Moving Carefully

I spoke with her last Tuesday night. I told her I loved her, but that I couldn't hang out with her unless she felt at least somewhat similarly to me. I actually said more, but it was all gentle, and I did say the above clearly without obfuscation.

The next day, I felt cocky. "Why didn't I do this 3 weeks ago?" Thursday, I felt down a bit. My boss said I'd feel better "tomorrow," but today I was downright depressed. Seriously, painfully, gruesomely depressed. Whenever I'm not working, my thoughts drift back to that beautiful woman.

Some points from the conversation,

"That's not love," in response to the magical "I love you." Well, I do love you. This is definitely love. I just wish I'd told you sooner and more gently. Sometimes you don't realize what you've got until it's gone. I didn't realize I was really and truely in love until you were going away from me.

"I don't understand how you could love me," a little bit later. When you wake up and you're all crabby and your hair is mussed up like a halo around your shoulders, I want to run a comb through your hair while the fresh coffee steams up the window, and kiss you, "Good morning, Heidi."

It's not the perfect chord progression that makes a song beautiful, it's the accidental. Love is a strange thing, and I do love you, Heidi. You have a little edge of danger, like you could reach into the pleasure of pain without too much effort. You have little imperfections, like pearls in an oyster. I treasure them. I have them too, you know.

"I just want to go back to the friendly banter," towards the end. What can I say? Sometimes it takes a shot of pain to make me treat a person casually. I have long political arguments with your mother, but only the pain of someone upfront and personal like that opened me up to her. Banter with you will probably come a lot more easily now that I feel like I've been "Shot through the heart..."

I'm changing. The pain I felt from breaking away from you is changing my personality. The next person I meet will meet a different person than you met. Tonight at the dance, a girl playfully shoved me as I was going out the door, and I shoved back. Not angrily, but playfully. Where did that come from? She's undergone a transformation like mine from mousy homeschooler to assertive woman. But me, I'm changing fast, and I'm a little scared. I don't want to be mean or bitter or angry. I want to be assertive and playful and strong and loving and gentle.

I love to hold you up when you're down, and I know you try to hold me up when I drift low. I want to take you down to the beach, I want to take you into the parts of my life you don't know about. I love you, Heidi.

And I know you want to leave this area. I respect that, and will not hold you back. If I can let you go now, when I work for your mother, go to the same music teacher, attend the same karate school, and have an 90 percent interest match, then I know I can say goodbye when you travel to London. Heck, if you'll have me, I'll move too, especially if the political situation changes like it looks to be doing soon.

I love you, Heidi. I denied it for too long, saying we could only be friends. I should have known better.

I have tremendous self control. You may not have ever realized that I felt for you. I didn't call during the past weeks because my control broke. And when I came to your house to talk with you, my control was with me. But afterwards, it broke. I cried. I sat in the car for a long time. My friends told me not to beg. I didn't. But it was so hard, talking to you. So incredibly hard to look you in the eyes and rip my heart out and tell you I couldn't be around you.

I love you, Heidi. But if you won't come to me, I will walk away. I am, after all, very strong, and I set my path with firm resolution.