Release the Cats!

He said that what is different with me is that he isn't afraid to give 100% of himself. Up and till this point, he'd made a point of playing it cool in other relationships, on the advice of his brother at some point or another, "sometimes you have to be an asshole." With me, he didn't feel that being himself would scare me away - he could be his affectionate self that - didn't I just say - girls his age just didn't seem to want or appreciate. That was a bit odd that we were on that same page.

He was expressing himself because he spent some time over the holidays thinking about us, it, him. He said that he'd had a chance to be with someone else over the holidays but he chose not to, because after reviewing the option, he came to the conclusion that he would rather be with me than that person. When asked how this came about, he said, "I went on a couple of dates with this girl I've been interested in, and decided -"

"Wait, what?" I asked. "You asked someone out on a date?"

Of course, this was the rule, I wasn't stopping him from meeting other people. We were/are a fling.

I moved away from him, made space between us. It stung. My eyes clouded up. I was - sad.

"Don't" he laughed softly, "Don't move away from me, I'm telling you this for a reason..."

which was: he went on these exploratory dates, nothing physical happened, and he realized that she had nothing he was interested in and this was due to the fact that, and he said, "I love you."

My heart did that thing that hearts do when they hear those words, from one heart to another, like it's a different planet and only the two of you exist, it flooded with warmth and this other intensity that should be, and is, indescribable.

I knew this moment had been on the tip of his tongue, I had been expecting it and even practiced how it would feel and my response, if any. Could I do it? Could I return it? I'm notorious to myself for not being able to, even though I feel it. Those are big words.

I searched myself for a while, the words were there but I couldn't release them to the wild, they jumped back and forth in my mouth creating captured breaths that I swallowed. Until, finally, I whispered, "I love you, too," followed by "and it scares the hell out of me."

"You and me both" he said with a small laugh.

So there we go, the cat - as it were - is out of the bag. Two strangers with years between them embark on spiritual and sexual journey of exploration.

It seems anticlimactic in a most beautiful, soft way. Again, indescribable.

And the words, I love you still seem a bit foreign, like I haven't quite committed to them, as if somehow it impedes my independence if I do. I'm not sure what that is. I'm probably not doing myself any favours not admitting that a part of it is the fear that he will meet someone his own age and fall in love. Someone who is not... old. Ugh.

But I don't want to focus on those things, I just want surrender and explore this something sweet, this something that I will not write the future of so that it can write itself with words of love and presence.

Remembering his saying those words to me still flushes my body with warmth and a want to capture that moment. It's like two ends of a line come around to meet each other to create a circle. Which reminds me...

at one point he asked, "do you ever think you would get remarried?"

Now, I'll not say I know exactly why he asked that - nor do I think he knows - but I will say that for a very long time now I have imagined him simply placing a box with a ring in it on the table during a work lunch, as if it were the most normal thing amongst people that have no idea that we're exploring one another, and asking "Will you marry me?"

My answer is always yes.