Now, right now, I just wish to say something to you.
Somewhere, right now, on this day, it is Spring. You know what I mean. Now, I can move on to the topic bleeding from my fingers.
Outside of our ideas, there are craftily tailored versions of something we believe. Beyond those, there is a reality often swirling in the mist that exists between the truth of our heart and the voices in our mind. Lately, I’ve been jumping from the mind to the heart and back again, leaping over the divide that often exists between the two, into the mist, and beyond my own reason.
What is that reason? It’s love. Painful, awesome, beautifully torturous love or, to be more concise, beautifully awesome love mixed with painful, torturous absence.
I don’t have much, but I have this heart. I can’t lavish her with gold, but I have love unfettered in my soul that will blanket her always. I am not the most talented, or the best looking, or the funniest but I will anchor her in any storm, bear the brunt of the strongest wind, absorb the blows of this life with a smile on my face simply to have the chance to whisper in her ear, “I love you.”
She has never met anyone like me. Ever. Of course I’m sure she’s met certain versions of me along the path but I’m equally sure that she has not met anyone like me. No one has.
Today, I sit quietly wishing I was just hours away from going home to her to start a weekend of whatever-the-hell-we-wanted-it-to-be. Maybe she’d go out with friends, maybe I’d find a hill somewhere to climb. Whatever. There’d always be that moment where she’d crawl into that space with me, surrender in my arms, and…
The fantasy I have. The dream of a heart who knows its space, its pace, and its destination. The intention of a man who suddenly is willing to jump into the mist from a place that once seemed so secure just to hold the hand of a woman who is absolutely a part of his entirety. Such a man who jumps from safety into the unknown realizing he’s safer there with her than he was on his solid perch without her.
What does such a man do? He suffers, often in silent reverie for the woman he loves. He endures the pulsing pit in his gut in her absence just for that moment when she is near. He writes his words and speaks his truth in moments granted him. He loves her, purely and simply despite the complexity of his own emotions and his own fear. He withstands, he endures, always in the stoic promise of his heart which bears testament to the truth of who he’s become. He will never forsake her. He will never deny her. He will never stop loving her.
We can’t pretend there is no suffering involved in such an absence. Of course there is. Yet, those of us who want nothing more than to love her in our way see the value of this suffering. It is like the harmony to love’s great song, a dynamic where the melody makes the lyrics more magical. She is the harmony to the words that pour from my soul, and she is the reason for the magic. Her absence, that very thing that causes the Sun to set way before the day is over, also bears witness to the value of her presence. If you don’t believe me, hold your breath for weeks at a time and you will when you take that next breath again.
Because such a love is wonderful. It is the breath of fresh air after an extended dive. You realize so much about your life, and who you are, when you fall in such a love. You realize that the missing her is an honest truth made so by having found her. You rise to occasions you once thought untenable even as you scream to the ether, “please hurry, I need you here!” just like your chest screams for that breath of air when it needs it most.
Tomorrow, I will sit quietly again, talking with the throb in my gut and making friends with another day without her. Soon, I will have her hand in mine and she will know the return of her own breath, though I will try my best to steal it from her. That’s my way I guess…