Subtle Like A T-Rex

We were at PLNU, sitting in my station wagon, listening to Tom Petty. You were on a break between classes. I wanted to tell you right then that I loved you but I didn’t. I felt it premature. I thought I might scare you so I said nothing. That’s not entirely true. We sat there and talked about...anything. Talking with you was always so easy...it just came naturally. I never felt like I had nothing to say to you because you inspired me. You trusted me. I could see that very clearly so I trusted you. I wanted to tell you everything and I wanted to know everything about you. I made some silly, and probably obvious, reference to the song that was playing (The Waiting) because I felt like I needed to wait to tell you that I was in love with you but still wanted to hint at it. I could barely contain myself because as we sat there talking that day...as we sat in the sun with the ocean breeze blowing in through the open windows, I knew I loved you. I knew it was you. I knew it was us.

I was so excited to be around you that I would drive up there a few times a week just to spend an hour with you. The best parts of those early days were the moments sitting there with you in one of our cars just talking or heading down to the cliff and throwing french fries to the seagulls who would catch them in mid air while we laughed. You made me feel invincible. I knew you were the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Still, at the same time, I was afraid. I was afraid because I was only 22 when we found each other. I knew it was going to be you and I forever but I was so young and distrustful of love. As my affection for you grew so did my fear of losing my self…a self that I thought I barely knew. So it might be fair to say I doomed us the moment I knew we were meant to be together. I wish I could have realized then that I wasn’t losing anything...but that I was finding myself with your help. Ultimately, I did know enough. I knew that I loved you and despite my lingering self doubt that led to stress inducing distractions, our love for each other kept us together. I know that there was almost always “someone else” that you were worried about but deep down I knew that not one of them could take me away from you...that none of them were real...that none of them could ever compare to you.

I am ok...I’m good...but I still break down sometimes and that’s normal. When I do, when I can’t hold back the tears, it’s not really because of my loss. It’s not because I’m lonely. It is a little those things but it’s because I remember how much I hurt you…how much I made you worry…how often I kept you at arm’s length…and how often I kept you awake at night because I was too afraid to let myself love you completely without worrying that I needed to get something out of my system first...the naive thought that I needed to experience more women before settling down or that someone else might be more right for me. No one could ever be.

I’m a slow learner in some respects...and I know now that the only thing I needed to get out of my system was my self doubt. That self doubt clouded my sight. It kept me from openly accepting my perfect partner...the woman who was standing beside me the whole time: you. I feel sick when I think of the thousands of opportunities I had to ask you to marry me when I know you would have said “yes” without a moment’s hesitation. I have set askew, no...I have taken a sledge hammer to the beautiful path to happiness that I was so generously granted on the day we met. I was given a gift that day...the most perfect gift that anyone could ever really hope for...a gift that a lot of people don’t receive; a person to trust implicitly...a person with whom to share pure love.

I had two dreams about you last night. In both of them, you left him and came back to me. I never asked you why. It didn’t matter. All that mattered is that you were there, in my arms, and we were complete. In the dreams I immediately wrapped you in my arms, kissed you and said "I love you". You held me tightly and whispered that you love me. It was just you and me and nothing else. When I woke up in the morning, with my eyes still closed, I smiled. I was aware at that moment that it was just a dream...but it didn’t matter. I smiled on simply because I had had those dreams…where you loved me and I loved you right back…and even though I knew it was not the reality I was waking up to, I was still reeling from that bliss. That’s how happy those dreams made me. It didn’t matter that I had just woken up alone to cold sheets. I was happier in those dreams than I have been since that fifth day of October in 2014…the worst day of my life…the day we parted ways.

You told me shortly after that day that “he’s good”. Well I’m better. I’m better than him and though it may not seem like it, I love you more than he could ever possibly hope to. I look forward to the day that I can start to prove this to you and I’m confident that it will come. My vivid dreams tend to come true.

And because you said you only remember me not being there; when you needed help getting those drawing assignments done... when you graduated college... when you moved out of your dad’s house... the morning we woke up to snow on the ground in Utah... when your dad was very sick and needed someone to do his pool route... when he needed to be picked up from the hospital... when you woke up from surgery after giving him a kidney... when you needed someone to push the button for the pain medication... when that drunk marine was molesting you at that Lucero show... when you needed someone to take Sunday to the vet while you were in Hawaii and she was in California... Christmases and Thanksgivings with your parents... I was there...all these times and more.