The knowing is what makes it different.

“It’s like swimming against the current really. ”

This is what I tell her as we lounge on the couch. Her foot near me, and I scratch her arch and she snuggles into her blanket, with her tea, and slight sense of whimsy and contentment.  We are waiting for the little One to come home, so we can all go to bed.

The little one comes home, we have tea, cocktails, and conversation , and then off. Brush teeth, primp, and then under the covers.

As I sit there I play games on my phone and then she come in all minty breath and nightly rituals. With one perfect movement her dress comes off over her head, a move of hers I have always loved, and she is beside me, eyes brightly shining in the lamp light, dark and happy, hair wet just so.

I love to touch her. On our days off you could probably see how much I touch her through out the day. Whether it’s a kiss, or a hug, or a noonday rendezvous. I love that she is near.  And tonight is no different. She is lovely and my hands roam across her body.

She yawn big and bright.  We lay next to one another, I’m reading or playing games, she’s reading an actual book, because she likes the way it feels. I love these moments as much as all the amazing sex we have. Just this quiet, her beautiful face wrapped in light from her book light, emersed in her next mystery, or YA, or period piece. Her body softly against mine.

It is the knowing right? The feeling in the heart that really concretes this life for me.

I know if I wanted something sexual she would be there in a heartbeat most days.

If I needed  a favor she would be the first to raise her hand for me.

If I was In trouble she would be in her car  driving towards me.

So the times we are not making love these ideas are my bridge to the next day.  She feels like she is not enough, and I feel like there is some sick joke going on where I won the prize but no one has noticed yet.

It is the knowing. Not assuming, or guessing. I know with every fiber.

Let me tell you this. I don’t make a lot of money at all. I don’t have degrees or anything like that. I am unspectacular in almost every way. I don’t own property. I don’t own much of anything.

I can talk. That’s what i can do. My brain goes a mile a minute so I can talk and I am witty and that’s about it.

Sad right? You would assume i have some type of punchline. I do not. That’s really it. I am not successful at all. I have traveled through life not being successful for most of my life and I am altogether not remarkable at all. At all. Like really, not at all. I have nothing to show for my life. That is not to say that I think I am lacking in some way. I’m just illustrating where my value lies.

And yet she loves me with a fierceness that boggles the mind. And I in turn try to do the same for her. But I am dutiful, and she is a kamikaze.  She would burn the whole world for me. But I try to let her know how much she means to me without burning the whole world down around me. Because we need to live here and be happy and do stuff. So this is how we exist.

A super genius married a daydreamer and together they are raising a cranky super genius daydreamer.

When I say she is a super genius I don’t think you get the sheer magnitude of what I’m saying. The way her brain works, the speed at which she makes connections is amazing to watch. Sherlock Holmes, not even joking. She is beyond quick witted. She takes any class as if it is an afterthought, she barely lifts a mental muscle really.  So when I say she is smart, I am literally unable to make you understand the magnitude.

She is funny as well. She makes me laugh all the time. The best times are when we are bouncing jokes off one another, making each other laugh. This is the best feeling.

Sometimes she thinks she just fills a role, and I look at her and tell her not to be stupid. She is a super genius, but sometimes she worries.

The happiness I feel just seeing her. I wish i could bottle up my feelings just to show her. It’s a lot. But all I can really do is tell her, although she will spend most of the time telling me I don’t feel this way.

You ever read the rabbit book? It’s like the adult version of the velveteen rabbit. So it’s slightly different:

Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a women loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

Being with her is like becoming real. We need that. It’s taken me a life time to find that and I’ll never give this up.

To know, actually know in your heart that this person would never cheat on you. To actually know that? That’s a powerful thing.  To know someone is not going to desert you if you falter? To know that someone is not going to leave you because you fail?

Do you know that? Because that’s been missing from my life for most of my life. That knowing. Not with my family, not anyone…but her.

It’s a powerful thing. It is good jute to stitch a wonderful life together.

Some people might use this as a tool, as a way to manipulate. Those are terrible people because it should be cherished. She should be cherished.

Sometimes she thinks she is worthless, and I will never think that. I will never think the negative debilitating thing you feel.

This is sanctuary. This is becoming. This is art, this is poetry. This is it all, this is it. This is where I have always belonged. And yeah life is sometimes like swimming against the current, and then all of a sudden it all clicks into place and you realize how much of a actual waste most of your life was; because they weren’t in it. And you get excited because you want to show them everything before, because you know they would love it, adore it, run excited with you to see and smell and handle all that good life. It doesn’t matter if you’ve done it a thousand times, you haven’t done it with them, so it doesn’t matter. None of it matters because she wasn’t there.

She wasn’t there and I want her there so bad it hurts. I hate thinking about a life without her but I keep it cool, reasonable. I say stuff like “Well I have you now.” But it kills me that it took this long, so I try to make each day good, and I try not to waste one more minute.

But we waste, do we not? We waste time arguing, we waste time nitpicking, we waste time. All the time.

So that is the saddest part of this. She is my partner, heart and soul and yet we have to get through all this…stuff…to get out the other side.

I use to fight her, man we fought. We fought dirty, cleverly viciously. We fought. I threatened screamed bitched. We did it all. And then it all started getting to me. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think straight. I was horribly depressed, gained weight, really started not caring about much. I just felt myself getting more and more numb.

I didn’t like that. I would look at my family and I didn’t like who I was becoming. I didn’t like what I was saying. I didn’t like the cruelty. The malice, the unending meanness.

This was the actions of 2 people who had been hurt most of their life and didn’t understand.

So I started trying to stop. I started trying to be the person she needed. In a sense. I am not perfect and I need my own headspace but now I always want to wake up in the morning knowing I did my best.

Let me tell you this. It is hard to tell when someone is calmly telling you they love you. Sometimes it was like fighting a mountain lion just to get a hug in. You want to know what it feels like to hug an angry women? It’s light fighting a boa constrictor and trying not to get hurt yourself and trying not to hurt them. It would take all day just to get her to calm down. Sometimes I couldn’t do it until I took a moment and recentered. Like I said. I’m not perfect. I am horribly imperfect, but I love her so much.

And it’s not like she didn’t have to do the same for me. All of the fighting, I couldn’t deal with it, wasn’t built for it. I’d just blow up and blow up and blow up and she’d be there, telling me that I could do better. And she was right, I could. 

So somedays she will be lost and I will bring her home, because I know when I am lost she’ll bring me home. And some days I can’t at all, but I don’t need to make it worse. And some days I make it worse, but they are a lot less frequent.

I try.  I wish I could do all of the things you need. I wish I could. But this is it, and sometimes it’s not going to be enough, but it is as much as I can do.

I love you.

So I’m trying is what I’m saying.

You are so beautiful to me. Heart and soul and you always will be. This is known. This will never change. I see you clearly and you are beautiful and amazing. 

“It’s like swimming against the current really. ”