Unfiltered

Everything I Ever Wanted, Plus the One I Didn’t

July 5, 2018.SG.5 Likes.0 Comments

I always said I’d never date an army boy. It was never a lack of respect or some inability to honor their courage and sacrifice. It was selfish. It was me knowing I couldn’t handle living in fear everyday, the fear of the call, the one everyone dreads, the knock on the door, losing the man I spent so long finding. I didn’t think I could handle that fear. I didn’t think I could go through my days that way.

It took me 28 1/2 years before I would call any man my boyfriend. I had this scale, the 1 hour, 10 hour, 100 hour scale. Most people didn’t make it through 1 hour, few of those made it through 10, but he’s the only one who made it through 100. I knew early on if he ever brought up ‘the talk’, I would say yes, I would call him my boyfriend. And when he did, he did it because we had to know now. He was planning on moving clear across the country. But I couldn’t lose him. I didn’t want to.

I had never understood how people had that giddy first date feeling, or a perfect first kiss until I met him, until I was so happy and smiley that people asked me what was wrong with me the next day. I never saw him coming. I walked into that bar to meet him thinking it couldn’t possibly turn into anything. Ironically, so did he. Me and the army boy. Well, former army, so I thought I was at least safe there, I thought I was free of the fear I had been so afraid of.

When he went to move, to train for his new job, he told me about the risks, but all the while still protecting me from them. And I chose to ignore it, because I knew I couldn’t leave him, not this one, with his blue eyes and his strong character, his determination, his intelligence, and the way he could touch me. No one could ever touch me.

To clarify, I understand social norms. Girls hug, its expected, but even hugging my best friends made me want to pull away. My parents hugging me made my skin crawl. But not him. There was a comfort in his hand on my knee, of sitting in his arms, some strange feeling of home, a home I had never felt before. So when he went to move so far away, I knew I couldn’t let it go. Where else would I fit so perfectly into the nook of someone’s shoulder? I never had before. Where else would I finally feel my mind slow just by leaning my head on someone’s chest? Nothing and no one had ever made my mind so still.

I couldn’t let go.

And so he moved, but he somehow managed to stay closer, just a quarter day’s drive. Not too bad for someone who’s lived the way I have. I don’t think either of us really thought we could make it, I mean with only 2 months under our belt, he was gone. And yet, three months later we were even better.

And then it happened.

The first scare. The day I had to admit his work was dangerous, the day I had to realize that, without him at home next to me, some big part of me would always be waiting for that call. I couldn’t go there then though. I was more worried, concerned, watching him to make sure he was really safe, really through the scary part. It didn’t hit me until later. This was now my life. That one thing I said I could never do. That’s what I was now doing.

Here’s the problem with living in fear of losing your significant other, your other option is to walk away and lose them. So either lose them or live in fear of losing them. Some choice. And yet no choice at all. It’s all about time. Would I rather have it and accept the risk, or would I rather try to protect myself from what may come, and lose what might have been?

One of my closest friends told me the other day that I was losing myself in him, and maybe she was right, but maybe not in the way she meant it or in the way I took it. I have lost myself. I lost myself in the fear of losing him. I lost myself I the debate of running from him, of taking the pain now to protect myself from a greater pain later. The problem with that is the ‘what if’. To walk away will always leave me wondering what if. What if this was it? What if I could have handled it? What if I never again find a man who is everything I ever dreamed I wanted as a child, and everything I didn’t believe could exist in one person as a adult? What if everything and every move, and every choice, and everything that crushed me to give up was just to be led to what I used to dream of, but gave up on? What if he was my chance to find my hope?

It’s a long road to come to realize that we really are forced to let go of our fear. It’s another to find something that resonates deep enough to really make us follow through. Pain I have always survived, there’s really no choice. The sun will keep rising no matter how many tear fall or how broken a heart may be. One singular person’s pain will not stop the world from turning or collapse the universe. But the overwhelming power of what if is the one thing I know is deadly enough to stop my universe, the one thing I know I can’t let go of or recover from. So there was my answer. There is my choice. Seemingly more of a non-choice, but a decision in its own right. Now all thats left is to rid myself of the fear, to learn to live in each moment as he does.

There’s a strength in him that resonates with me, one that I can only hope rubs off on me, because I will sure need it to. Same with his fearlessness, his bravery, all his traits that bring him to his new work, and all the things that I will need to survive it. Because without him is just to survive, but with him, maybe I finally live.

Categories: Relationships

Add comment

Proudly powered by WordPress & Hedy Theme by IshYoBoy.com