A While

I don't know why it always comes to this. After the initial yearning, you, just like the others, wane. And the small things I cherish and treasure disappear. The opening of doors, the stroking of my arm and holding me close when I am crying or feel small or vulnerable. The constant desire I can see in the shadow of your glance or feel at the edge of your fingertips.

Even lovemaking doesn't feel like that anymore. In fact, ever since you said 'I love you' it has gradually slid into being termed as sex.

How do I tell you that while on the one hand our ability to navigate day to day living seems to increase, our intimacy seems to have taken a backseat? That I miss that part of you is clear and undeniable. I guess I cannot understand how you don't miss that about us.

If our love started from something to passionate and so full of yearning, how can you not miss it like I do?

I love you and I know you love me too.

But I feel disconnected. Like we have become an old couple who no longer consider desire as part of the most important elements of their relationship.

I thought you were different I thought you were someone with whom I could spend my days, arms entwined, even if we were just sitting on a swing. Someone who would surprise me with a kiss on the nape of my neck when I least expect it, who would hold my face in her two hands and gaze into my eyes as if they contained the secrets of the universe.

It was like that for a while. But oh, how long it has been since I felt as if you adored me.

Now, every time we argue you have little patience. Your reaction to my unhappiness is anger first and foremost. Never anything else. Even the other day when I talked to you about logistics for post-boat training, you were curt. And all today when I asked you to kiss me, or invited you to make love, you laughed.

Can't you see I don't know anymore how to bring back what we had only a few weeks ago? Every trick in the book, every dress, every feminine wile, nothing seems to have an effect on you anymore.

I feel so unattractive with you. As if I am the one in love with someone who only tolerates me.

Oh this is not good. This feeling of one-sidedness, this lack of adoration.

What happened to how you used to adore me?

This is all I am. There is nothing more. Just like I know this is all you are. And I don't expect anything more. Just more of what I first saw. Is that a crime?

I love you and I love the ways you love me. Except lately I don't feel so loved because you seem to have lost tenderness, the ability to deal with me when I am in pain with some degree of protection and care. You used to hold me when I cried. Two days ago, you just said "dah lah tu". As if I was a child who had been going on too long.

Perhaps that is what it is. You are fed up with me and my crying. You no longer feel the desire to be the shoulder for me to cry on.

Perhaps that is what it is.

You are tired finally, of being in love with me.

I love you

Do you know how much fear I still carry in my heart?

I know you love me. I don't doubt it, yet on some days when I am frayed and the old demons rise from their shallow graves, I cannot help but feel terrified at the thought of you leaving me.

It's funny, you're always the one who thinks I will leave you, because they always do.

I won't Tigger. Because I know what you are to me, and how someone like you is hard to come by in a lifetime.

I know you and see you and wish I could make you feel how much I love you.

Please don't let me scare you away. I know I am intense, and sometimes I may seem.... actually many times I don't know what I may seem like to you.

I so love you.

I love you.

I don't know how to show you how much I love you. How I cherish and adore you. How I treasure having you in my life.

Vulnerable

Did my loving make you feel bad in the end? I remember how you cried the last few nights we were together. Said that you do love me but there was a part of you that wanted to be with someone else.

I think you must believe I was out to destroy you in the end. But then again, there is a part of me that doesn't want to think of you because it does believe you were not truthful to me.

To this day and forever perhaps, I will have to live with the fact that I will never know what was true.

I cannot understand how you can lie to someone you love so much. Not just white lies, but lie in ways that would hurt them deeply and betray their trust, disrespect the love that is shared.

Why am I still thinking about you even now?

Why is it you still hurt me on days when I am feeling vulnerable?

Perhaps because Tigger doesn't know yet how to soothe me. She is always trying to fix things and uncomfortable with feeling helpless. She doesn't yet understand that sometimes I cry, in fact often, when I cry, it has little to do with her and everything to do with the scars that I still bear in my heart from the devastating past.

I am so mixed up these days.

Listening To Sarah Maclachlan

I realise her songs today were making me sad and nostalgic. They made me remember days with Creature that now seem so far away.

I wonder still how things turned. I was so in love. I thought she was too.

And sometimes, when I am with Tigger, I fear that she too may someday turn suddenly, away from me, and leave me once again uncomprehending.

Maybe this is my lesson. To learn how love can fade and then one day completely leave you.

I keep remembering how Creature in the last days would come over and she was torn, or so I thought. Torn between loving me, with what remnants of that there was, and being with this new, shiny, exciting woman who made her feel like a hero. I wonder then what I made her feel like.

I must have made her feel bad.

Frayed

Strange day.

I completely forgot someone's birthday dinner last Saturday.

Hellboy was a charmer all that afternoon, and thank God Tigger was by my side.

Lately I have been feeling rather frayed at the edges and I can't explain why. My life is so good right now. Someone who loves me, someone to love, a job that pays me relatively well, a beautiful house, a dream resort that is in the making.

What else could a girl ask for?

And this sadness is not for wanting of something I cannot have.

I feel so overwhelmed some days at the thought of having to do everything on my own. Tigger I think is unsure why I feel that way, and my reluctance at turning to her for help I think makes her feel inadequate or useless or as if her presence doesn't make a difference in my life.

I have to stop making her feel not good enough.

Because she is good enough. And good to me.

I just spoke to her over the phone. I miss her when she is not with me. She sounds so sexy over the phone line. She is amused that I yearn for her so much.

I think she still doesn't understand how her presence in my life alone is enough from her. Like a buoy I cling to, to keep emotionally afloat. Obviously, she is a separate entity from me. She knows how to love without being immersed in another being.

I should learn how to do that.

Today as I cried and I clung to her, I thought of Creature and somehow it made me cry more. I was suddenly sad. Sad at the loss of it and us, how life has changed so completely for both of us. I wonder sometimes, a little more these days, whether she thinks of us and what we used to be. What we had and shared.

It's funny. I don't want it back. I am pretty sure about that. Yet, I am sad. Why would you feel sad for something you no longer want, especially when you now have something that is far better?

With Tigger I don't feel like I am settling. She loves me and I love her as she is. I don't wish she is someone different. Or her circumstances were different. Or her personality was different. I just love her the way she is, even the bits that sometimes annoy me.

I hope she loves me the same.

Conflicted

I think this is the first time we have physically met again after a separation and not kissed.

I am sitting at the dining table with you a couple feet away from me. There are no gestures of apology from you. Perhaps I shouldn't expect any.

Perhaps I should apologise.

I don't know.

I certainly don't feel like I want to. A part of me feels perhaps we should talk but I don't want to be the one to begin this time. I don't even know what to say anymore. It's as if I am content with the knowledge that you love me, but at the same time I do not want to explore this particular occasion more than I need to.

I want you here and I don't.

I am conflicted.

DIsappointments

I am in two minds.

I don't know, at moments like this, what I want. To be near you or not at all.

I keep thinking of her. How she sometimes out of the blue used to tell me how pretty I am. Or that she loved me, without me having to ask. And those moments, I can still recall so clearly, the look in her eyes, how they lit up with love.

I cannot think of when you've looked at me that way. Or perhaps I am not fair. You have, except it's always when we are out or you are drinking. Never when we are alone or together at home or falling asleep in bed, dreaming our dreams and laughing at our own silly jokes.

You and I have good times. I think there is room for us to grow together.

But at the same time, there doesn't seem to be any room for me or you to be dissatisfied. I don't think it's about changing the other person, but perhaps more about coming to the middle. The center of what you and I are.

I don't understand you sometimes. You say these things, make these assumptions and plans. Yet, at the same time, when it suits you, you pull away and play the convenient card - we don't live together, we've only been together for nine weeks, I told you what to expect from me, etc, etc etc.

I never know with you, how seriously you take us. How much latitude I have for expecting things from you. I know that the option of living together is something I at least am not comfortable with for now. I need you to sort your self out.

I need us to be clear we actually want to be together for the long haul, and I am not yet clear about that.

I woke up this morning and found myself still angry and upset with you. I can't put my finger on it although I am trying. But many times last night I felt I only ended up confusing you even more.

Should I just take a breather from you? At this very moment, I am liking you not being underfoot for me to contend with because I don't think I can be nice.

I think I need to go shopping.

I am sitting here virtually talking to myself because I cannot make sense of my own feelings. Here you are, loving, yet I feel sometimes, at times like this, that there are barriers. That my disappointment disappoints you.

I wish sometimes you would step out of your self and see that not everything is about how awful you are, and how fucked up you are, what a mess you are and whatever else negative you can think of to label your self.

PMS

I know I am getting my period which is why I am probably so fucking moody.

I am extra sensitive, extra insecure, extra everything. Grouchy, grumpy, touchy, impatient, terse.

Why can't you understand that I just need some babying and cuddling, in the same way that you have over the last few weeks?

I just wanted to be a girl for one night who could feel like she was the prettiest thing in the universe. And no, you don't make me feel that way. You barely tell me how pretty I am. I don't feel very pretty around you. I only feel pretty these days because I am skinnier and I think I like who I see in the mirror.

But you don't make me feel pretty. You make me feel loved, yes. But you are also the person who says that you don't love women for their looks alone. And that often the women you go out with are not conventionally pretty. So I assume you include me in that category.

But I know that on some days and last night I was pretty, even by conventional standards. I was hot, and I had hoped you would notice.

I guess you did notice, but it still wasn't enough to make you come home with me.

Sometimes I really wonder why I bother trying.

Maybe I shouldn't.

Maybe I should but do it for myself only. And not look forward to you saying anything or noticing anything about me.

That way I won't be disappointed.

Is it so wrong for a girl to want to hear from the one she loves every day how she is loved and adored and how beautiful she is? If the one I love doesn't tell me, who should?

Kissing you goodnight

Tonight will be the first in a while since I have gone to bed without kissing you, whether in spirit or in person.

I guess what irks me sometimes is that you don't tell me what your plans are. I have said many times before how important it is for me to know what is happening, so I can manage my heart. But you instead choose to ignore it time and again.

You leave things unsaid, so that I am left to surmise and then finally ask you for confirmation of things I already know with a sinking heart.

You avoid.

You don't discuss them with me, but instead just make up your own mind.

I am pissed off with you again.

I hate that you do this to me.

I think I should stop allowing you to do this to me.

Stop allowing you to assume I will follow you to the ends of the earth without question, without consideration for what I may want or need to do.

I try to accommodate you with the undecided, unspoken words.

I wish you would decide once and for all whether I am really a part of your life or whether you want to be a part of mine. Because this winging it just doesn't cut it for me anymore. I am fed up and I give up.

I will not do this for anyone anymore. And if you do not play ball, then out you go. On to the next one. Or not.

All I know is that I will not be part of anyone's life who doesn't hold me as important as their own needs.

I hold you above my own. I bend to your desires. I wish that sometimes you would bend to mine.

But all I see is you deciding for yourself where you want to be, what you want to do, where you want to go, and telling me as an afterthought, expecting me to understand and acquiesce. As if every time you spend with me is a favour I should be grateful for.

Well I am grateful, but I am also not unaware that I allow you in my life.

I think I should pull back now. Not allow you so much freedom. Unless you play ball with me, unless you actually consider me carefully in everything that you do, don't be part of my life.

I don't need someone to just fit me in when their schedule or life or desires suit them. I need someone who will be with me in my life too.

And obviously, you are an unwilling participant.

Sacrifices

I got dressed delectably, in an attempt to entice you to spend the night with me. Although I don't know why I should bother. Shouldn't being with me be important enough?

I understand you haven't been home in weeks, but that was your decision that had little to do with me. I was just a convenient space for you to seek shelter while K's mom was in town. You made that decision to vacate your bedroom all on your own. Not me. It had nothing to do with me. You can argue that I was part of the reason, but hey, I wasn't, when it all boils down.

Tonight, you opted to stay at home, because you haven't slept in your own bed for weeks. You couldn't wait one more night, even after I had bothered to look nice for you and we had an awesome evening together.

I don't know what bothers me more. That I have to negotiate to be a part of your life, or that I bother to do so.

I shouldn't.

You expect me to travel with you when you work, as if I don't have a life of my own, a life you do not support nor are a part of other than negotiating what we should eat for our next meal when we are together.

A relationship is about more than that, and if you do not realise it, then perhaps it is time you took stock.

I manouevre my life around you. My dogs, my house, my career. You who do not have a career, and whose biggest daily worry is how to spend time with your baby niece try to lay that on me at this late hour when I have work to do. I cannot stand for that and I will not.

I will not speak to you for a while. I cannot. Not until you realise the folly of your ways.

I think tomorrow night I will go out. Have some fun on my own, without you. The truth is I have noticed some things about you.

You have not been attentive towards me in a while now. Not in the ways you were when we first met. The only times I see that side of you emerge are when we are out and you are drinking. As if being in public necessitates you telling the world you own me.

Well you don't.

Even if I love you, I know what I love about you. And the changes, the erosion I have seen of late, are not the things that endear you to me.

You expect me to understand that the sacrifices you make in your own head are ones that include me. Well they do not in my eyes, so don't make me feel like they should.

I have been trying to put my finger on what has been bothering me about you of late. That you pay me more attention when we are out and about is one thing. That you are less than engaged when we are together alone is another.

I know your life is complicated at the moment, but whose isn't?

Adrift

I am trying now to figure out how to tell you what has been bugging me without sounding weird or childish or too nitpicky.

You have a temper, a short fuse that I recognise. And frankly, I am too tired to deal with it.

But now that's out of the way, I am going to give this a shot.

In the beginning, you were all about paying me attention. Opening doors, lighting my cigarettes, caring for my every need. Fetching me a drink before I could even ask for one, stroking my arm as we curled up on the couch, kissing me, reaching for me, wanting to turn everything off except you and I, so your full attention could be on me and us.

That was something I treasured most in you. That you desired to be with me and within us so fully, without distractions.

These days, of late, I feel our days are made up of filling holes. Meals, errands, meeting friends for appointments. Rarely do you and I frolick in bed just because, or sit and listen to music and talk.

When we are alone, you become a child, whining for attention. You kiss me with affection, but no desire. You don't reach me.

You are becoming one half of a married couple I am not prepared to be part of.

I want romance. I want passion, like in those first few weeks.

Perhaps I should just give you space. Because you are at a stage or place in your life when you are feeling vulnerable and stressed out at the impending decision you may have to make. I know it could change your life. I know it could mean the end of all your dreams you have clung to with such fervour for such a long time.

What I perhaps don't understand is how this has changed since I first met you. Unless of course then, the newness of us all served as a distraction from your daily concerns. Now I am perhaps just one other layer to your life that you cherish but at the same time feel a responsibility towards.

I know you do not resent my presence. In fact, in a lot of ways, I think I have become woven into the fabric of your daily existence in a way that you have yet to become in mine.

I think I have more doubts about us than do you.

I think that perhaps, given all that I have been through, I question the strength of our bond, and its ability to weather the every day erosion of time and closeness.

Closeness erodes. Distance does too, in its own but different way.

Please stop shouting at me. Please treat me like an adult, one you desire with your passion, your soul. One that you want to make love to and not just share time and space and things and meals with.

I want you to share some joy with me, even in your darkest hour. Or perhaps that is not possible.

Perhaps you really are in a dungeon of despair and I am failing to recognise it.

Perhaps that is what it is.

Love

It amazes me sometimes, when I realise how much capacity and skill we have for loving. Different ways for different objects. People. Our pets. Places. Things.

Even lovers. We love each of them differently. No two are the same. Some we love with rage and fury. Some with tenderness. Some quietly. Some with loud cymbals and drums. Some slowly, over years. Some quickly. But almost always, in the most unlikely ways.

Someone said that what counts with love is how it actually ends. Death aside as the inevitable eventuality of even the greatest of loves, I suppose it is actually true.

With Big T, it ended when it did. The universe and life just made it easier in some ways. The presence of Marli however ensured he and I will always be attached by an invisible string that will bind us in the most tenuous yet definitive way. But it was over at the right time, when he and I were both ready to move on to our adult lives, mine here and his over there. He was my buoy while afloat in a foreign sea. I wrapped myself around him because I didn't want to be alone.

With Babbitt, it never ended. It just changed into something more affectionate, although with the same ferocity, steadfastness and loyalty. And undoubting assumption that we would always love each other through space and time. But with her, there was never any doubt that things had run its natural course. There was nothing more that sort of love could have given either her or me. We had to both move on.

With Rockette, I thought for the longest time it was a quiet love. When in truth, it was our life that grew quiet and closed. Insular and defensive. Us against the world. We were like two people under siege. And when the dam broke, everything good and pure flowed out with it, leaving behind only the sediments of things that had long eroded beneath the love.

And now Tigger. I love her with a quiet gentleness that is I believe a lesson from Rockette, yet she brings out the child in me that Babbitt does, the dreamer, the red balloon, and I cling to her like a float, except with less desparation. She is like a buoy in an ocean that I am familiar with, instead of something alien. I don't need her by my side all the time.

But she seems to yearn for me. I wonder sometimes if this part of her will only last as long as her current situation. And whether when she gets back on her feet she will yearn for me the same.

Perhaps she will, but more subtly, with less outward display of need.

I wonder about that sometimes. I wonder if I will like it. Already I sometimes find myself missing parts of her that were so present on the surface in the early weeks and have now slowly dissipated or occur fewer and farther occasions between.

I imagine that when she is back on her feet, she will feel more in control. She may want to protect me more. Or perhaps appreciate the independence in me.

It may actually work. There is something in me that tells me she and I would actually make a strong team in more than one way. Emotionally, intellectually, and in our souls. She is the finger around which the string to my red balloon is tethered.

I like that. I like that a lot.

Turning Corners

Tonight I guess we have crossed that bridge. The bridge of my desires forcing themselves to fade into quiet and sleep while you nurse your wounded soul and its demons.

It hasn't taken long with you. Eight weeks and a little more, but then again, the loving has grown exponentially in that time.

I know I shouldn't be so selfish. That you are at a crossroad that has been staring you in the face for over a year now and you feel finally pushed to move. I wonder how deep the chasm is.

I cannot reach you these days at times, and I don't know if I should run now or stay and be still. I am not good at being still.

But instinctively I know that you are the soul that can guide me if I am willing.

Because for you, being beside me is enough. You long for my presence next to you, even in these, your darkest hours, even if I am someone you technically barely know. You entrust your soul to me and I should take greater care. For you need me now more than I perhaps need you.

Tonight I was haunted by her voice asking me whether I could fall asleep. She used to do that, perhaps it was her way of caring. You in your own way do it too, by reaching out to me, by not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep for long when I am not by your side.

You yearn for me in the subtlest ways and they are not lost on me. Perhaps I should make sure you know that.

I must be strong for you now in your hour of needing me.

Because you have been nothing but stalwart for me. Past my hurting, deep inside it, wrapped your love around me like it didn't matter that my hurt for someone else hurt you.

I love you in the quietest of ways. In ways I have never quite known before.

Perhaps what you should know is that in many ways, my loving her has paved the way for my loving you.

In that sense, it was not all a lost cause.

Every step, my darling, has brought me closer to you.