Be the best Be you can Be

This is only the beginning...

How can it be when you love someone as deep as can be that it's so painful, to touch it is to writhe in ecstasy and agony alike?
I had that kind of love. It started out innocently enough.
He walked through the door and all I thought was blecchh, who the hell IS this guy anyway? All pomp and circumstance was he. But looking into his eyes I saw something deep, mystical and intriguing. His soul speaking to me from somewhere else in time. I wanted to ignore it - he wasn't my type at all. I was looking for that tall, successful "normal" type of guy. Ladies, you know the kind I mean. The one that says, hey, I've made it! Just look at this man! He's got his own entrepreneurial business, 6+ figure income, a new car (or two), an architecturally edgy apartment downtown, is kind to his mother, adopted a rescue dog, wants kids but willing to consider adoption, whisks you off on spontaneously romantic (insert beach, mountains, Rome here...) weekends, surprises you with thoughtful gifts just because, blah blah blah...
So then what was it about this barely 5'8, rotund, boyish speci"man" that had me unable to stop thinking about him?? "He's not my type!" my inner voice kept screaming. "Stay away!" but I can't! "Yes, you can, and you must!" no... "Yes!" And so on this dialogue continued until I convinced my Better Judgement to agree with me. And dragging said Better Judgement kicking and screaming in tow, I said yes to him. And to that first electrifying, intoxicating, spellbinding kiss.

It might not be the right time, I might not be the right one. But there's something about us... Those words, courtesy of daft punk, will haunt me for the rest of my days on earth and possibly eternity. Their song, Something About Us, was sent as a link in his first email to me. I sat there after listening to it in stunned silence. It was a message from him for certain, and even more than that, those words awoke something in me that had been left for dead a long time ago. A time when I had been numbed by drugs, yet a little piece of me had shone through the terrifying darkness, desperately clinging to the music that kept me alive. But I'd given up the music when I'd given up the drugs. And now ten years later, my soul was stirring upon hearing the music again.

He asked me to see Lewis Black with him. Oh my god, a date. With a coworker. Hell no! Too scared was I. But of what, exactly? Could it be because I hadn't been on a date in well, forever? Was it because I worked with him and the possible complication that could involve? Yes, that's what it is, I told myself. Much easier to convince myself of that than what it really was: the debilitating anxiety of opening myself up to another person. So I politely declined his invitation with one of the many prefabricated excuses I had honed throughout the years. But oh, I had wanted so much to accept. To just be able to say yes. Instead I spent another lonely night at home. With my mother. Yes, that's right, my mother lives with me. Notice how I didn't say I live with my mother? We've lived together almost my entire life. And boy, she comes in handy when it comes to needing an excuse to not engage in life. "Oh, I'm sorry, but I can't possibly go out tonight, I think my mom has something planned." But I'll save the mother portion of this diatribe for another part of this story...

We've been talking a lot and getting to know each other very well. He stays after his shift and we sit in the break room, him telling his tales and me attentively listening. He says I'm a good listener. Well, he just hasn't yet had the pleasure of my rambling babbling! His stories are riveting. A rather poor upbringing, a resourceful mother who made sure her three sons were cared for, a loving yet mostly absent father who introduced him to drugs at too early an age. No parent should ever subject their child to that. I guess he wanted a buddy, someone to share with. His dad taught him a lot though. To hear B tell it, his dad was a jack of all trades, master of none. And B carried that stigma with him into adulthood; feeling that he was good at many things, but unable to focus. He was robbed of a "normal" childhood, never had the opportunity to finish school and go on to college. He left home at fifteen and was forced into survival mode.
I could so relate. My parents divorced when I was fifteen, I dropped out of school, and my mom and I took off for England.

Reviews

[Robert Tusitala O'Neill]

This is good writing. I have to hear the rest!