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2002-11-23 - 8:56 p.m.
The amazing thing about highways is that even if you take the wrong one, even if you
accidentally end up going the wrong direction, as long as you don’t give up and go back
home you can always find a way, a vein of road, that will take you where you need to
be.
Last night I took a wrong turn out of Grand Rapids. Going to see E. at his parents in
Muskegon and I, with glazed eyes from copious amounts of cough syrup and the
exhaustion of many sleepless nights over the past few weeks, took the wrong highway. I
knew the second that I did it that it was wrong, but I somehow talked myself into
believing that I was right, talked myself out of second guessing myself. And I just drove.
Drove and drove until I finally gave into the nagging feeling that I was on the wrong
highway and called E. All I wanted to do was just turn around, go home, try again
another time. But I just couldn’t do that. I needed to see him, and more, I needed him to
see that I was willing to break out of my hermit life and share in his world. I really, really
needed to do that. I needed to make that effort, I needed to overcome the hermit voice
inside me that was fighting my emotions every step of the way. The voice that kept telling
me that I am better off alone, that I need to make some space between E. and myself
because I am falling too hard and risk losing the fast grip I have on my solitude. So, I
turned up my stereo, found that grey, twisting vein, the right one, the long one, that would
lead me into his arms eventually and I followed it.
We spent the evening with his friends and family. First sitting in front of a roaring fire
with his parents and his aunt and uncle drinking wine and snacking on pomegranate and
apples while chatting. It was comfortable. While the fire warmed my skin I felt my heart
sink further and further into its loud, comfortable thud against my chest. I felt my blood
coming closer to the surface of my skin, not because of the fire, but because I began to
feel that uncontrolled desire to pull every essence of myself closer to E. Even my blood
was being pulled by the magnet of him. Then we went to his friends house. I found
myself, when confronted with the cold air of the outside, with my blood retreating back
into the dark spaces it occupies, that tangled old hand of my hermit self reached out and
took the opportunity to reclaim my heart. It grasped ferociously until I found myself
building walls again, quickly setting up space between he and I. I found myself sitting
rigid, slightly uncomfortable, slightly irritated, just wanting to go home. I scare myself
when I become like that, when I become rigid, strong. It is a discernable difference, even
the skin on my arm feels different when I get like that. I am no longer soft and accessible,
I am cold and hard. And I can’t chase it off easily. I know it is defense. I know it’s that
old cliche thing, the...if I just maintain distance, if I don’t let myself get too wrapped up in
this I can’t get hurt....but that is ridiculous. Not only do I have no doubt that he is as
helplessly in love with me as I am him (okay, so maybe not as maniacally as I am, but I
know that he is in love with me), but I also know that if I just allow myself to act like a
normal freaking person this will be the most wonderful romance ever written. If I keep
the stupid ass mental moments out of this, if I stop acting like a moron, our love, our lives
together, will be the strongest and most enviable of any love ever. He and I are perfect for
one another. Perfect. I know this. Perfect, perfect, perfect, as long as we can get over
the hurdle of living 4,000 miles apart and the hurdle of my extreme solitude against his
extreme opposite of solitude. I can do this. I will do this. I have to because I can
no longer see my life without him.
Last night as we got ready to sleep, in the dark basement of his parents house, I found
myself gathering my blankets on the opposite end of the couch, nestling into my own little
corner. But as is always the case, I can only remain in that solitary state but a moment
before I need to touch him, before I have to crawl across the crevice I tried to create
between us and nestle against him. We slept all night in a tight embrace. Forgetting that
there were vast open spaces of couch for us to sleep on without being scrunched into one
another. We slept as one person last night and it was the most peaceful and wonderful
sleep I have ever had. I woke this morning, finding myself still wrapped in his arms, my
cheek pressed into his chest, my legs wrapped through his. And I found absolutely no
trace of my solitude lingering, no voice telling me to create space. Nothing. Over night
my mind and my body melded into him, finally gave into the need and just seeped within
him. I used to say that I needed my own bedroom if I ever lived with anyone, that even if
we slept together it would have to be on a king sized bed because I like my space. Today
when I got home I looked at my king sized bed, my wonderful bed that I adore, and
wished for the first time that it was much, much smaller because I want no more of that
space between us any more. I want to sleep every night that I can pressed into his skin, I
want to wake up with the realization that all those lonely, wrong roads I might have taken
in the past, those grey patches of life’s highway that made me into the slightly jaded and
scared person that I am, eventually converge onto the right road. Those wrong roads will
always somehow merge with the right vein of road that leads me straight into his arms. As
long as I don’t just turn around and go home. |
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