“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
“The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.” Teddy Roosevelt
He didn’t sign his name to the letters but he didn’t have to because even if they had been typed she recognized his writing and remembered his sharing the quotes with her.
Still she read his words twice and not just because it was her practice to do so but because the boy had been known to stick another message just for her. He did it publicly and he did it privately and though she never said anything about it he knew she liked it.
Knew that she appreciated his consistent efforts to make her feel special and to show her that he cared.
After she finished making her second pass she leaned back in her chair and wondered if there was anyone more stubborn or pigheaded about pursuing foolish dreams than him.
There was a piece of her that respected him for doing so and a part that was consistently surprised by his willingness to endure. For a long while she had wondered if maybe there was something wrong with him and why he would consistently bang his head against walls that he couldn’t climb over or knock down.
It wasn’t practical nor reasonable.
But after a while she recognized there was reason and even some strategy involved and though it was different than how she would have approached things it worked for him. It didn’t stop her from wishing he might choose a different way because it was clear to her that this method effective or not hurt him.
She mentioned it to him once and he told her he was willing to do what was required to meet his objectives. In the past she would have told him she thought it was a dumb way to go about it but she had learned that there were some things he wouldn’t listen to anyone talk about.
Men were just dumb about some things and certainly not as practical.
Thinking about that made her snort. She knew he knew she felt this way. Sometimes he would give her a list of all the things he thought were silly about women but most of the time neither of them discussed it.
That was because he would put her on the spot and demand that she tell him why these silly things men and women did were reason not to be together.
It made her smile to think about him telling her why he thought was ridiculous and how he would say they were different as a couple because they accepted each others imperfections. She loved listening to him tell her about how beautiful she was and how he still found her to be sexy.
She loved even more how he would tell her that it was her mind he was most in love with. She didn’t always believe it when he said it. In love or otherwise she knew men would say things to get what they wanted but most of the time it made her happy to do it and there was something to be said for wanting to.
Many of her friends shared stories about how they raced to get to sleep before their husbands and all of the other excuses they made not to have sex with them.
It made her wonder if all relationships were doomed to hit a spot of boredom.
They had never hit that sort of obstacle for obvious reasons. She had told him once that she thought it was likely and asked him what he thought.
He told her he would show her. Breathless and smiling she admitted he might be onto something.
Still the longer they spent apart the more she wondered if the best thing for them was to be good friends and had told him as much. Every time he had tried to convince her otherwise she told him they were just friends.
He would laugh and tell her he didn’t believe it. “It is easy to say from a distance, but one kiss changes everything.”
She never told him how badly she wanted that kiss or why she hoped it didn’t happen. When he told her one day she would end up naked she told him that time was in the past but it didn’t stop her from thinking about it or wondering if maybe he was right.
It frustrated her so she made a point of trying to pick a fight with him because it was always easy to keep someone at arm’s length when she was angry.
At first when he refused to take the bait she was angry so she poked at him some more. It didn’t work and for a moment she found herself flipping between feeling more in love with him but then he managed to say something stupid and she used that to nurse her anger.
The only problem was that she couldn’t stay angry with him and as she fell asleep she could hear him tell her that he never stayed angry with her either and that was part of what made them special.
Words Left Unwritten 