She Was.

I am taken by surprise (almost always) by the emotional reaction people have to me. I think that if I am honest, if I make things simple, if I formulate rules and ways of being, if I seek their agreement, finetune the parameters, if I am clear about what I want and what I am willing to offer, then there can be no surprises and no disappointments, no accusations, no recriminations, no ugliness. And I am cautious, I really am. I check and check again and I stress my position and still there is the expectation that I am changeable, malleable, fixable. And I am not. Any of those things. I am honest. From the very start. And then I am humiliated by his drunkedness at work, infront of co-workers, infront of others, I am followed through the city, I am yelled at, I am accused – I do not know how to love. I will not allow involvement. What is wrong with me that I will not love. Why will I not open my heart. We should be together. Why will I not be together. Why wont I just let him love me. (None of these are questions. They are statements of fact.) And my face is grabbed, over and over, my chin, my arm, look at me, why won’t you look at me. And I’ve been here before. What is wrong with me? And don’t I understand that he just wants a simple life, to be happy, and then he slaps his own forehead and yells ‘I am not complicated – like you’, and a tear rolls down my held cheek because this is not the first time that this accusation has been hurled at me – this complicated person, and I am not crying because I am sad in this moment, I am crying for all the other times that this hurt. And I say nothing, because what is there really to say, I want to be safe and I need to find someone to be next to, I need to not be alone with this person, and only then can I say, that this, this is why I am not open, this is why I will never be with a man like you. Again. I do not know why I provoke this reaction. It is not the first time. And I feel stupid for being open, even the little that I am.

I am taken by surprise by my own reaction. I do not feel fear. I do not feel hurt. I do not feel sad. I recognise that this is a situation that I must fix. That’s it. I seek out the person who can help me, the person that I love, the person who I want, and I tell him. I see his eyes narrow, and I am not sure if he is angry because I am sleeping with someone that isn’t him, or if he is angry because I was hurt, because I was frightened. He puts his arm on my shoulder and tells me it’s not my fault. I am not surprised that he knows what I need. I am not surprised when he asks me to leave it to him. I am not surprised when the situation is resolved within minutes. I am not surprised that blows are traded and I am protected. This is the nature of our relationship. He protects me. I protect him. Our understanding of one another allows us anything. Everything. We hurt each other and we fix each other and we never, ever mention the hurts. This is real.

I am surprised to find myself saying that I love him. But I do. He is so wholly of my own, though he isn’t, not at all.