Monday, August 23, 2010

I Live For You

I pulled my car into the parking space in front of our apartment and realized something about myself.  You are what I live for...not anything else. 

I've never been very goal oriented.  I was listed as undecided for a semester of college and my parents were pleasantly surprised when I graduated...especially on time.  I've never had much of a clue of what I wanted to do with my life.  I never had objectives regarding any of the relationships that I've had. 

I've meandered from relationship to relationship looking for the one in particular that would complete me.  I still haven't found it, but I've never been happier with you by my side.

Do you remember when we first met? It was a hot summer day. The North Carolina sun was beating down on us with a vengeance. You were hot and tired. You collapsed at my feet and I knew we'd be together for the rest of your life. Even then, you were dramatic and acting as though you'd be handed an Oscar at any moment...some things never change.


I think about everything that we've done together and can't help but smile.  The parties and barbecues where we've made appearances, the classes we've taught, and even the birthdays we celebrated...it's all been memorable because of you. 

I don't know what the future holds for us.  I know that I've made a lot of mistakes in our lives, but I also know that you'll never want for anything, I'll always be there for you, and you'll always be my baby. 

We've allowed others to join our family, but it'll always just be you and me.  I live for you, Grace.
 

Monday, August 9, 2010

All Because of You

I woke up today and was reminded of all that I've done wrong by the disappointment in your eyes. It's okay…really it is. I live with this very, mentioned disappointment every day. When I open my own eyes, I realize the same disaster that has become my life…the mistake that I've become. I don't know when I began to wonder if I was a setback for you. There was the realization of that fact and now I've gotten to the point that I just don't care.


I think about what I've given up for your happiness and want to go back and do it all over again. I want to go back before I put you before me, but then I wonder if I ever put myself first. I've always wanted to and have always had that objective, to put myself first in at least one scenario, but I fail at even the simplest of tasks.

The physical pain isn't what pushes me over the edge. I know that very few people can even relate to that…especially not you. At least the pain reminds me that I'm still alive. I understand that I should be grateful. Things could definitely be worse. I could already be crippled. I could already be completely done. If that were true, I would no longer have to work so hard at just living. I wouldn't have to rediscover my own defeat by looking at you every day.

Some days, I am filled with my own sense of self worth and drive to be everything to everyone (best wife, best teacher, best pet owner), but most days I am relentlessly aggravated by my own inability to live up to even the lowest of standards. As the days grow into one another, this pattern continues…my standards lower and yet I can't bring myself to live up to them.

So, I continue to fantasize about how to get myself out of this mess that I consider my life. It's my own fault, I know, but the coward in me looks for others to blame. I'd like to blame you. Overall, I feel as though my options are few. I could run away, leaving you, everyone and everything else behind. I could end it all, but the guilt behind this option sinks in and makes me feel even worse than I already do. So, I know I'll stay and try to make the best of it because I'm afraid of confrontation and I'm just plain lazy.

Do you ever notice how different I have become? How I have no desire to talk with random strangers anymore? How I don't want to hear everyone's life story? I'm not the person you fell in love with and there's no going back.

I walk alone in all this. You tend to think I'm just being dramatic, when to me this life has become as painful and pointless as brushing a decayed tooth. So, I continue to push on, faking every day as though my life depends on it, which, in a way, I guess it does.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

The Date

This date I will always remember.  From television shows, movies and stories from family and friends, I know I am supposed to always remember this date.  I need to be able to recall this date at any given moment, no matter what I am thinking and no matter what I am doing.  All of this doesn't scare me because I've always been pretty good with dates.  Wednesday, June 11, 2008 is the date. 

At the magistrate's office, the only appointment we can get is for 10am.  Apparently, June is a pretty popular month for weddings.  Choosing this month is the only typical thing about this wedding.  May and I have never done anything typical.  There's nothing typically female about her.  Oh, yes, there is.  She paints her toenails.  That's the only typical female thing she does.  The color is always black.  She says because it goes with everything, but I know it's a hang over from her high school days when she befriended  dark, disturbed and restless teenagers, read Anne Rice and listened to a lot of Seattle grunge. 

As I look at her now, a bystander would never know those things about her.  She's dressed in a champagne-colored vintage slip dress and her black painted toenails are covered with matching champagne-colored ballet slippers.  Her long dark hair is pulled back in a knot.  She's taken out her multiple earrings and replaced them with one pair of pearls that her parents had given her when she graduated from the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs!).

I will remember this date for the rest of my days, but I will also remember this moment as May and I wait for the magistrate's assistant to locate our paperwork.  Being an American male about to commit to one vagina for the rest of my life, I've been harassed by countless others about this fact.  It's just what you have to endure when you get hitched.  I always smile and nod, but cannot even begin to explain why I want to spend the rest of my life with May.  She asks me questions like these and I never come up with answers that suit her.  I'm not much of a talker or a thinker.  May over talks and over thinks everything. 

There are a thousand little reasons why I want to be with her.  May thinks I'm funny and is generally good for my mediocre ego.  She loves animals.  I had to be approved by a small family of pets that she cares for.  That's wrong, she doesn't just care for them.  They are her life.  When we started dating, she was more concerned about whether they liked me than whether I liked them.  She knew I could be replaced.  Obviously, I got lucky and they approved.  She loves to watch movies and read books, but she reads and watches the same ones over and over again.  She quotes lines from both and can't deny that she just loves words. 

She cares way too much what others think and worries incessently about everything, but there are moments when she breaks into a genuine smile and doesn't look like she's carrying the weight of the world around with her.  Those are the times that I wait for...those times are even more exciting when I am the reason for the smile.  It's what I've learned that I live for lately.  I do a lot of existing which includes work, sleep and repeat, but, in there sometimes, I can help May smile.  

Our relationship isn't perfect.  She makes me crazy more days than not.  Sometimes, I wonder if I hang around because I'm curious as to what she'll do or say next.  I guess it's love.  I've never been in love and I choose to not think too much about it.  As the magistrate walks in with every legal document known to make this thing legitimate, I look at May and realize that, no matter what happens, I will never forget this date.