Not Just Another New Year’s Eve

There must have been four rings before your voicemail picked up but I can’t say for certain because I have been day dreaming about you in that black dress. Busy thinking about how you wore it for me on your birthday and how good you looked in it.

I remember watching you turn in a circle for me and how you took my breath away and how I had to kiss you because I couldn’t not touch you. I remember sitting on the couch with you, holding hands as we watched a movie and how in the dark I would stop and just stare at you.

You stood up and I asked you to face me. I sat on the couch and ran my hands up and down your legs, told you that I was going to have to have you forever.

If you asked me to give you more details about how the evening went I couldn’t give you as many specifics as you might want because I was lost in us and our moment.

Told you that we were heading towards a time when we could celebrate New Year’s Eve together and that when we did it wouldn’t be just another one on a long list of things we had done.

Told you that we are magic together and that it is the kind of magic you rarely find but when you do you cannot let go because experience has taught you to pay attention to that kind of thing. Because when you are old enough to have lived some life and have learned from those experiences that led to this moment you know to pay attention.

And when you said that I was crazy, told me that you were nothing special I laughed because sometimes you minimize things because it is hard to admit that the magic we have is as powerful as it is. It is part of how you sometimes try to protect yourself but that is ok because every time we kiss you come that much closer to accepting that you are not just loved, but cherished.

And when you tell me I am smug and over confident about you honoring my requests I laugh again because I know that even if you don’t always voice it you get what this is and you don’t like saying no to me.

I don’t rub that in your face. Don’t make an issue of knowing that our blurred lines and boundaries have opened all of the doors to your heart because it goes two directions.

So I remind you again that I could write a very steamy note to you and never stop smiling because that is just how it is for us.

Why Do I Love You

Every time you ask that question I wonder when you will realize that it is the wrong question to ask. It is not why but for how long you should be asking.

And even then you shouldn’t ask because you know that I have loved you for as long as I have known you and that fate has decreed that love will always forever and always be.

Do you have to be mentally weak to appreciate this?

[Blake Shelton – Verse 1]
I’ve been a walking heartache
I’ve made a mess of me
The person that I’ve been lately
Ain’t who I wanna be

But you stay here right beside me
Watch as the storm goes through
And I need you

[Chorus]
God gave me you for the ups and downs
God gave me you for the days of doubt
For when I think I’ve lost my way
There are no words here left to say, it’s true
God gave me you

[Blake Shelton – Verse 2]
There’s more here than what were seeing
A divine conspiracy
That you, an angel lovely
Could somehow fall for me
You’ll always be love’s great martyr
Ill be the flattered fool
And I need you

[Chorus]
God gave me you for the ups and downs
God gave me you for the days of doubt
For when I think I’ve lost my way
There are no words here left to say, it’s true
God gave me you

[Bridge]
On my own I’m only
Half of what I could be
I can’t do without you
We are stitched together
And what love has tethered
I pray we never undo

[Chorus – Outro]
God gave me you for the ups and downs
God gave me you for the days of doubt
God gave me you for the ups and downs
God gave me you for the days of doubt
For when I think I’ve lost my way
There are no words here left to say, it’s true
God gave me you, gave me you
Gave me you

God Gave Me You- Blake Shelton

You Are Meaner Part 2

Sometimes I wonder if you remember that I always carry your heart with me:

i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

E.E. Cummings

You know if you asked me to pull the moon down from the sky I would do my best do it and you know that if the weight of it pulled my arms out of their sockets I wouldn’t let go unless I was convinced you were satisfied.

When you dance in the fire you do all sorts of screwy things. Sometimes they are the most beautiful and stunning things a person can imagine and sometimes they are just plain stupid.

A Woman’s Tears

A little boy asked his mother
“Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m a woman”,
she told him.
“I don’t understand”,
he said.
His mum just hugged him
and said, “And you never
will”

Later the little boy asked
his father, “Why does mother seem to cry for
no reason?”
“All women cry for no reason”,
was all his dad could say.
The little boy grew up and became a man,
still wondering why women cry.
Finally he put in a call to God; and when God got on
the phone, he asked, “God, why do women cry so
easily?”

God said:
“When I made the woman she had to be special.

I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the
world; yet, gentle enough to give comfort
I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and
the rejection that many times comes from her children.
I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going
when everyone else gives up, and take care of her
family through sickness and fatigue without
complaining. .I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under
any and all circumstances, even when her child has
hurt her very badly. I gave her strength to carry her man through his
faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his
heart. I gave her wisdom to know that a good man never
hurts his woman, but sometimes tests her strengths and
her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.
And finally, I gave her a tear to shed
This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is
needed.

You see:
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears,
the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her
hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes,
because that is the doorway to her heart – the place
where love resides.

I have shown you the soft underbelly and shared my demons with you. You are more in my eyes than you ever realize. Doesn’t matter if we are 5, 19, 45 0r 95. It is just how it is.

I know when your walls are up and when they are down. I know when the love flows freely and when it is more restrained.

But mostly I know that if we hold hands and work this time together that never ending moment is ours for the taking. And to think it started with one kiss.

You are Meaner

She tells me I am meaner than she is and I laugh.

“It is not funny, you should treat me nicer.”

I pull her into my arms and wrap them around her. Her body is stiff against mine and she makes a face.”

“You don’t have to hug me back, I am just happy holding you.”

I run my hands up and down her body and when I rub her butt she says that my wandering hands aren’t welcome today. I shrug my shoulders, walk over to the stereo and turn on some music.

She follows me over to the couch and sits down next to me. We are not quite touching and I try to move farther away from her, silently smiling because I know it will only be a matter of moments before she moves closer.

Doesn’t matter if we are happy, angry or sad we always make a point to have body parts touching each other.

Time passes, can’t say if it is a minute, ten or an hour but it has happened. Our legs are touching and my right is playing with her hair.

We don’t even realize that we have moved back into our secret world and are in that place where time doesn’t work as it should. She is asking me who said I could rub her thigh and I am asking why she hiked up her skirt.

She stands up and I take her hand and gently pull on it.

I am looking up at her now, my hands are on her hips and she is staring back at me.

“You are oversexed, we aren’t college students any more.”

I smile at her and say if it makes her feel better she is welcome to blame me for taking control.

She makes another face, straddles me and then tells me that she is the boss and if I am smart I will just shut up.

“But we are not college students any more and you just said I am oversexed.

Her lips cover mine and she shushes me, I am still tempted to remind her that I am the boss but sometimes it is better to be quiet so I am.

Later on we’ll lie next to each other and she’ll tell me that I am a very lucky man. I’ll nod my head and agree and then I’ll roll on top of her and ask her if she remembers college.

Your Eyes

Sometimes I think about our lives and it feels to me like we are standing on opposite sides of a crowded room. But no matter how many people stand in between us I can always feel your presence and always know where to look to find your eyes.

And when you get that sense that someone is watching you it shouldn’t make you nervous because it is just me locking in from far away and it just my heart touching yours.

It is that moment where you know if we were face to face we would see beyond the veil and look into the depths of each others souls.

Sometimes it is hard to be naked like that in front of you. Sometimes it is hard to feel so bare and open, scary and I want to pull back because to give that kind of trust is a challenge but without the big risk there is no big reward.

And when you know what we know, have done what we have and shared the life we have you know you can’t always play it safe.

Married Again…

She told him she didn’t know if she would ever want to get married again and he said that it was ok because he didn’t know if he would either.

A look flashed across her face that made him think he might have gotten himself into trouble. She said she didn’t know if she ever want to get married again and he didn’t think before he answered.

Or maybe it was more accurate to say he agreed with her too quickly. In an effort to make her feel comfortable he tried to acknowledge and share her feelings and she had reacted poorly.

She might have been completely honest about that but she didn’t want him to shut the door so quickly on her.

He thought about it for another moment and laughed at himself for over analyzing it. She wasn’t shy with her feelings and if she was upset he would find out about it. Knowing that he figured the best course of action would be to wait and see what she did and then respond appropriately.

It all seemed sort of ridiculous to him to be so worried about it. Felt a bit like high school except it wasn’t.

That had been decades ago and now they were far wiser, more mature and all of the other stuff that came with years beyond those days. Some of it was pretty good and some of it was…less good.

It was hard to admit that his vanity made him so self conscious about how he looked and harder still to admit that he could whine about it and not do anything.

After all he was the guy who said that unless you were willing to take action you had no business complaining.

+++++

Action was something he could chalk up on his list of positives. During all those years of estrangement he had never given up on them and never believed that she didn’t love him anymore.

Even when she repeatedly told him they were nothing more than friends he had kept faith because he heard something in her voice and read something in her emails.

There was a hitch or something that made him certain she was trying to convince herself and him.

It had taken more than a little effort to get her to go out with him again and then when she did she kept her distance. There was no hug or kiss hello nor handshake offered.

She had started out very cold and businesslike and it had confused him. It didn’t take long for the confusion to make him wonder if he had misread everything and to make him feel stupid.

That feeling of stupidity turned to anger and it wasn’t long before he stopped talking because he was afraid he would tell her to come to bed or to go hell.

That kind of thing worked pretty well in the movies but in real life it was questionable. So he kept his mouth closed and watched, waited and listened.

After the meal ended he walked her to her car and then climbed in the passenger seat. Didn’t take long before he just blurted out, “do you still love me?”

He watched her whole body stiffen up and then she said “yes.”

So he said “I want to kiss you” and she rejected him. He tried two more times and was rebuffed again but she never asked him to get out of her car nor did she yell and he knew that it would happen.

Wasn’t going to be that night, but the next time or the time after that she would kiss him and chemistry would do the rest and it did.

++++

So here they were talking about marriage and wondering when they could make things work. Life and responsibilities seemed to have placed some stumbling blocks in their way but they bothered her more than he.

She thought of herself as being more realistic and more practical and in some areas she was. But he was the one who had the vision and patience to bring about this time.

He didn’t say it because he wanted kudos or any sort of prize. It was more of an acknowledgment of how they complimented each other in so many ways.

That made him smile.

It reminded him of a conversation they had many years earlier where she had said one person in a relationship was always the boss. He of course had said he knew she thought she was and that he made a point to let her think so but that he was really running things.

His answer had surprised her and she had sort of squealed.

Thinking about it made him laugh because she wasn’t the sort of woman who squealed but she kind of had. It was a mixture of surprise and happiness.

All part of that mix of things that happen when you are first getting to know someone and realize that you are falling in love.

It made him wonder how many times they had fallen in love with each other. The first time had been years before and he thought of it as having happened very quickly.

If you asked him to guess he would have said weeks or months but it might have been longer or it might have been shorter.

The one thing he was certain of was that they had fallen deeper in love more than a few times.

+++++

He thought about how he had grabbed a fist full of hair and gently tugged upon it and then told her he was the boss. She had laughed and told him she let him think so.

Later on he kissed her hard on the mouth and told her he was going to violate her every way possible.

She rolled her eyes at him and asked him if he was always this romantic and he laughed.

“I love you  and my heart and body are yours. What can you possibly do that I haven’t already given you permission to do?”

That was when he tried not to squeal. It was a pleasant shock and surprise and it was one of a few times he realized how very lucky he was.

Sometimes they would talk about blurring the lines and pushing things to see how far they could go. Sometimes they would talk about trusting each other enough to engage in the fantasies they never shared with anyone else.

But this hadn’t been one of those moments. This had been a moment when that overwhelming sense of love had scared the hell out of him and so he had said something really stupid to try and start a fight because anger lead to distance.

And in less than 15 seconds she had disarmed him and made him feel completely secure.

He whispered that he loved her too much to go any harder than he was and she laughed.

“Women give birth to babies. I won’t break.”

It wouldn’t be the first or the last time he heard that from her. He knew where the lines were but still he never let things get blurry unless she asked first.

+++++

The thing that made them work wasn’t that they loved each other or that they had incredible physical chemistry. It was that they liked each other and that like was the secret sauce.

It powered the trust and provided a foundation for the love and the lust to rest upon. It was enabled them to build and maintain a secret world that only they could walk in.

Electricity

Sometimes she would tell him she loved him and that he owned her heart but that bad circumstances made it impossible for anything more to come.

He would nod his head and tell her he understood because he did. It made sense and he had learned there was no point to try to push or convince her otherwise.

But some of that was because of his gut and what it told him. He had noticed long before the electricity between the two of them. Had felt the charge that came from holding hands and the was amazed at how strong it was. He marveled over how much pleasure he got from kissing and tried to tell her in a way that would make her understand he wasn’t trying to butter her up for something more.

It was surreal to him how awful the world could feel when things weren’t right between them. Sometimes he would shake his head and wonder how similar it felt to the craziness of a first love and then he would ask himself if there was a maturity issue at play.

Or maybe it was more of an immaturity thing because it didn’t make sense to him that someone could rattle his cage like this. Once upon a time it had happened with one or two others, but that was different. He was so very young and inexperienced.

He liked to think of himself as being far more worldly now.

It had taken him a while to recognize that the electrical charge went both directions and how much it bothered her when things weren’t right too. She didn’t show her discomfort in the same way, but once he recognized her particular tells it became blatantly obvious.

And none of this took into consideration how they seemingly could never stay angry with each other. It wasn’t ever something that happened with others so he took it as a very positive sign and did his best to be patient.

Because even though he didn’t really know what the future held for them he had a hard time not picturing a long life with each other. There was no saying when that would start on the terms they wanted, but it didn’t mean it wouldn’t.

The discomfort of separation wasn’t going to just go away. They could camouflage it and come up with ways to deal with it. With time and some effort they might even fool themselves into believing it was gone but he was certain it would always reappear and that when it did it would show up with a vengeance.

So some nights he would wander outside and stare at their moon and think about how electricity could flow in both directions.

There was magic out there and they had tapped into it and now they had to follow the path to see what would happen because when you are on the road not taken you don’t stop to turn around or ask for directions. You just keep going.

He’s Pushy And She’s Bossy

She told him he was pushy and that he kept wearing her out and he laughed because she was bossy and she wore him out.

We listened to him give his version of their story and noted how at times the look on his face flitted between love, exasperation and bemusement.

He said in the earlier days that they had overcome a number of significant challenges and that at times being with her was like being on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. It was a roller coaster of emotion and that while most of the time it was great there were moments where he wanted to tear his hair out.

I nodded my head and laughed, ‘women are nuts. What are you going to do.”

He laughed too and asked if my hand hurt and I laughed again, “nah, she is strong but she can’t squeeze it hard enough to truly hurt me. I am more worried about what she’ll do with that giant black purse.”

He looked at us and smiled again, “you probably shouldn’t say anything else, I know what that look means.”

I smiled at him and turned to my right, “baby, you are welcome to speak any time.”

She gave me a look and said it was nice of me to notice her. I reminded her that I never forgot about her and that I would never do anything to aggravate her.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you.”

“Baby, you’d wonder what was wrong if I didn’t tease you. Let’s be honest, you hate it when I ignore you.”

“Hey kids, I hate to remind you, but I am still here.”

We turned and faced the old man and both apologized.

“It is ok, I get it. I recognize what you have. It is special.”

He took a deep breath, exhaled and then looked at me.

“Don’t ever be dumb enough to just let go of her. She’ll test you in every way. She’ll push, pull and make you crazy, but don’t you ever let her push you away or you’ll regret it.”

I nodded my head and smiled.

“Because if you did I just might take her out and show her that I haven’t forgotten how to woo a woman and believe me I may be old but I still know how to make her feel like there is no one else in the world who means more to me.”

And with that he stood up, waved goodbye and walked away.

I watched him walk to his car and wondered what it was like for him now. Wondered if he lived now in his memories or if he still enjoyed the warmth of the sun upon his back the way he had.

Watched him open the car door and then slowly lower himself into the seat and then surprised myself by springing out of the chair to run after him.

He rolled down the window, looked at me and waited for my question.

When I walked back in she asked me what we had talked about and I told her it was “man stuff.” She snorted and rolled her eyes at me.

That was her way of telling me she wasn’t satisfied with my answer. I knew later on she would ask me again and I wondered if I would tell her all that I knew, all that I saw.

+++++

I wasn’t sure if she would believe it. It was hard for me to digest it and if I couldn’t how could I possibly expect her to believe it. She would squint her eyes at me and make some comment about my not having to use a line and I would shake my head and say I wasn’t.

Shook my head and shrugged my shoulders, no point in worrying about it now. I didn’t expect her to ask me until we were in bed and there were hours of daylight left not to mention a good chunk of nighttime that would have to pass before that conversation.

Still it was hard not to think about what he had said or wonder how he and I could have the same birthmark.

What She Needed And What She Wanted

Sometimes he would respond to her question with “I know things” and she would roll her eyes. It wasn’t a real answer. She liked details and that was the kind of non detailed answer that she found irritating.

Yet the more time she spent with him the more she realized that he wasn’t kidding. He did know things about her. He just got her and that made her happy.

It didn’t mean that he never irritated her because he did that. Hell, he was an expert at getting under her skin. Sometimes she wondered what the hell was wrong with him because he would do things that were so annoying.

And that made no sense to her.

How could a man who understood her so very well do things that were so obviously dumb. When she mentioned it to him he would just laugh and tell her to relax.

And she found that puzzling.

Puzzling because she never would have tolerated that from any other man yet she never could stay angry with him. So it was a bit of a relief when he told her that he could’t stay angry with her either.

She wasn’t a scorekeeper but it made her feel better to know they felt the same way about that.

One day they sat on the couch holding hands and he looked at her and said he knew the difference between what she wanted and what she needed.

“I think it is wonderful you know so much about me that you feel entitled to speak for me.”

He laughed again, shushed her and kissed her.

“You are over thinking things here. I obviously don’t know everything but I just understand you. Can’t always explain how or why but I know enough to make a pretty damn good guess about some of these things. And if you are nice to me I might actually tell you.”

She rolled her eyes again and made a point not to ask him what those things were. It wasn’t easy not to give in because she really did want to know what he thought, but sometimes you had to pretend that you just didn’t care all that much or men would start to take you for granted and she never wanted that,