60. Soul mInIng

“Integrity” is a noun. When it is an adjective , it is “integral.” When it is a verb, it is “integrate.” The past participle form of it as a verb is “integrated.” So, to live with integrity, so to speak, is to lead an integrated life. I thought you’d like all that..

What does iit mean. My Love, to lead a fully integrated life? To lead life with integrity? Does it just mean doing what you say you’ll do? Or is it more than that? Does it mean integrating your values in accordance with your desires and behaviors?. And more directly, does loving me compromise your integrity? And if so, with respect to whom?

These are just some questions I have, my love. You’re a smart cookie. I think you probably already consider things like this just about on the daily, if not perhaps the same terms. That’s why, if nothing else, I am putting them to you so that you know that I know the sort of shit you wrassle with. So you know you’re not out there pondering alone.

I am with you in that space too. The soul searching space. The space where the intellect mines the soul. It’s not sexy in this space. But it’s human. And it’s you. And I love it too. Because it’s a part of you. Because it’s a part of us.

I love even the non-eternal parts of you, sweetz.

59. Follow up note

I want to follow up on what I said about not feeling too bent out of shape about the lies I tell T with respect to you and me. I mentioned that Tim felt like an inconvenience to the relationship I have with you. I think a better way to put this would be to say that in my head, the real lies are (1) that my relationship with T is healthy and perpetuated out of love and (2) that I am not in love with you.

In other words, it seems offensive to our relationship for me to lie and say it does not exist. That somehow overshadows much of the remorse I might otherwise feel with respect to my relationship with T and the effect the lying may have on it.

58. L-o-v-e with a capital L

Dearest Sweetz,

I have never felt for anyone else the way I feel about you. That is to say, I have never loved like this. I am a more loving person because of the love I feel for you.

Loving you lights me up inside and I exude it as I move about the world. That is what I mean when I say you teach me how to love. The love I feel for you existed within myself before I met you, and through you, I have finally been able to access it. (I hope these words make sense.)

If you and I were to somehow be completely free of factual circumstances and the roles and responsibilities they entail, our bodies would still belong with one another and our hearts and souls would still dance together. And if we were somehow completely free of our bodies, our hearts and souls would maybe just merge. Because at that point, why the heck not?

Can we ever merge our hearts and souls so long as we are subject to the material reality of our factual circumstances? Can we ever merge our hearts and souls so long as we inhabit these corporeal bodies?

I think we can. The reason I think this is because we do it all the time when we are together in what you have referred to as the “space of Love.” We create Love (like, capital ‘L” L-O-V-E) by merging our hearts and souls, and we exist in the space of the Love we create. At least that’s where I’m at right now, as I navigate this new and uncharted romantic territory.

My Darling, my Craig…I am open to Love and loving in ways unfamiliar. Being in this space of Love is beautiful and boundless. Boundless beyond our bodies, and certainly boundless beyond any factual circumstances we face today or which have yet to come.

Thank you for turning my light on. Thank you for showing me this place. Thank you for teaching me how to exist in Love with a capital L.

57. My love still grows

Laying down in a well-made bed makes a difference. I thought of you and me making the bed earlier as I slipped under the fluffy duvet and the top sheet this evening. I can’t express enough how much I’ve been enjoying our time together. I feel as if I am just continuing to fall more and more in love with you. This is such an honor.

56. Romantic territory

I write from my heart to your heart. It is early morning and I am stirring. I am thinking about how tomorrow you will come to me How you will climb into my bed, climb into me. Cum into me. My heart wants all of that. Even the cum.

Falling in love with you has brought softness to my being. It has humbled me. It has given me a tap on the shoulder and reminded me that my own mind, my own ego, is just another place to hang out, and not the only game in town. My intellect was the star quarterback of my academic career. My ego, the prom queen (of course).

Faith, hope, and love intersect to create romance. The intellect does not appreciate romance.

It is early. It is, in fact, morningtime. I have wandered into spiritual territory where I am clumsy, even beyond the predawn hour. But I want to stumble here for a minute, if only to vaguely suggest to you where I want to go with you…or at least to give you a nod in a general direction.

55. Taking care of business

Wow Sweetz. We made sweet love to each other today. You basically saved my life and we kissed on the side of I-10 while traffic whizzed by at highway speeds. It was very, very romantic. I take great pleasure in taking care of business with you

I also enjoyed making out in the back of your truck in the parking lot of the Mexican flea market and our tiny taco lunch. I could not get enough of you. Could not stop looking at you. Could not stop touching you. It has been this way since we first reunited

Even when I am not with you, you are always a presence in my mind. This has been the case since the moment I hit “send” on the message I sent you on June 30. I knew sending that message was the right thing to do.

I love you, Craig. Everything I say and do is just another way of telling you so. I get that from you too—you’re always telling me that you love me in one way or another.

I look forward to tomorrow, baby. I need to spend some time with your naked body and your naked thoughts.

54. Floating

Every time you hold me in your arms, I feel I am home. Melting clouds immersed in sunshine. I am floating with you and our precious love.

When I am on my back waiting to be filled by the sensuousness of you, my body is going crazy with wanting. I want you to spread me wide apart.

I will wake up with you in my heart. Your memory. The way you look, the way you feel. I will use you to fuel me as I go running down the street.. Lightly, quickly. Floating with our precious love.

53. Stars

My Dearest Sweetz,

I do not understand why my earlier rendition of this post was deleted. I cannot recover it, which is unfortunate. However, I have done my best to recreate it from memory and hope that it hits the right notes. Here goes…

Every single time I kiss you, I am trying to tell you that I love you. Every single time I touch you, I am trying to tell you that I love you. Every single time I say your name, I am trying to tell you that I love you.

I don’t know if you can tell, but I am blooming because of you. I am changing. Your presence in my life distills my consciousness. You remind me of the things I value the most: kindness, compassion, and love.

I am changing because how we held one another in the desert beneath the stars, our atoms commingling. You showed me the galaxy and my world became so much larger and more vast. You taught me how to look at the sky and all the stars. There were so many stars…so many stars I’d never seen and have yet to see.

But there is only one of you.

I remember now what I told you not so long ago. I acknowledged than there were endless possible outcomes beyond my control and that loving your required surrender. So I said I would surrender to love and concern myself with loving.

I said that the love we make was not about me, that it wasn’t about you, and that it really wasn’t even about us. Rather, the love me make is something separate. It is love for love’s sake. Love for the sake of love.

I meant what I said then and still mean it. I mean to surrender. Please excuse my brief derailment earlier this week. (I realize that you already have, of course, and and grateful for that grace, my love. Thank you.)

I am a mere mortal. I am a woman who lives in a universe that was recently expanded when a kind man showed her the stars.

52. Into my arms

Baby, you’re probably about to have your IPL done and then you’re off into the sunset. I recorded a song for you to listen to, although I understand you’ll probably have a hard time finding a moment alone to listen to it. Whenever you’re able to hear it though, it’s there. And it’s for you from me. I love you. I want you. I need you. I miss you and cannot wait to take you into my arms again.

Into My Arms

51. Clownin’ around

Dear Craig…The things you do for me and how you do them are above and beyond what I have ever imagined from a partner. I’m sorry I got sad. You held me and loved on me today. That went a long way. Here are some pictures of me being silly and not wearing pants. I created them with you in my heart. I hope you like them.

You are the love of my life.

Also, I wanted to put these pictures up. We sent them to each other the day after we did karaoke at the Neon Boot. We were both sleepy after our big night out, plus all the running and sexing. That’s when you started talking to me about meeting you in Utah.

50. Fuck everything

Everything feels like it’s falling apart. I meant it when I said you were enough. But now I think I fucked up and I’m sorry.

There is nothing wrong with you. I love you. I need you. I’m a liar if I say I don’t want to be with you. And if that’s what I want, then that’s a problem. That’s not what we agreed to. it’s not something you can give me. It’s not something I even want to ask you for.

I think maybe you and I just can’t meet at the right place at the right time. I don’t even know if there is a right time. I know that I love you. I will always love you.

I just don’t think I’m going to be able to do this the way we said we’d do it. I don’t think that I can just live in the moment and let the love flow between us and be fucking groovy about it all the time. I cant live off stolen moments. I’m just not that cool, if I’m being honest. And I promised I’d be honest.

I am sorry. I know that you are trying. I just wish you didn’t have to try so hard. I hate being a burden. You know I do. And I really feel like that’s what I’m going to be. I am going to be another monkey on your back. I am already a problem with no solution.

And there’s the thing about me wanting to be with you. That fundamentally alters shit. But I can’t deny it with any amount of sincerity. And it fucking sucks.

And I think you know what it means.

49. The remains of the day

I am concerned that if you knew how I feel after we say goodbye, you wouldn’t want to see me anymore. Not because you don’t desire me, but because you don’t want to hurt me. And saying goodbye hurts me. It is everything I can do to just get back inside my own apartment so that I can have privacy. So I can let my knees buckle. So I can full-on sob.

The reason I’m telling you this is because I agreed to be honest with you. I feel like it’s especially important to share the things I would otherwise keep to myself in order to perpetuate the relationship. I think if something is true and it is something that would make a difference to you, I ought to tell you, even if I think the difference may not be in my favor. Especially when the difference may not be in my favor.

47. Love in 3D

I’m sitting in a bath right now, which makes me think about how much I enjoyed taking baths with you. Taking baths together can totally go on the list of things we like to do. Crosswords. Poetry recitations. Crab cakes. Running. Kissing. Camping. Making love. Making fuck. Singing. Feeding each other. Soft touches. Long phone calls. Jeepin’ out. Baths. This blog. Laughing. Lots of laughing.

When I think about the structure of my feelings for you, I think about the following dimensions:

  1. Who you are

  2. How we are together

  3. Who I am with you

Who you are

What I value most about who you are is that you are a kind man. I think your kindness is your most prominent trait, and it is abundant in the way you move about the world. It is integrated into your presence. I think the best thing for this world and humanity would be for everyone to be as kind as you. To me, you are a highly evolved specimen. Maybe my biology urges me to mate with you, to populate the planet with your kind babies. In my lizard brain, I’m trying to save the world every time I fuck you.

Who we are together

Then there’s how we are together. We are sweet and tender together. That’s for sure. We love on each other. We hold hands. We look at each other all the time. We snuggle. We enjoy comfort and happiness from the physical affection we show to one another.

Our combined sexual passion is powerful. We play together. We have the sex thing down. Yeah. Having sex with you is really fantastic. Having sex with you is all-encompassing. We laugh like children while we fuck like we know what we’re doing. Feel free to write in the comments about the details of our lovemaking. It stokes the fire for me.

AAAAAAND we get shit done. We execute well together. That is very important to me because I love to execute. Being able to make shit happen with you brings me a great deal of joy. It also makes me feel less lonely. Or, better yet, it makes me feel united. I think that the ability to cooperate is perhaps a special type of connection for all animals, humans included. You and me, sweetz, we’re a couple of beavers building a dam.

Who I am when I’m with you

When I’m with you, I am a woman in motion. I have been perpetually falling in love with you from the moment you responded to my apology. But I am also myself. You let me express myself in love in the ways that make sense to me. And you understand. And so, with you, I am a woman who is understood. Being understood makes everything feel okay, somehow, does it not? When I am with you, I am a woman for whom everything is okay. And ultimately, that’s who I’ve always wanted to be.

46. Kissing you in the back of a bookstore

I was thinking of our date last night. Particularly reading poetry and kissing in the bookstore. I recall you telling me you had a drawing mentioning kissing in a bookstore. Here it is baby. I found it way back in an old FB post you had. Just another foreshadowing of us:

I love you Cassidy.

45. Pain MGMT

I miss you. I’m feeling a little down today. Maybe because it’s Saturday. Maybe because the sun is out. It hurts right now though. So I’m going to close my eyes for a while and feel what I feel. Then I’m going to get up and go have a meal with my dad and act like someone who doesn’t feel this way.

44. Pictures of us (from Craig's phone)

43. Killing butterflies

I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. There’s that all too familiar longing and strange nervousness. I call it butterflies. The butterflies come to a crescendo right before I see you and always dissolve soon after I’m with you. I’m then back to basking in our togetherness. Our togetherness zaps them away.

I loved our long conversation this morning. It was like you were with me and I like that. Once again, I find myself missing you.

I will shower you with kisses. How many you asked this morning? Well I never count them my dear but I can also never get enough so it’s countless when I’m kissing you and endless longing for them when I’m not.

See you tomorrow my love.

42. C + C’s Greatest Hits

I gathered the strength to force the point to crisis, so to speak. I started scrapbooking. I love looking at pictures of you, especially the ones with the two of us in them. Some of my favorites are featured below.

41. Late Afternoon musings

I was unpacking today. I removed the sex candle from my suitcase. The scent triggered your memory. Not that you’re ever very far from the top of my mind.

I am a about to start scrapbooking, but I’m apprehensive about looking at pictures of you. I think it’ll make me cry. Should I, to quote T.S. Elliot, “after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?” (Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1915).

How’s this for a dramatic paragraph (see below)?

It’s hard to see the mouth I’ve heard moan my name, the face I’ve seen hovering just above mine, captured and held still by a photograph. You can’t see my private pain. I can’t see yours either. We don’t take pictures of that. But I’m guessing they’re alike in the sense that they’re both human and sad.

And then there’s your fucking irresistible, kissable mouth.