My Muse
Let me give a bit of history about myself first. I am the kind of person that can only be emotionally bound to one person at a time & I’m not the short term or casual relationship type at all. Sometimes I’ve wished that I could be but my personal emotional focus is just too narrow. I’ve been married for 26 years to a man I have known for almost 36 years & he was the first man I ever dated seriously. (Of course at that time in my life my choices were next to non-existent because I was the friend kind to the guys, not dating material.) When I commit to something I am extremely focused on that commitment. It takes a great deal to redirect my heart and believe me when I say that I am way to stubborn & tenacious to be the one who turns away first or without a fight. I have been on the internet for 13+ years & in that time I have had countless propositions. Most of the kind that aren’t worth the letters it took to spell them out. Some from those who wanted to be close to me but I felt no connection other than an acquaintance or friend. If that had been my goal then I would have taken that option during the time when I had two Yahoo group that I started to share my interests, links, stories & information that grew to one with over 3000 members and the other that was over 500 members; even with all that, at no time did I ever have someone come into my realm that I wanted or who sparked my attention. I was here for my own enjoyment and pleasure. I liked to share it generally speaking but I didn’t care to personalize the experience to a one on one basis. That is still the case even now. I don’t say this to sound conceited; a concept that is alien to me since I was very shy & introverted through a majority of my life. My appearance and attitudes as they are now didn’t take shape till more recently in my life. I have turned down many men who claimed to want me, care for me but who never knew me. All they knew or cared about was the fantasy person they imagined me to be. They had no clue who I was & I frankly didn’t have the time or inclination to correct them. In my comprehending that reality it made it easy to shut them out. There was one who I found at least interesting but it didn’t take me long to find we could only be casual friends because his focus was only ever on himself. No depth. Sweet man and he’ll readily admit his flaws but not my type at all. It was while I was finding out the character of this man that another slipped into my life unexpectedly…
It’s not something I set out to do, fall in love with him that is and it certainly hasn’t happened overnight. We’ve known each other around 4 years now. As a matter of fact, even though I felt the draw from the beginning, I worked very hard to keep a distance, keep things ‘real’. When we’d first met I had a lot of not so great things going on in my life, my relationship was rapidly unraveling, so I wasn’t all that confident in my perceptions or judgments. I knew I was vulnerable. I have a few close friends but I’m one of those people who keep things to my self. I don’t seek others out to lay my burdens on their shoulders. Keeping my own counsel is pretty much all I’ve ever known. Writing has always been my outlet throughout my life & it’s the first thing I do when I’m trying to work things out for myself. I used to write private journals, I still have one for my self alone but I try to do some things within blogs these days as I can. Blogs are what we write when we wish others would ask us to share with them but very few bother to ask or care. How fortunate I was when he stumbled across my page & asked to be my friend. The funny thing is that I don’t add people that I don’t already know, just my tried & true rule, but I saw his beautiful face, read his description of himself & felt there was not only common interests but there was something special about him, even then. They say that people come into you life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. There’s no telling which a person is immediately though sometimes we get a sense of finding in someone something that we are missing, need, admire or can give. With him I found all of that & more. Yet I still don’t know him as I should. I am an internet veteran & far from unintelligent so I don’t take much at face value, I use my instincts as well as ask questions to get as much information as I can. It’s not like I don’t have a world of questions that I’d like to ask him, I just haven’t felt that was the way to get the answers from him. With him I have followed only my instincts alone, allowing him to provide the information that he will. Some things he’s told me but I readily admit that most of what I know, or feel I know is what I have concluded on my own. I have no idea to what extent I am correct or incorrect but I have always had a pretty accurate ability to read people, some think eerily so. I’ve placed a great deal of trust in him. I wonder if he truly comprehends the actual scope of it. And the demon sits on my shoulder and asks, ‘What if he simply doesn’t care about the scope of it. What if it’s all in your head, a fantasy of what I wish it to be rather than reality.” This is the hardest part about a connection that is mainly online. The uncertainty is crushing sometimes. I have thought about backing off, stepping away if only to save myself the pain of his not being mine. Not mine, not mine – the thought slices through me often. It’s the intensity of the need and longing that he was mine that stains my thoughts & heart.
He first made his way into my heart by actually caring enough to read my blogs & comment when I felt most lost in the world. I’d filet my soul in a blog that no one but he would ever bothered to read and every time he was there encouraging me, reaching out to me when I felt alone, when I really was alone. He cared when I didn’t feel worthy of it & he made me smile when I needed to most. I’ve tried to be the same for him as much as he’ll allow me to be. There’s always been a strong attraction which has continued to sharpen to an excruciating razors edge but it’s been this bond, our connection, which has grown stronger, albeit gradually, over time. He has so far proven to be worth my patience and I hope that I have been worth his.
I love him… God help me, I honestly do. He fills my thoughts constantly. He has become my muse. I write about being with him since I can’t be. I think of him when I need to smile. I worry about him when he’s away. He’s the first person I think of when I find something interesting that I’d like to share. There are these odd instances when I feel him more deeply than others & at those same moments he’ll text, message or write. It’s like I can feel his thoughts on me. I have a heart-bond to him; an emotional investment in his life. More than anything I want him to be happy. I’d give much if it were me who could do that but even if I couldn’t then I would still want him to find it where ever it might be, with whomever it might be with though I readily admit I don’t want details if it isn’t about me. I’m no masochist; I don’t take pleasure in pain. I’ve never held back telling him most of my feelings. I’ve been compelled to be very honest, he deserves that. Even though I sometimes anticipate it, he’s never turned me away though I suppose that I often expect that he will - eventually. I’ve given him plenty of opportunities to walk away but he’s yet to do so though that might also be relevant to the fact that I demand little of him. I realize that perhaps I might not think I deserve more or I’m afraid that if I would ask he just might not care to meet the demand; neither have I stirred a strong desire in him to pursue. Standing still is just one short turn to moving away is it not? But I can’t help feeling that anything that isn’t given freely isn’t worth having. I read a quote just today that said, “You try to give away what you want for yourself.” This is very true. I want to pour into him all that I wish him to pour back into me. What I give of myself to him I do so willingly, without expectation but because I simply desire to do so. My side seems to be the opening of the Hoover damn or Angel Falls so I am, of course, concerned about drowning the man; while his… well, lets just say I’m very thirsty for more of him because of what he’s allowed me to drink but I feel insatiable where he is concerned. This is the largest flaw in our connection and one that torments me most although I am grateful for the progress I’ve gained with time & persistence. In the beginning he wouldn’t let me in; kept me at a safe distance yet acted like he wanted more. I told him that if we were to be friends he had to try, even though it was against his nature, he must try to let me in or we could go no further. There were times when I couldn’t penetrate the wall he built around himself and I couldn’t have a friendship with someone who made it a singular fruitless quest. I’d begin to retreat from the connection I felt with him but he would reach out to stop me so I kept trying to break through. Still continuing to break through. Little by little this bond has grown; forged through a sort of tempering of wills, though as I said, I wonder if it is not of more substance in my mind than in fact. I have to admit I fear the pain I’ve given him the power to inflict and he doesn’t seem willing or able to assure me. I get small encouragements here & there but I often feel like I’ve coerced those. Again I wonder - do I expect more than he’s able to give. The answer torments me and the demon whispers, “very likely yes.” But then I have to look into myself & ask what it is that I actually do expect and the only clear answer I can find is - more than I have now. And again the demon whispers, “Yep, that’s exactly what will turn him away.” And indeed it might. But if that should happen then for a while some small part of him was mine briefly & I’ll find a way to push it down & move on. It’s what I know how to do best.
Love is something that’s offered, it’s up to the object of that affection to accept it or not. It makes little difference in changing the emotion that’s felt by the one feeling it. But I do love him even though he seems somewhat uncomfortable if I say it to him. The man he lets me know, the one I’m still discovering, the one I imagine; the man he tries to hide, the one I see despite it. The man he fears he is to the one he’s yet to be. From the exalted heights of all he encompasses to the damning depths of his personal hell. I see all that he is with my eyes & heart wide open; the beauty & the beast all rolled up into one and he takes my breath away! I look in his eyes & I see his soul; criss-crossed with the scars of his life like a road map that I don’t think many, if any, have looked close enough to read if they are even capable of doing so. I want to follow & sooth each line, learning the topography hidden in those dark depths. If he had been born in another place and time, history would have heralded his life. He would have carved his name in time and changed the world with his convictions & principles that it should be better & more than what it was. He is a true renaissance man trying to exist in a time that doesn’t quite fit him. I think if there is such a thing as reincarnation he was once Alexander the Great or Michelangelo; visionaries who used their life to make their ideals reality at great personal cost but with a greater strength than the common man as well as a healthy dose of arrogance in their own visions. But he is very much a man, one with feet of clay like the rest of us. He has his faults, fears and more crosses to bear than most; all of which cements his tenacity. So with all that haunts my heart where he is concerned about how he might feel about me the thing that is most obvious, most striking in all of this is, being who & what he is, how could I do anything BUT love him; even if it isn’t balanced or to my advantage. He is my muse, my light & my dark, my bane & my inspiration. For all the emotion he engenders in me on either side of the scale the absolute certainty in this is that he makes me feel deeply; which is the most precious fragrance in the spice of life. There are no roses without the thorns.
