full circle

Last year, a dozen yellow roses signalled the beginning of a new relationship.  Though, it wasn't new at all - we'd dated before, we'd broken up like seven times, we haven't stopped being in each other's lives since we met (officially) over a dusty bank of computer monitors more than thirteen years ago.  This time, I think, we did the mature thing: laid our cards out right at the beginning, no games, no coy suggestions.  This time, I think, we did it right.

The upside to dating a friend is that there are no awkward first/second dates.  You don't need to worry about finding out weird deep dark secrets that throw you for a loop.  You slip right into a pragmatic relationship that's as comfortable as an old pair of jeans.

The downside is, of course, that the giddiness of the first/second date never happens.  There are no deep dark secrets and all-night phone sessions.  You slip right past all the crazy topsy-turvy parts into an old pair of jeans.  That's the trade-off.

I know I like surprises and I like not having to make decisions... but at the same time, I get impatient if nothing happens or if I think we've wasted money/time.  I'm a difficult woman.  I get angry over stupid little things, I avoid situations where I know I'll be vulnerable, I'm picky about where I live, what I wear, who I'm with and how I spend my time.  I don't know how to give up control without becoming neurotic.

Honestly, I don't know how he puts up with me.  He once said I was the most put-together woman he's ever met.  I wondered how long I could I pull off that image before it all fell apart.  Answer?  Not very long.  I like that he's seen me puffy from sleep and without makeup, that he's watched me struggle with technology and has had the sense to not tell me to relax, that he doesn't judge my OCD list-making.

I'm not very artiuclate when it comes to love.  I'll leave it to Edna St. Vincent Millay to express it best:

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Happy Anniversary.