Evening

In the quiet of the afternoon, when I am alone with just the dogs in my little house, I exhale. Evenings are now my favourite part of day to be alone, in solitude with my own thoughts and fancies. While the world outside rushes home from work, or to dinners and their families.

When she is not with me, evenings like this stretch silent and long. Gentle and calm.

I now entertain thoughts of her and me, spending a life together, by each other's sides. I think somehow she is someone I can grow old with, after we have done what we need to, shored up enough money just to be with each other and worry little about anything else.

She is a blessing in my life. I hope hers sorts itself out soon, or she makes the decisions that she can live with and be happy with to some extent.

She deserves it, God. She is such an amazing person, so giving and generous, loyal and honest. She deserves something good.

I believe I am born under a lucky star. Fate has been kind to me. Even trouble has opened doors to more beautiful things.

I am now slowly becoming more comfortable with myself and my own company in this home. I love this space. I have reclaimed it from my past with Anim and made it mine. Erased her from it and the nuances of what it meant. It is no longer shared. It is mine.

Wondering

At times like this, I do catch myself wondering whether it would be simper to walk away from her. Because of the uncertainties in her life. Because of her not knowing what it is she wants to do or where she is headed.

But these are fleeting thoughts. They are not things that keep me up at night.

I know she has it within her to make something of her self, as she has already. Fate just has not seen it fit for her to do so yet.

But it will come. I know it.

And in the meantime, I will be here.

By Your Side

You asked me last night what my life would be like without you in it. I told you it would be like a red balloon untethered. Bobbing in the wind, directionless, at a whim. With you, I am grounded by a thread of love.

I know you worry about your future and having me in it. How it will affect me, being around you and your uncertain life. I know you worry that I will leave you. Or that perhaps you will ruin my life or make it more difficult or uncertain because of where you are now in yours.

I don't know how to tell you that I am in this with you with eyes wide open. I understand what you are going through. I have every confidence you will make the right decisions when the time comes.

You are now at a crossroad that could change your life. I know that. And the fact that I cannot reach you there, to even hold your hand and make you feel better is something that makes me a little sad. Yet I know this is something you must do alone.

If you want, I will stay away from you, so you have time and space to think about where you want to head next. Perhaps it may not include me.

I fully realise the risk of that happening. While it makes me sad, I will understand.

You often tell me that I could be with someone better. But what is that, Tigger? Someone who is more certain of their life path, more sure of their future, with more money in their bank accounts?

I understand why you would think that I can perhaps be better off with someone like that.

But I think you also need to finally recognise it is not what I look for in a person to love and make my life partner.

You give me the things money cannot buy. The tenderness, the care, the concern, the consideration, the thought, the loving, the kisses in the morning and the waking up at night because I am coughing too much in my sleep. No amount of riches in the world can make up for all that.

No amount.

Know that I am here by your side. I always will be for as long as you will have me.

That I love you is something I am fully certain of. That it may not be easy, because of the life path you have chosen, is something that I know too, but it doesn't keep me awake at night. Because money is only something you need to get by in life, not the be all and end all of it. If there's less of it you make do. Life doesn't stop.

I know you are tired. Tired of fighting the battle that seems uphill all the time. Tired of having to rely on others. Tired. I know.

I wish there was something I could do to make you feel better. I wish there was, Tigger. But all I can offer you is a shoulder to cry on, and the promise that I will always be here to love you, no matter what you decide and where your life takes you.

I Love All Of You

In the long future of days that I imagine stretch before us, the years if we are lucky, I imagine you and me side by side, living dreams that we both share. Passing time in both quiet and the noisy company of loved ones, you by my side, skin touching, hands reaching, lips always yearning for the feel of the other on hers.

I imagine us spending time wrapped around each other, talking and laughing, even arguing in love.

I imagine a time when there is no longer fear in our hearts that the other one will leave us. A time when we are both free of the fears that our pasts have created deep in both our hearts.

You are the one I have been waiting for, Tigger. I know it in my bones. With you there are no holes that need filling, no compromises that need to be made in the ways that I want to be loved. You are all of it. The tenderness, the rapture, the consideration, the intelligence, the honesty, the integrity, the respect, the humour, the strength, the love.

I am so in love with all of you, even the bits you think I am not.

I will be there for you, baby, for as long as you want me there by your side. Because to me, your love is all I need from you. Not your life, not your bank account or material possessions or status or anything else you may think someone requires to love you.

I love you for who you are inside and out now, this very day. For everything you are and you are not. For everything you want to be and have been.

Desire

Dearest Tigger

I have been struck by how deeply my thought of leaving you, as fleeting as it was, has affected you so much.

I cannot recall when last someone feared the loss of me. It was always me who feared the departure of someone I love.

I guess in that sense you and I are the same. We have always been the ones who loved and been left behind.

I hope this is a sign that we will last for a long, long time if not forever.

I love you in the quietest way, with a slow, simmering desire that peaks whenever I am with you. Even when we are apart I miss you in the most tender manner.

I love you. I miss your touch, your kisses, your hands on me and around me, your lips on my skin, your smile, your voice. Even listening to you speak turns me on and stokes desire.

I am so into you it is not funny.

You turn me on so intensely I just want to kiss you like a teenager.

I am so madly in love. Like I haven't been in so long.

I thought I loved her, and I think I did, but I always felt curbed. Like she didn't want me enough.

But you. You constantly reach out for me, yearn to be near me, need to touch me or kiss me every so often. I love that about you. I hope you will always desire me the way you do now. It is one of the things I love most about you.

I Love You

So many people have remarked how happy I am now. And indeed I feel almost delirious at times.

This morning and every morning that I have woken either by your gentle kisses or the sight of your beautiful sleeping face, I am overwhelmed. There is a peaceful calm that sits in my heart now, at the center of me.

I see how you try to weave me into your life. How your thoughts always include me, even when I don't think they do. Or do in a way that I do not prefer. But they do.

I know how effortless it has been to let you in. Despite my terror, there is something about you I want to believe in.

You always tell me you are here, by my side. And I know you are, in every way that is important.

That I love you is beyond doubt. And I know you realise it truly.

There is so little doubt with you. You tell me things I don't even ask for.

I love you, plain and simple. With a gentleness I knew before but with a lot less doubt. It's like stretching in bed on a Saturday morning with nothing to do except love you to my heart's content.

Thank you for today, thank you for this morning. It's my favourite way to wake up. Next to you, long and langourous, with little to do except think about what we have to eat.

I love the way you kiss me incessantly, can't keep your fingers off me, want me and reach for me all the time.

I love that you love me back, without fear now, with all your heart.

I love you.

Tiny Fear

There is still a very small, tiny part of me that holds the fear you will change like her and become someone I do not know after so much loving.

I know, with my head that it is not a possibility, or at least something I refuse to believe.

My faith tells me that once is enough, that I have learned my lesson.

Yet, sometimes, especially when she rears her ugly head back into my memory, I have a small fear you will leave me the same way.

I love you, with a calmness of heart and mind that is so peaceful.

I love you with my heart and mind and eyes and soul.

I see into you, as you do into me.

I love you even when we are angry or frustrated with one another.

There is no drama in our togetherness.

Just a natural, flowing energy that hums quietly most moments in the background.

You are the first person I have ever wanted to gaze at while sleeping.

You are beautiful, when quiet and when you are not looking or aware of my gaze.

I love you. Quietly, calmly, peacefully.

You listen and you try to accommodate me. You do. I see it in you.

And you make me want to try harder too. For you. For me. For us.