How much are you worth?

I have a new personal mantra which I like to share with everyone I meet, in hopes that they will benefit from my new found self assurance. It is simple:

You are worth it.

Whatever it is. That nap you never take, that vacation you've been planning, that alone time in the bath tub, the steak dinner you fix yourself.

But more importantly :Love.

You are worthy of love. You are worthy of respect. You are worth being treated as well as you treat others.

I have adopted this new saying to get myself through some really difficult recent events. But I am pawning it off on you so that you can make better personal decisions about how you use your time.

Is your time worth being beat? Is your time worth working for someone who doesn't appreciate your skills?

If you love someone and you want to spend the rest of your life with them, you are worth having the same devotion from them. If you don't, you need to ask yourself 'Am I worth it?' Am I worth love? The answer, of course, should be yes, yes I am.

I thought about this as I was reading a friends blog. The same young man has been flip flopping his feelings as frequently as I change my underwear on this girl for atleast 6 years now. And all I can think of is: You are worth it. You are worth love. You are worth marriage if that's what you want. You are worth the lifestyle you want.

Why can't this girl see it? Maybe because she has been lied to all these years. Maybe because she has been told to wait her turn. Maybe becuase he has convinced her that this is all she deserves. Or maybe because she never asked herself 'What am I worth?'

Hemingway's blank verse

" "
! : , .
, , , .
, ; !
,

"I think you need desire"
Desire! For what is desire: To want, hoard and miss.
And I think you need it to make you feel whole, lovely, human, &c.
Desire, you say; But what you mean is lust!
And what of it, Sweet love

Conflicted.

I had a minor panic attack last night.

It all started Saturday, when I got the baby look. You know the baby look. You've gotten it before. That look when a single woman is holding a baby that she gets from the mother of the baby, her SO, some other male of procreating age that says, simultaneously, "You look good with a baby" and "My, wouldn't I like to be held like that" It is a subtle, yet often times creepy look that freaked me out and sent me into a downward tailspin of conflicting desires.

I should be happy. I should be married and pregnant and baby full and happy. I am happy, but I am getting ready to get divorced from a man who promised me the world and gave me bills instead. He promised the world that I wanted, or thought I wanted.

A world where a woman could be just that: a woman. A world where I could work hard at child rearing and house hold duties including but not limited to pie baking, gardening, canning, quilting, and floor-mopping. A world where I would respect my husband and in return he would make the best decisions for our growing family, with me first in his mind always.

Instead, I am starting all over again, with a Boy who has never promissed me anything. A Boy who says simply "I love you" not "I will love you forever and you will be my queen and we will live forever in our children."

Can I really be in love after all this? Can I really forgo everything I wanted and live without the dreams I used to have? Can I really finish school, start a new profession and fall in love with someone who is totally different than anything I have ever wanted?

I am willing to try. But I honestly don't know. I am scared. I am hurt. I am in love.

Within a secret, without a cause.

A noteworthy passage from Benny's diary about something she misses most of all.

"... but what of it? So what if I am never loved again? would that be the end of Benny? No, I would go on. I would continue to exist. I would continue to breath and live and write and have desires. So what if they were unfulfilled?

I don't miss DR. I miss the prospect of love that DR represented. DR and I had the same last name. DR and I said that we were in love. So what if he never meant it. I meant it. I loved him. I loved the idea of being with someone forever, even if he treated me abominably. Maybe I deserved it. But enough of that.

I miss the fact that we might have been a family, a real family. I miss the prospect of children. With each passing day I think 'what if i would have put up with it for another month, or year? Then maybe I would have something to show for it' But that is crazy. Are you a family just because you have a child? Are you worthy just because you have a child?

But I can't dream of children again. Or a family. Or a marriage. I just can't. A man like Young warrants atleast that. Atleast the love of an unwounded woman. Atleast a woman who could trust him enough to give him all of her dreams. As I am now, the experience with DR has me so fearful of falling for treachery and perfidiousness that I run from Young everytime he might love me. Young does loves me, I know it. But at what price and why?"

Oh Benny, will you ever relent?

A soft down pillow with your arm propping it up.

The Boy and I talked for hours last night like we love to do and here are some of the more simple things we came up with:

1. Love is as easy as you make it.
2. Communication is key.
3. Count to ten before you assume they are late/annoying you/uncaring on purpose.
4. Forget what you think you know.
5. This is new territory. Love this person as if you have never been hurt before.
6. Not everyone is a psychopath hell bent on destruction.
7. Love is creationism.
8. If it is important to you, it is important for me to listen to you.
9. Love can mean swapping beers.
10.Babies are a product, but not an accessory.
11.Hard work is something to be revered.
12.Small doses of loving affection serve their purpose well.
13.Love is only as demonstrative as you are observant. (See number 9)

He's not the world. He's just a boy.

A boy who treats me well an listens to my fears and joys all the same and wants me to be happy and is pleased to tell me every thought he thinks because I want to hear it and know it and hold it in my mind, valued as a diamond in the rough landscape of the mind and a heart that has been beaten. I wear this diamond of thoughtfulness and sentimentality on the ring finger of desire, never taking for granted the simple love, the quiet love, the no nonsense love he has for me. Always remembering that to be loved is a gift to be cherished and to love a God-given right to those with a heart. He may not buy me flowers, or jewelry or name a boat after me but this Boy, this man of love says "Thank you" and touches my shoulder and asks me what i need to be happy and where I want to go for the night and kisses me as if he loves the privilege.

He looks at me and I can almost hear him say "I do love her."

And I fall asleep thinking, "He does love me."

Blurring the Barrier Between Benny and Being

A continuance.

"So... You love me?" Benny tilted her head. Her brown hair fell flat over her shoulder. It had seemed to be the millionth sunny day they had spent together and like the hundreds of times before this, he fell in love again with the glitter that seemd to beam light from the tips of her soft, straight locks. That something so simple as hair could captivate him was something beyond expectation.

"Yes, I love you." And everything you are whether you like it or not, he thought.

"But what would you want with me, Young? After everything you've seen--"

I have seen love.

"What have I seen, Benny?"

"The things DR did to me, to everyone around me." Why would you want some one even he couldn't love, she thought.

"What has DR got to do with anything?" He has so much of her, he thought.

"I thought you would think I were crazy for loving him. For being sad when he left. For--For falling for it..." I think I am crazy, But I have no choice but to live with myself, she thought.

"Oh, I do think you're crazy. But I don't think you give yourself enough credit." Love me, he thought.

"Oh Young, you're crazier than I am." And I love you, she thought.

More night terrors...

For the first time in a long time, I woke up out of a dead slumber last night to racing thoughts and a pounding heart. I didn't know where I was, who I was, or that I had been sleeping. I may have even screamed a little.

In the wake of my best friends engagement and my never ending legal entanglements with my own failed marriage, wedding thoughts, doubts, and anxieties have been lurking around in my brain. Mounting up to hellish night terrors of a particular sort: dreams about weddings.

Fine, say what you want. Tell me you love weddings, the cake the flowers the dresses, I don't care. I hate weddings and I always have. They make me nervous and frankly, I think they are tawdry and gawdy. Tell me I am just jaded, but I truly refute the fact that I only dislike wedding because mine was such a bust; oh no friend. I didn't like yours ten years ago, and I will not like the next 25 I attend in my lifetime.

What was so wrong with my wedding, you ask? Should we start with the groom and end with the dress?

Here's what I always wanted:

I wanted and off-white even champagne dress with a simple wrap design. I wanted my long brown-black hair to be in big sexy curls and a tiny tiara holding in a simple veil down the back. No train, no frill. Just simple. Red roses and candles everywhere. Ladies in Red for my processional. Men in red vests. My groom in a champagne vest with a single red rose in his pocket. Night time, quiet, reserved ceremony. Before pictures of my mom centering my tiara and fluffing my dress. After pictures of my groom holding me tight for a sweet kiss. An all white square simple cake with red roses trailing down the side. A champagne fountain.

Since I knew I would never ever ever in my wildest dreams have precisely what I wanted, I said nothing. I wanted nothing. I literally wanted to go to the court house, say thank you and be done with it. And then return to work.

Heres what I got:

I wore my prom dress to a church I had never attended but twice and was wed in front of people I barely knew. My dad wore a hawaiian shirt to give me away. My mom made the flowers, which were beautiful, no lie. One bridesmaid, my new sister in law. (Not the initial choice, she ran away a day before the ceremony) I made the carrot cake and iced it with blue icing (to match my prom dress) the day before. My groom cried like a baby and didnt understand a word the pastor was saying. Then he got so drunk, he didn't sober for four full days after the wedding.

My night terror was just that, only worse. I was facing marrying my now nearly ex husband again, but I was the me now. The me that is terrified of him. The me that gets sick everytime I hear his voice. I was preparing to knowingly marry the devil. And the dress wasn't much better. I actually, in my dream could not find an outfit to wear. I was busy trying on skirts and dresses I own now with the knowledge I now possess about him and us and this and the whole time I am thinking, "Can I survive a jump out of this window?"

What saved my phantom marriage? Rain. It started raining in my dream and the courtyard flooded. I swam out of the place, everyone looking for me, creaming my name, lamenting the ruin of my wedding day. While I am thinking, "God I hope they don't notice me..."

I know it's childish, but it is just another thing. It is just another sign that I made a huge mistake and it's not over yet. It is just another sign that I should still be sleeping alone. It is just another ulcer. Another headache. Another tear.

And when I say I'm never going to marry again and the Boy cringes inside, I just add it to the growing list of why I am so inadequate for... well, for anyone.

The more I like him, the more I want to run at him screaming, "Don't you know what they say about me? Haven't you heard the rumors?"

Doesn't he know my own family doesn't think me worthy of marriage?
Doesn't he know, before I was born, my father cast me off?
Hasn't anyone told him I am "certified pre-owned?"
Hasn't he guessed by now that I will never be right again?
I will never not have nightmares about crack and whores and weddings and the devil.
I will never love him with a full heart because I haven't a full heart.

I know I am jumping the gun, but just as you have an obligation to warn people that you have an STD or that you've been to jail, Am I not also obliged to mention that I am not whole?

That someone has made off with half of me?
That I have issues?
That I might, for the rest of my life, hate weddings?

Am I obliged to say, years before we're ever ready to be truly in love, years before we want eachother as permanent fixtures in eachothers lives and hearts, that I may not be as available as you want?

That I may change my mind, but as of right now I never want to get married or have babies or live with anyone else ever again?

And is that even true?

Can I overcome this? Can I love the Boy fully and rightly? Can I things stay this perfect, this warm, this free and easy? Can he always love me without expecting anything from me? Anything much greater than a hug and a kiss and "I love you" and "Have a nice day at work"?

Because that I have. I have love. Just not what I think he deserves. Not new love. Or completly devoted love. A quiet, second hand heart that wants him but knows too much to demand him.

Help. I love a boy but I am haunted.

Benny, The truth about her demise

"So this is it then? You're just going to walk away from everything we have and forget about me? Forget about everything you said you wanted, every dream we built, ever kiss I ever gave you?" DR was an emotional man, set on a hair trigger for disaster. She backed away from him slowly, refusing to look him in the eyes as she had for months now.

If she did, what would she have seen? Would he have appeared less mad than he sounded? Would he have broken down, asked for forgiveness, and held her like she needed? Would she have believed it if he had?

"I just-" She rallied her senses and took a deep breath while he filled up the silence-

"You just what? You just don't love me, You just want your own way? You are just everything I ever thought you would be? You just want out?" He fired so quickly, she could barely see straight let alone think straight.

"I just want you to give me a moment." Another tear, then another, then she felt that feeling once again. That feeling that starts at the base of everything you are and comes out of your ears. That pressure. That moment when you are so emotionally distraught that you can feel your physical systems shutting down. All the blood races to you heart and mind and you are incapacitated from the inside out. That moment when you can feel your intestines kneading themselves and your stomach falling.

That same feeling she felt every time he hit her, every time he left her, every time he told her what she was worth and what she owed him and what he knew of her and what he wanted from her and what he knew she would never be.

That same feeling crept up from the pit of her stomach every time she looked in his eyes and saw a half crazed demon. Every time she realized that she had made a mistake. Every time she thought about all she had seen and heard from him that had made her realize he was the devil or at least possessed by one.

It didn't matter. Breathing didn't matter. Loving didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Like so many times before, her sobs overtook her and all she wanted was to lay down and to die. To lay down and to compost into the ground and never live again. To stop hurting and stop living and stop loving him.

But DR relented and left her to cry alone. Which hurt most of all.

Words for thought.

I just read my first blog ever and giggled slightly.

What was I thinking?

It was crap.

But I suppose I have to write crap to get to where I am today. Where am I though? Am I any more of a skilled writer? Does what I say now have any more weight than what I said then? Do I care?

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about what qualifications a freelance writer would need to have in order to make money off of their pieces. I secretly decided that they would need to be a phenomenal writer, but lets face it, you need to have more than just literary skills. Persistence and a college degree in journalism to say the least are the necessary tools for a skilled linguist.

Which basically means I write crap. Unskilled, uneducated, unadulterated crap. But do I care?

Why do I write if I know in ten years no one will read it?

Because I must.

I just must. I must or I'll bust. I must because I lust for words that fill a need.

That. That right there was crap. But I had to. Something inside me said, "Go for it, Super Footwear Girl. Just do it, because it is what you do."

I wonder how many other things I do in my life that are comperable crap but that I just must do?

Do I love as poorly as I write and with as much importance on humanity?

Everytime I say "No thank you" when a cashier asks me if I need a bag, is my conservation of plastic a useless as my words?

Is my speeking as ill used as my writing?

Or do you care? Do you read this every time I make a new post and without an exception leave with something new? A new perspective, a new thought, a new view of me or the world through me?

Do I care? Should I care?

Should it matter to me that when you read it you think "Well thats four and a half minutes of my life I'll never get back?"

Or should I write because this is my life and no one else will put words to it if I don't?

Hold your own, know your name, go your own way...

Thursday Thirteen... on a Tuesday because I rule the world of Louise.

Thirteen things I have randomly thought of lately that I don't care whether or not you apreciate.

1. My Last name. If everything goes well, the end of next month will find me divorced... and yet again nameless. You probably don't take your last name very seriously, but I do. Your last name identifies you. It tells people whether your Welsh or Italian. How often you introduce yourself using your full given name denotes how proud you are of your heritage and family. Your last name is your first introduction to a big bright world. Before they've named you, it is more likely than not that one thing is for sure: Your Last Name. Who are you? Mr. Smith. Or Mrs. Smith. Who am I? Who knows, without a last name? Don't get me wrong, the divorce will be a huge relief. But seriously? Four name changes in four year- I'm worn out. And don't even ask to see my signature. Half the time I forget how it begins.

2. Le Divorce. I'm anxious. And happy. Relieved. And scared. I have had about a hundred dreams and ten times as many daydreams about it and everyone is the same. Judge Lamdin asks me to describe our marriage. I excuse my mom from court, because even in my dreams I can't put her through everything that truely happened. Then I cry. And there is no one there but Judge Lamdin to comfort me. (Yes call me obsessed, but I like the guy. He is fair and dad-like.) In every case, Mr.Not-such a great hubby drops and anvil on my head. Or holds me at knife point. So much for dreams...

3. The Boy. Who is amazing and awesome and scary in his own right. I just... love him. In a weird way, a weird natural way that makes me never feel anxious. He is just there. Which is kind of intimidating. It's strange to think that when he takes me out he is thinking of my hapiness. It's strange to think that when he asks me if I like something, he is filing my answer away for the next time. It's strange to think that when I am silent and content, he is thinking that maybe I need something or want something or what would make me happiest next. It's strange to think that he wants me to sing not to glorify him but to insure my hapiness... All very peculiar.

4. Writing. In general. I want to do it. I want to commit to it. But I never can seem to. I can never seem to think that what I write is important or skilled enough to compose a full novel. But I see it when I close my eyes.

5. The Boys friends. I almost don't want to like them. They are supremely awesome and different and just all around nice. He knows a lot of real people. You know, people who really smile at you when they shake your hand and who really say "Wow, what a nice girl" when you walk away. People who really like you just because The Boy likes you and smiles when he talks about you, so you must be a good person. So what if I love this whole network of people and what if he takes it all away one day? What if he doesn't love me and then I have to forget those people? Those real, vibrant, different, fun, weird, inquisitive people?

6. Music. And my song. I really love it. I just love singing. I love even more the thought of enjoying what comes out of my mouth. I don't so much care what you think, I like it.

7. I love College. I can't believe it took me this long, I feel like a dolt for having waited. But everything I needed to get here I have remembered and everything is falling together perfectly and I love it. It is perfect for me. I can't stop thinking about lab and language and math homework. And, best of all, I am succeeding.

8. I miss getting dirty. With paint that is. I need to get a good set of oil paints and go to town. Any donations, call me :)

9. Living at home. I moved out for a reason and that reason punches me in the face atleast once a day. They drive me crazy. But I don't have a choice so I shouldn't whine...

10. Baby Marshmallows. If you know what this means, you are entirely too close to my shoulder when I write in my journal. Or you're "Anne," In which case, pray for me.

11. I want to live inside you where ideas grow and start and flourish and grace the lips that I love from the inside out. I want to touch you close and tight where you like it most. I want to spend a day with you and here you and see you and know you like you were me and we were one. And then, to retreat, having known you, having had you, having felt you that close to me and in my heart so far that I can't hardly mistake you, I want love.

12. Scholarships, deadlines, bills, loans, credit cards and much much more.

13. In case you never knew, Sex.

Sex is an emotion in motion.

Here's something that crossed my mind over the past few years.

Why am I so afraid of Sex?

Why am I so scared to talk about it, even here where i am free from identity?

I can even us the fictional building blocks i have constructed to carry out my thoughts and dreams and malingering thoughts about sexuality and sensuality, but I always avoid it. Why?

Why am I often times veiled, incomplete, half represented half admonishing my own flesh?

Perhaps because when you read this you often times judge me.

Perhaps because I am just naturally shy about Sex and all things relative to the most inner parts of my soul.

Perhaps because when I do, you always think too much or too little of it.

Sex is important.
I do think about it.

I am not a drone, programmed to ignore my own instincts. Yes, for sure I am a woman. Yes, my life is extremely complicated and therefore not conducive to the time needed to think about, discuss and theorize sex and sexual appetite.

So there you have it. I want to talk. About Sex. About the dirt and grit and sweat that goes with it. About missing it. About wanting it. About getting it.

I want the freedom to talk about these things while knowing you won't hate me. Or leave me because of it. I want to know you will still love me and stay tuned to my show even though I am being honest to a fault. I want you to express how you really feel too though. i don't want you to hurt me while doing it, but i care about you and I want your feedback. Just not your judgement.

If anything, this thing, this journal de vie, is mine. It's about my life. And my life is not loveless. It is not exanimated. It is not colorless. It is not flatline.

I am vibrant and demanding and loud and happy and when I cry it is real pain and when I laugh you can hear it in the stars and when I kiss you lightly in the dusk because my heart tells me I have no choice you can feel my soul brimming beneath my soft lips. And I want you. And I want to sing to you, and write to you, and love you.

So just take me. Take me for what I am, sex and all. Please?

Now that I am done being real, I can be Young.

A lot of complete sentences to finish and incomplete thought that may have hurt or surprised you.

I have said all of these things to you in a half a dozen incomplete thoughts, but when I am alone, when it is just me and the monitor and keyboard, I can tell you everything, even the things I know you don't want to hear.

Like the fact that I really like you. And I knew I would. I also knew that this time would be different. This time I wouldn't cry. Or want you. Or make you into something you're not. This time, I took you for what you are worth. A decent guy with a quiet way who just likes me.

But now you don't "just like me." Now you don't just want to hang out with me sometimes when the mood strikes you and delight in my company or get bored of it and drop me off when you're done. Now you don't just want to chat every now and again and introduce me as just me and talk to other girls at bars with me a a security blanket.

Now you really think I'm something. Now you really say meaningful things to me. And you compliment me. And you are proud to take me out and talk me up and share me. Now you love me. And you are making propositions to love me for more than just today. For more than just the great quiet times.

But what if you don't?

What if I lose my luster?

What if I lose my mind?

What if when I am no longer this cool unfeeling quiet controlled woman you realize you never really even liked me?

So what?

So I really like you, that's what. You are so different than what i expect from life and love. You aren't a tiger, ready to pounce with passion and grief. You aren't a bear, cuddly looking with a fierce hunger. You certainly are not a fish, flaky and dry. I don't know what you are. You're a Boy.

A Boy I really like. A boy who I want to see happy. And well off.

What if you being happy means you not being with me?

I know, I've said that before to you. I have told you and cried my one tear and moved on. But you don't know the me before you. I me that was scared to be alone. And needed to cling to the idea of someone greater than I thought I was. Someone who would carry me and protect me.

You know the new me. The timid but awakened me. The me that can read people and who knows what she sees, even the most evil, is true. The me who has learned the difference between KNOWING a person is truly worthy and good at heart and BELIEVING that the best of a person.

With this new found self worth and agenda, I no longer need someone like you. I can now truly just want someone like you. Someone who isn't afraid to just be with me. Someone who doesn't own me. Or restrain me. Or need me.

The new me is also much more realistic. So what if we're not in a love to write home about? So what if we don't spend every waking moment together or wanting to be together?We are still a valuable asset to each other whether we have to be sitting close enough to touch or not. Whether you say at every moment "I love you more than soggy peaches."

Realism is sometimes disappointing and messy though ,isn't it? Being realistic is saying to yourself "There are things about me that this person hates. And there are things about them I'm not too fond of." Realism is compromise. It's realizing that no, you can't always have every quality in a person you like.

Life is the often times never ending search for that one other person for which you provide the necessary means for homeostasis.

That one other person whom you don't excite into a fluster, or sedate into a stupor. The person who you don't wait up for, because they are always home when they say they will be. Not the person you trust with your life but the person you trust to take you out next week and kiss you softly and say "I'm glad to see you. Let's go get a drink"

Real life is knowing that you are free to go. And i am free tog o. If things get too messy or too hard or just plain uncomfortable or boring or if you want something more or less out of life, you are free. You are free to love me as much and for as long as you would like.

I am free to see the insanity in holding someone forever. The utter silliness in the idea that there is that one person to whom you should shack your piece of life to and become one with for all eternity. Call it jaded, call it dismal, call in unchristian. But I don't expect you to love me and only me forever. I'm no longer blinded by my need for validation through another.

I am me and you are you and as long as we work out, we will keep this train going.

And, by having said all of this, I hope with all my tiny can-do heart, I hope you know how much I do esteem and value you. How much I want for your happiness. How much I see in you. How much I love you.

But I love you with a grown up heart. A battered, war-torn, sometimes sad heart. A heart that needs nothing but itself to evolve, but wants your heart near to compare notes, see the same pictures from different points, to hold.

I do love you. And I am excited to be in love with you. But I should hope I would never want to own you.

Good Timing.

"Are you sure?"

"Benny what do you mean 'am I sure'?" Who says that? Who thinks that? Why did I say that?

"I just mean are you sure you really feel that way? I would hate for you to say it and not mean it about 800 miles more than I would hate it if you never said it. Please, YOung I just... I just don't..."

Oh God. What had he done? Had he ruined it? Had he changed everything? Had he ruined that sweet soft moment with something he could never take back? Had he damaged that easy free way Benny looked at him and thought about him and drove in the car aimlessly with him while listening to music he knew she didn't love just to make him happy. He was sure of what he said, but he should have been more sure of how she would have reacted.

"It's umm.. wow. No, sorry I didn't mean... I only meant- I just feel a lot for you Benny, you know that."

"Of course I do. I know it so well, and i feel the same, it's just... When people put it like that, Young, it aways goes wrong. Just plain wrong."

How could loving her be wrong, ever? He just kissed her forehead and made a move for the door, pushing back a secret tear and wanting to run.

"I would just rather say that you make me feel like summertime and lemonade and babies running through a sprinkler and the sunlight kissing our bare skin. Or like the moment just before the first snow fall when the whole world is holding their breath and waiting for the silence that follows waking up to a white morning in the middle of December. Or like the first welcoming hug after returning from a trip you didn't want to take in the first place. Please Young, I just don't ever want you to change your mind."

How could anyone stop loving her, ever? He just kissed her forehead and understood in the same moment what he was always feeling when she was in his arms. That she was sad and lonely and just wanted what he wanted to give her.

I want to write you a book.

About everything. Which would you prefer?

A coming of age story chronicling a girls navigation to adulthood while dealing with an oppressive father, stories of incest, all while supposing her mother of money laundering and other mafia-esque escapades.

An exhausting narrative of a kidnapped woman. Following her wedding day, she breaks down on the side of the road and is knocked unconscious and delivered to a labyrinth of evil by the man that stops to change her tire.

A love story about a man who waits patiently for the love of his life to find a happy medium between her split personalities. He's not looking for her to make a choice, he loves all of her. He just doesn't like it when Madison, her hard core porn personality forgets to untie him from the bed. Or when Toby, her tobacco chewing chauvinist smacks him and forces him to make her dinner.

You tell me. I probably won't listen, but i will try.

In closing your eyes; of things forgotten; Vulnerability.

"Benny," There was a sweet smile with nothing behind it. Nothing but a sweet afternoon kiss in the twilight after a sweet nothing day ended in a sweet nap.

"Yes Young?" She peered at him, eyes barely open, unfocused. Only able to detect his sweet nothing smile with his perfect teeth, she smiled back, rememebering that he'd just given her a sweet kiss, soft and light on her pillowy and delighted lips.

She, for once did not smile to make him smile. She smiled for Benny. She smiled from the inside out. She smiled to herself and thought, what beauty, what delight there is in falling comfortably asleep in someones arms and not fearing waking up with them. Be awoken with a soft sweet kiss in the orange glow of a perfect day.


*******************************


They chased lightening bugs and watched a storm roll over the far reaching plains as the daylight faded. She rocked in a swing as she looked at him, standing and picking at a piece of cornstalk.

She thought, how nice to frame him, just as he is now. Vulnerable. Watching. Seeking. Content in knowing whatever it is he is certain of. Deep in thought about a great deal of nothing so important.

She saw the turn of his hips under his khaki's. She noted to tweak of his muscle under his plaid shirt. She remembered how it felt just a few minutes ago to be so consumed in his arms but to be so herself, so free, so unowned. She noted this all and remembered it when things were unperfect. Not so sweet. Undone.

Because now things were just right. In the setting sun, inspite of the gloomy clouds and mosquitos, with ice cream running down her hands, while he smiled at interior dreams, yes- just right indeed.

Thank you Young, for sweet vulnerability.

"You could get me to agree to anything when I am just like this now..."
And your smile says, "But would you love me?"

We should leave our mark on peoples mirrors with lipstick.

And rearrange their furniture.

Ten thoughts about the Boy:

10. The boy and I had a delightful weekend doing Boy and Chick stuff.

9. I saw a paper on the floor of my car. It was a receipt. I picked it up. It said "Boy's Chick" in the Invoice area. I smiled.

8. He hates ice cream but indulges me.

7. He wants me to smile all the time. Not to make him happy, but to insure that I am happy.

6. I like when I reach over and run into him.

5. Maybe he's gay. Or maybe he just let's me annoy him and laugh with him and touch him and sing to him.

4. And I will sing to him, each spring to him, and worship the trousers that cling to him.

3. I want him to be happy. Thats why I smile at his corny jokes and wink when he looks at me, and send him bits of things I think he needs.

2. He doesn't love me. And I like that. Too often, to be loved is to be possessed.

1. He just is. And he lets me be.

Minding my own business, of which there is not much to mind

I had a strange moment full of eerie feelings this weekend.

On a delightful trip to Nowhere Virginia with the Boy who is slowly becoming someone, I got a simple text meesage that both hurt, shocked, offended and made me think.

It truly wasn't anything important or meaningful or surprising. It had nothing to do with gas prices or natural disasters or politics.

It was a hurtful thing said by an artful person with malice in their hearts who never says anything without a smile on their face or without following their insults with a giggle.

I won't tell you what they said because it should have never been said. It was an insult to my new found hapiness and an attempt to shame and mock me.

I am so sensitive to this that I cried. I bawled my little eyes out while the helpless Boy just shrugged and pet my arm and looked at me with big brown eyes telling me it wasn't that serious. Which maybe it wasn't. Maybe to you. Or her. Or him.

But to me, this person might as well have said,

"You are a sham. Everything you do is obnoxious and over the top. You do not deserve even a shred of peace. I hope that by saying this, I rob you of not only that which makes you smile, but your pride in yourself as well... I'm just kidding, of course, you should lighten up and learn how to take a joke."

The really horrible thing is that they didn't even say it to me. They said it to a friend. Who was visiting with someone I hardly know. Who knows nothing about me. This friend barely knows my situation.

The worst part? I wasn't there to defend myself. I wasn't there to refute the rumor. Or to support it. Or to cry and ask this person why would you embarass me in front of people I barely know, people you surely have nothing to do with?

Now I am just hurt. With no recourse. No avenue to say "Hey please don't treate me like this. It is unnacceptable and if you choose to do this, I will have nothing to do with you."

No way to let them know that their actions and words are often just plain hurtful, malicious, mean spirited and unnesessary.

And now maybe The Boy who is nothing if not tolerant and quiet and sweet and calming very well might think I am a little on the looney side. Maybe a little jilted. And I am. I am a little hurt. And slow to mend. And still picking myself up from the past few years.

So maybe this was a good thing.

Maybe him seeing me breakdown will show him that I am not impenetrable. That I am a real live girl full of songs and sweets and sentimentality.

Or maybe he'll just run the other way.

And maybe that's all I get.

When you think of her smiling, does it make you smile?

"What do you mean, Young?" She tilted her head and squinted against the bright sunlight that was invading his bedroom. From the corner or his pillow, he peeked out at her and saw a world enraptured in light.

"I mean, what do you want Benny?" It was always better to allow her to form her own opinion, especially about tender matters of the heart.

"What do I want? I want... I want..."

"Do you want to be happy?" It was always better to lead her heart to form the right opinion, especially about matters concerning her hapiness.

"Of course."

"Does he make you happy?" This was before he knew how utterly sad she truly was, and how it hurt her heart to lie to him.

"Yeah, of course."

"Well then be with him, but if he doesn't make you happy, if thinking of him doesn't make you smile, if kissing him doesn't make your heart fly, then I think it is time for you to reconsider..."

"Reconsider... what?"

It wasn't worth making her cry.

This was an opinion she would have to form her own.

A Chapter in Which Young John Lets Her Down.

I knew this was coming. I could feel it. Things can't be perfect forever.

Everyday, we make small sacrifices for eachother. We let die in our selves small desires the other doesn't share and fan flames of attraction that we share. She started wearing her hair down and reading modern literature for me, I shaved and watching romantic comedies for her. No, no they're not life. They're not moving across country or buying a house with a white picket fence, but they are the humble beginings to fruitful relationships.

These small allowances are the solid beginings to respect and dedication that two poeple need to communicate their deepest secrets and desires to one another. They are the starting line. The first stone to a long road of hapiness and simple attachment.

And then I let her down. And then I saw a small tear fall out of her eye and heard her sigh and I couldn't undo what I had done wrong. I couldn't make her feel that i never meant it. i couldn't show her how terrible i felt to have made her so.... so...so despondant. So untrusting of this thing we have. This "like" thing we are nursing. This relationship we are building on respect and comfort.

There she was, leaning on the edge of the bed, holding back a deluge of discontent and all I could do was sit in silence and wonder.

Why couldn't it be a simple fix?

I suppose if it were simple then she wouldn't be sad and I wouldn't feel as though everything I did and wanted for her were feeble attempts at making myself the man I thoght she wanted.

Maybe that's all we do. We just all of us pretend to love what the other loves and want what they want until neither one of us exist.

Or maybe we work together to become on flesh that wants one future and one life.

I wish I knew...

There is something that I do on occassion that gives me a great amount of comfort and healing.

Something that reminds me that things are not as bad as they once were, nor as good as they will be.

Sometimes, when I have a moment or two to remember, I like to stop and read my blog from this date last year, and the recorded years before.

One year on this day I was in love with Mr. Hamster and wanting nothing more than to be his everything and pack his lunches and iron his shirts and make his children.

Another year it was Mr. Future Millionaire who I will never stop loving, but whose love has changed a great deal over the last 7 years.

I can't even express how melancholy some of it makes me. The stupid fights i picked, the lame retreats I made into myself. The parties i threw or wanted to throw. Loves I lived and shouldn't have written about so that now i wouldn't regret their passing when I read about how well or unwell they really were.

I have loved a lost and written everything down...

These are the things that make people drink.