next to me. Have me to read more stories. So I did. It put him to sleep.

My stories. my blog, send someone to sleep. How long would he be asleep before he woke up again? 

Just before he fell asleep, he said, "I was going to not take Advil, until you got here, so you could see how sick I really was." He seemed to surround his action around me to either impress or prove a point.

I wanted boy to get better so that he could do things for me or with me.

We had something unusual forming. A different kind of relationship at last.

One that did not have a physical component but seemed brought the two of us closer.

Before I left for the evening, boy reached his arms out like a baby. He wanted me to hug him. So I did. Then he said, "What can I bring you next time?"

I sort of wanted to say to him, "I am not sure about next time. But we will see."

About a Boy

He said, “Good night. Call me in the morning.” I said “Okay. Good night.” He won’t be going to sleep. Not yet. Or perhaps he’d fall asleep and then wake up in the middle of the night. I said “I’m coming to see you, tomorrow.” He said, “That would be nice.” Then immediately he regretted it, “No, you can’t come. The place is a mess. You can’t come.”

"I’m not there to inspect your place. I’m going to visit you because you are my friend. You are sick. I’ll bring food from Bristol Farm."

"Okay." He accepted my request.

"I’m waving goodbye." He said. I imagined he was indeed waving goodbye, raising his weak, pale arms.

I hung up the phone.

In a short but seemingly lengthy period, a friendship of a sort took roots. It would be impossible, or at the very least, unlikely. Hurdles after hurdles. First I was ill, then he was away, and then he was back and we fought and then we tried to reconcile our differences, and then just when things were turning around, he fell ill. We made plans. Each week a plan formed. He had become an accessory of a sort. He went wherever I went. A purse size puppy, they’d call him. He was young, energetic, cultured, flexible, impressionable, pleasing and incredibly pretty. Women threw themselves at him whenever we showed up; and men, inappropriate age men, men older than his father, were intrigued by him. He was the perfect decoration that wowed and wooed audience. He was an actor, a boy hoping one day to be a man. He was bisexual, and he put on a good show wherever he went.

I became the talk of the town, for having discovered him. I was congratulated and praised, for having found him.

But in truth he found me. I was simply there, and he approached me. He was young and innocent, and he was open and persistent. I was less than interested, but I was sad and lonely. I was missing a young student who used to stay with me, he filled the void. A young man who adored life, worshiped me and responded to me as if I was his master.

Soon a quasi but completely platonic relationship was formed. It was not romantic, yet we fell asleep together like a couple sometimes, with clothes on, when we were tired of talking. When we were out together, we put on a show for people, at first people were curious then they just accepted us. They would say, “you guys look so adorable together.” We had style and energy, we were the topic of the discussion after the events ended. People pondered about our relationship.

"Were they involved? Is he straight or gay or bi? What was his story? Her story?"

I was asked where he was if I showed up alone. Soon people started to refer us by our first names as if we were one.

He wore those big plastic glasses that made him look a middle schooler. When he smiled the room lit up. He told me stories that he would not dare to share with others. He was funny, charming and seductive among men and women, but privately he wanted to curl up next to me, with his arms around me, and he would look at me as if I had failed him, somehow. I began to wonder what he had thought of this, this odd relationship, or whatever you’d call it.

"What you said, what you did, broke my heart that Sunday." He began to tell me. One night, after a late outing, he told me what I began to fear.

Was there genuine emotions involved all along? Did I somehow miss it? Had I ruined something? Did I make a mistake? If I were to apologize, where do I start?

I laid on his bed, legs crossed and head behind my head. I asked what happened.

He explained. Scene by scene. Blow by blow.

I began to cry. I had no memory of it. He began to cry.

I did not know what happened. That evening we talked. But it was not about romance or love or even like, it was about what he said and I said. It was about something that was of greater impact. It was about a friendship that formed in the most unlikely circumstance.

It was about two people, getting to know one another, each fulfilling the needs of the other. It was about life. About a boy wanting to be a man. A woman wanting to feel like a woman.

The reluctant sleeper

You sleep. You wake up. You fall back to sleep. You wake up again.

Time is running out. Hope is running low. Conversation, never starts nor finishes. 

Want to cry. So cry. Cry lots of tears, droplets of them. Onto the pillow, the soft unimaginative pillow. No earth-shattering thoughts or exchanges of hurtful words. Cry because that's what's left of it. The life not led. The promise not realized.

Declaration of love exchanged. Loud and clear. Really. Really. Really. Loud. It's real love. Heart breaking love. Simple. Untainted. Time tested. Love. If you have not experienced it. I urge you to make a go at it. At least once. At east once in a lifetime you should feel it in your heart. You should learn how it is formed.

Love: An idea formed not when you two are together but apart. The longing. Desperate longing of wanting, and needing to be together. The passage of time. The sitting across the table and when you look up it's the world's best looking person staring at you back. Smiling, and looking at you just so. You know you are loved. You can't stop saying things because silence will make you cry. You want to cry because you don't know what else to do in this world to will a different future. A future where only you and he would exist. A world where you don't have to wonder when you'd see each other again. A world where you belong with each other and you know that he knows that you only want to be with him and no other. Does he know how much you love him? Does he care? Does he know how much you want to just sit there and cry until all tears are dried out and that you can no longer feel? Does he know how much it hurts to love him? Does he really want to know?

"Do you want me to leave my family?" You finally ask.

"I don't want you to leave your children." He says.

"I know. I can't leave them. They are mine" You answer.

"Do you want me to leave my husband?" You try again.

"I don't want you to think that you'd made a mistake." He answers.

"Why? Why being with you a mistake?" You ask again.

He won't answer. So you weep. Silently, quietly, collection of puddle of water, tears. 

He enters you. "I love you so much." He says.

"I love you too." You are exchanging words of love again.

"You really do love me." He confirms his suspicion.

You wipe the tears trailing on your cheeks before his lips touch your face. 

"I do. I love you. Only you." You reply.

Sleep is overrated in circumstance like that. But when he's finished, you are left with nothing. You lay there like a reluctant sleeper. You watch the darkness unfolds and gradually the crack of dawn announces the arrival of the pending departureYou must leave soon. The room is quiet. This is the room where you have spent many nights over, over the years. You continue to daydream a little. You also remember last night's dream.

Say. "I dreamed that you were married." 

Answer. "But you know that I'm not married."

Reply. "I so wish that you were married. Like me."

He who suffers vicissitudes delivers the last and final line: "You are indeed married. That's not a dream. That's my life. I live that life, every day."

You cry. Voice cracked.  sleep no more. 

"Let's sleep a little more." He tucks you in and drifts back to sleep. It's going to be a long day. He leaves town again. You reluctantly follows. But you can't fall asleep.

"How long is your longest relationship?" You ask.

"With you. I met you ten years ago. At a canoe trip." He is drifting back to sleep.

"It does not count. Plus it's not ten years. It's fifteen. And it's not canoe, it's white water rafting." You correct him as you stare at the ceiling while the tears are now free flowing.

Dead silence eats up the warm bedroom. He's not answering. He has drifted back to sleep. Safe and sound.

You remember what's like to fall in love.

You remember because you fall in love every day with this man. You have always loved him. You have loved him since you were a child. Now you are a woman. You are his. But not quite. You don't know how to travel from point A to point B. But you are convinced that he's waiting for you at Point B. An alternate future where love is not just some words exchanged with bodily fluid. It's the essence of being. It's your home, and his too.

The journey to home is proven to be arduous one. All you know is the pain, the stabbing pain, accompanied or unaccompanied, by your declaration of love for each other.

Dinner

B took me out for dinner. It was just another warm San Francisco night. I think B knows me more than he let on. That's what's so strange about this. I cannot get over how good looking he is to me. I don't think my girlfriends felt that way. They all thought that I was crazy. But enough time has passed and I realized that the most important thing to me is what my heart feels. My heart feels the same. I love him and always will.

In the evening while I was sitting in the restaurant I was having a good conversation with him. I was doing all the talking. He was doing all the listening, with occasional interjection.

I told him about Errand Boy, about my girlfriends rallying to take care of me while I was in surgery and out of surgery. I said all that I wanted to say, he sat across the table and just smiled. He told me what he was up to. He was working a lot and he was doing things with his son.

When we got back he wanted me to get comfortable. I didn't realize that he wanted me to spend the night because he did not make it so obvious.

I told him that I loved him and I wanted to know where we were headed. He did not have an answer, he said, we will see. I took that answer as he did not know either. I woke up with a dream that he was married. So I told him so. He said, "That's not a dream for me. That's my life." I am married. He had to reconcile that every day. I love him. I cannot imagine my life without him. I cannot imagine not being with him. I asked him if he wanted me to leave my husband to be with him. He said, "I don't want you regret. I don't want you to think that's a mistake." I don't know what he means by that, I guess he is worried that he would be coming short of my expectations and if I did leave my husband for him, I may feel that this is a mistake and that he cannot meet my expectations? He said that he thinks about waking up with me every morning and conceptually what that is like.

I asked him what his longest relationship is like and he said that it is with me. I can't imagine that he's never had a lengthy relationship. I simply can't picture that. It's so easy to be with him.

I can't imagine not having him in my life. He's often in and out of my life, and sometimes I do not hear from him for days on end, but I still love him no matter what. I keep on wanting some concrete future but perhaps there is none. I keep on thinking there is another explanation as to what and how I feel, but there is none.

He thinks that I should have some fun with that little boy. I think he's crazy. I don't want him to be with another woman. He said that he isn't with anyone but me. But how could that be? He's never been monogamous before. I can't imagine that. I ask him why he'd let me explore, he said b"because you need to come, and because I know you love me."

So I go on and think that this is how my life will be. I play the role of wife and mother. I am a mentor to EB, and I love B. I can't and will not be able to change my heart. He's the only person who matters to me. Without him, my heart will die; without him, my world is of permanent gray, without him, I shall no longer be me.

I no longer refer him as my boyfriend. To me, he's an extension of my being. He's my other half. I am complete with him in it. I will wither without him.