all i needed was you and me and one of us on bended knee

the journey home started after a breakfast of french toast and sausage.

we left his aunt's house at half past nine in the morning after we shared hugs, took photos and said our goodbyes.

the next five hours were spent in his car, driving northbound through california. we ate snacks, took photos and took part in what seems to be my new favourite driving activity...

because of our schedules, i find it difficult to pinpoint an appropriate time to have any kind of discussion with Muffin. he gets home from work and he tends to be too tired to talk. before work, he's too busy to talk. snuggled in bed, he's barely awake enough to talk, so my only option seems to be to talk when we're in the car, on trips expected to last more than twenty minutes. it's not ideal, but it's all i've got to work with, so when i saw that we had fourteen hours of driving in front of us, i seized the opportunity to let Muffin know what i've been pouring over in my head.

recently my head has been tormented with more of my ever-so-fabulous irrational thoughts... i've been losing sleep thinking about his past relationships and how it makes me feel to know that i missed out on so much.

i've been obsessing over every tiny detail...

each photo i saw of Muffin with someone else taunted me because i knew it should have been me in those photos.

every time i snuggled in on the sofa in Muffin's warm embrace i was reminded that the sofa i was on was Origami's and that she got all those embraces that i should have gotten instead.

all the memories that Muffin has of date nights and cuddles and kisses should have starred me, not Origami or his ex-wife or ANYONE else.

i've been battling these and other like thoughts nearly every moment of every day for the last three weeks. wondering when it was going to be my turn to be his one and only officially. every single day i felt more and more irrational and less and less like i was making him happy. my thoughts made me feel inadequate, hurt and like i was never, ever going to be able to measure up to Origami or anyone else from his past.

it was in the first four hours that i did what could only loosely be defined as "passive whining." i started boldly and progressively debilitated into brief murmurs punctuated by tears. see, i have a habit of feeling awful for having feelings... i tend to think so little of myself that when i express my thoughts and then don't get the response i hoped for, i fall into a cute little slump that ruins my day.

after about an hour of the silent treatment he bought me an ice cream and then asked me if i wanted to stop at Mount Shasta to take photos.

we pulled off to a viewing and rest stop where he raced around the area in a bit of a tizzy, which i blamed on the tense atmosphere that filled the car for the previous hours. we stopped and took photos but he refused to cuddle me or offer any kind of reassurance to calm my restless nerves. he led me around the site, looking at all the different viewpoints, unable to find what he deemed as the perfect place to take a photo, so we rushed back to the car and he drove on, seemingly determined to find the perfect place to take a photo.

he was a man possessed.

the stress levels in the car maintained as he desperately sought for another exit that would offer us what he felt would be the perfect place to take a photo of the mountain and lake.

the next exit we found was for a camping ground in a cute little town about fifteen minutes down the road. we pulled off and he drove in a circle twice before stopping. he stopped and rushed ahead of me. i could barely catch up when he stopped and looked at the lake off the edge of the cliff we were standing on. i paused behind him and watched his face... falling in love with him and the crisp air. i took photos of him so i could remember our moment on the lake.

he grabbed me in the middle of a photo and he looked at me. he told me that we'd known one another ten years and no matter what the years have give us, i've always been his best friend. he hugged me and kissed my forehead. he held me and i remember thinking to myself that it felt like a proposal, but i knew he didn't have the money for a ring and i knew that he'd been reminding me that he wanted to wait to "do this right" with me, so i smugly kissed his neck, soaking in the fact that he was being cuddly and cute and dismissing the possibility that i should memorize the moment perfectly because it might be something stupendously important and beautiful.

he squeezed me harder and said a lot of things that i can't completely remember... i remember him telling me he wanted to be with me forever and pulled back to look at me before getting down on one knee.

it was at this point that i completely lost it. i instantly felt like the star of every single rom-com ever... i had never in my entire life anticipated that i'd have a boy propose to me ever, let alone on one knee, on a mountain, in front of a lake.

he said i squealed and the next thing i remember was him asking me if i would marry him. my very immediate response was "fuck off," which was uttered only before i completely fell apart and wept. he remained steadfast on one knee before asking me if that was a yes. i nodded and he placed the tiny ring on my finger and stood up to kiss me.

and it was with that that i became engaged... something neither of us has really ever been officially.

since that day we have been nonchalantly planning things. the planning was actually prompted by him, the other day, when he grabbed the laptop in the middle of a film and said he had some research to do. the "research" came to be about what to do after getting engaged and what kind of planning should be done. the last two days we've been researching together... looking at photos for ideas and deciding on the tiny and large details that will make our day something spectacular and will make all this waiting completely worth it.

so, today, i am writing as a newly-engaged girl... my blog will most likely turn into a place for me to brainstorm my own person DIY wedding (which him and i have decided would suit us best financially and creatively). we have a lot of plans down already, but there is still such a substantial amount left to decide, primarily, the date.

in any event, BWEE!! i'm engaged and finally get to create the wedding of my dreams with the boy of my dreams!! keep your eyeballs peeled, from what i've read, this is the part that will make or break any relationship!

day 01 - your current relationship

i heart numbers and facts, so because of that, please see the following before i proceed...

today, my other half and i have been together officially for 371 beautifully interesting and surreal days.

i've known him for 3,560 days. 9 years, 10 months and 21 days.

41 days ago, i nearly left him.

when i look at our relationship, i don't just count the last three-hundred and seventy-one days. i think about the whole of the time he's been in my consciousness.

my current relationship, if you didn't know, is with Muffin. he's been my one-and-only soulmate for the last almost-ten years and has never, ever left my mind. he's been a source of many beautiful and horrible thoughts and memories and the fact that we are finally together after all the years of false-starts and broken hearts (awww, poet and didn't know it, hey?) is still completely baffling to me. so many moments during the day force me to stop and remind myself that this is really real. that Muffin and i are finally together and this has the potential of being forever if we both put our minds to it.

although there have been hideous times and broken emotions, today and for the last forty-one days, i feel more confident about us than i ever have about anything else. he's a special and magnificently loving person that knows just as much as i do that this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing that cannot be taken for granted, but rather tenderly nurtured and embraced.

we now both know exactly how important this companionship is and are willing to do anything we can to make sure that we don't lose it. we will give one another anything and everything we can to make each day just as special as the last.

we talk more and better and for the first time in my life i am in a relationship that feels like it is going to be forever... no doubts. no sense of doom. just love. absolute, complete

love. this is no doubt going to be a relationship that lasts until both of us are dead and gone. i'm in this for THAT kind of forever.

a kind of "BWEEEE" tuesday...

hrm. never posted that other blog, did i? well i WILL, in time. perhaps today? but also perhaps not. there's a lot on this little girl's dinner plate today and i need to get them done before i can sit and go on more than i should about my life in a blog that, more often than not, is not being read and therefore is fairly useless.

alas, i have a list! a glorious list! please enjoy!

french toast and bacon cupcakes... so, for "research" purposes i went to a new bakery that opened up down the road from our house. we went in and i immediately fell in love with the idea of french toast and bacon cakes (complete with a piece of candied bacon on top!). my pout came into effect almost straight away as i began pawing at Muffin's collar, making sure that there was NO DOUBT that i would want a cake and OMGCOULDIPLEASEHAVEITRIGHTNOW?! anyways. i got my cake and good freaking jesus in a handbasket it was beautiful. it was like a tiny bit of heaven was cut from the skies and churned around in a mixer with bacon bits, sugar and maple syrup. it was the most perfect store-bought cake i'd ever had. ever. PHWOAR!
daytime drinking
talking to Carmen... my other sister and i are not too terribly close. we rarely speak and typically when we do it's just not overall very nice. it's usually very mechanical and painful. like pulling teeth, but friday... friday i had an amazing conversation with her that left me heaped in a little ball of weepy in a too-hot-for-me bath. it was a conversation that made me feel like we actually had a connection and that she really, honest-to-goodness cared for me, which i've never really felt before. it was nice. it made me feel nice.
new jewelery
photo collages
valentine's day... which was unbelievably magical this year. this has been the first valentine's day that i feel like i've been really, absolutely in love. i spent the entire day in complete awe of how much i love Muffin... i stared at his hands and feet and nose and literally couldn't believe how much i love him. it hurts, how much i love him. he made it a perfect day and i can't seem to find enough words to thank him for giving that to me.
the fact that i'm fairly spoiled... mmm, i really am. i pretty much get anything i want. mostly. my wants aren't huge, but Muffin tends to oblige... he takes care of me by way of cupcakes, baking trays, shoes, hamburgers... he's magical.
pine nuts
random phone calls
my hairs
oh my LORD sex
tandem showers
the johnny cash project
finding an awesome bargain
mary j blige
julia roberts

completely, absolutely unexpected surprises... after receiving many, many magical gifts on valentine's day i felt relaxed and pleased. i occasionally prodded Muffin, saying that he SHOULD have gotten me flowers, as EVERY girl likes getting flowers. it wasn't until i was about to begin cooking our amazingdindins when he asked if i needed anything from the supermarket. i grinned at him, knowing that he was going to go get me some flowers and used my need for prosciutto to be able to away himself to a local florist to find me some sort of lily. whilst he was out i readied the supplies for the chicken parmigiana. i laid out the breasts, cheese, basil, bay leaves and olive oil when booger went nuts, signaling the return of his father. Muffin walked into the kitchen with one hand behind his back and the other holding a supermarket bag with my ham. he mumbled about flowers and how he hadn't gotten me anything huge and then pulled me close and handed me a cutesy ceramic cupcake with five carnations and a heart in it. i was immediately delighted with the glitter, cupcake and flowers and sat the gift down to kiss his face off for being a good listener when he pulled away and said, "oh dear, it looks as though this came with a ring." it was at that moment that i forgot how to speak and how to not weep. i just smiled and saw the tiny glittering ring being held in place by the heart. he proceeded to explain to me that this ring meant that he was mine. that he would be mine and nobody else's and that one day we will, when the time is right, become engaged and wed. he then removed the ring from it's flowery bed and placed it on my tiny finger (which seems to have become even tinier since it was measured last, as a spacer had to be purchased today so as to avoid the loss of said promise of foreverlove). literally, receiving a ring from Muffin was the last thing in the entire world i expected and i have spent the last twenty-four hours in a state of excitement that cannot be contained, staring at my hand, but doing so in secret so as to not look like a goddamn weirdo. just, SQUEEE!
mozzarella cheese
bill murray
valium
honesty
cardigans
clearing out the garage
cooking magazines
william elliot whitmore
love songs
marvin gaye
coming out of dark places... i'm going through dark places. places i've kept secret because i don't want people to worry. even Muffin has been mostly kept out of the loop. i've wanted to travel them alone and came dangerously close to losing myself, but i feel like slowly, right now, i am making it through. it feels like, but still slightly unstable.
inappropriate post cards
taxidermy
finding dead animals on the side of the road
blueberry cakes
angel hair pasta
how tiny my hands are
cleavage
chewing plastic
how sexy a simple pair of underwear can make me feel
cupcakes that are so beautiful it makes my head hurt... like these:

mmm, that's good enough. i have a romantic dinner to prepare for. have a lovely week. <3

I Don't...

every now and again the past comes back to get me. OUR past. the past that he and i struggle so violently to escape. the past that forced us apart so abruptly eight, nine years ago.

it started with me. my upbringing and unfit living situation forced me into a home for troubled youths when i was sixteen. Muffin and i were VERY suddenly thrust apart by my sisters and their hope that putting me into a facility would offer me a form of structure and normalcy that i did not get with my mum.

i lived in that home for fourteen months. i lived there as a "homeless teen," as a result of many, MANY visits to court and with a DFS (Department of Family Services) worker and was put on a regimented programme of therapy and in-house schooling. i was allowed no contact with the outside world for those fourteen months, barring family. i could not speak to or see Muffin or any of my friends. many people didn't know where i had gone. i was there one day and the next, i wasn't. my sisters offered no explanation to anybody and people like Muffin were left distraught and confused as to what happened to me and when or if they would see me again.

i emerged from the home in 2002 a new person, prepared to conquer the world and finally achieve what i felt i deserved. soon after my discharge i learned Muffin had married and moved away. my initial heartbreak shifted to anger and then quickly to understanding, as it would have been silly for me to expect that he would have waited for me the fourteen months i was gone (although, if Hollywood has taught us anything, it is that it's not uncommon for a dashing, love-struck hero to wait even longer periods, only to reunite with their loves in some magical, soft-focus way to a soundtrack of Bon Jovi or Enya). however, in this case, Muffin was eighteen and had to do whatever it is that boys do at that age, and for him, i guess that was get bored of waiting, go on a sex-spree and then marry the first girl that he believed could "make an honest man" of him.

because he had seemingly moved on, i decided to as well, setting my sights on England. i began speaking to Christopher and we progressed to marriage and blah, blah, blah... you know the story.

through the years, Muffin would lure me in with emails... occasionally i would take the bait, falling for him again and promising him anything he wanted, and typically, after several months, the interaction would end incredibly abruptly.

the first interaction, lasting only a few months in 2003 ended because of his then-wife (lovingly referred to as Satan). she had a huge beef with me because he refused to let me go for the longest time, carrying my photo around and emailing me, which forced her to offer him an ultimatum.

the second was in 2004 and lasted only a month. he sent me photos of his daughter and we mused about our past before, for a reason unknown to me, he cut me off again.

the third and last was in 2006/2007. a long stint in our talking career that had me convinced that that would be the beginning of our forever. he had divorced Satan and i was going to move back to America and be with him for omgforever. this all completely dissolved in a matter of days when, whilst i was away for a trip to the seaside, he married Origami. he married her and i hated him.

we didn't speak again until October 6th 2009 when he emailed me randomly and i replied.

thousands of questions have gone unanswered over the years... questions i could turn the volume down on for a very long time, but questions that have been forced to the front of my mind since he and i have decided to give all of this a proper go. questions like:

why not me? why was i never good enough to wait for?

if i was always his "the one," why did he not choose me?

i have torn myself apart with these and questions LIKE these over the last four weeks... weeks that have offered me FAR too much time alone to think and beat myself up.

i don't know what to do or how to deal with a lot of the rejected, self-doubting feelings that these kinds of questions have given me, but my heart and head are tired now. i just want to feel secure in all of this and stop thinking. i want it all to be okay and for him to just reassure me, which is something that does NOT come easy.

understandably, when i bring things like this up, he becomes embarrassed, upset and defensive, which instantly brings the tone of the conversation down. he snaps at me and i begin feeling stupid, again, for having thought or hurt over something that really has messed with me a great deal for the bulk of my adult life.

what do i do with this? how do i deal with it? does it just go away eventually?

who knows. i guess we just have to see what thursday brings us.

me and the trapped crickets, we don't trust you

it happens at least once a day... my mind decides to freak the FUCK out and stop trusting him for like, two minutes.

i'll be fine, sitting around, leading a normal life, existing with relatively sane mental-processes when my brain will suddenly over-analyze something ridiculous and i will immdiately develop a distrust for Muffin and the things he does.

i remember, prior to my leaving England and prior to Pow and Amy's breakup, i used to scold Pow constantly for his paranoid ideations. i know that whilst this isn't QUITE the same (as his went far and beyond what could be considered sane), and whilst mine have actually turned out true once or three times, i still, every time, hate myself a little for not putting everything into him and doubting him, even for those two minutes a day.

i occasionally find myself terrified of loving him completely. i'll watch him and things will pop into my head and remind me of all the emotions i went through when he broke my heart in the past... i remember how i promised myself i'd never trust him again.

they are unreasonable, my ideations, and i am aware of this. just one night after i left for Cheyenne, i had a freak-out that made me stop and actually have to scold myself for being so silly.

he had told me that Origami was coming over to pick some stuff up and about twenty minutes after she was due to arrive he sent me a photo of himself in bed, telling me how much he missed me and showing me a "view from danie's side of the bed." instantly, my brain said to me, "Wait, Origami wouldn't be gone by now, i bet she's convinced him to sleep with her and he had her take that photo so he could make you believe he was going to bed when REALLY he's sleeping with her and didn't want to arouse suspicion." the freakout was only heightened when he wouldn't respond to my texts and i didn't hear from him for over an hour. he calmed me and my mind was settled for the time, but i still hate that i find myself having these little distrust episodes so often.

it occurred to me late at night, the saturday before last... i was laid in my step-neice's old bedroom listening to the songs of the crickets that had gotten themselves trapped in the window-well. the movements of their wings creating their songs drew me through my thought processes... the processes that made me worry that there might be something broken in me that won't allow me to trust Muffin, that i might be forever doomed to live a life like Pow, filled with distrust, scepticism and paranoia. for two hours i laid in that bed with a sleeping child next to me (Paige, neice), worrying that my incessant concerns would drive Muffin away and ruin this thing that we have that i hold so, SO special.

i worried but... i don't know. i still worry, but the moments of worrying are but a few minutes in a day full of perpetual reassurance and love.

i worried, but i know that the things i worry about aren't completely without just cause. it's an awful thing to say, but i would find myself feeling more crazy were i to be worrying so much if we had no history. instead, we HAVE had a history, and a rocky one at that, and that fact makes me feel like, whilst still quite unfair to him, i am processing things. not living in a world of fantasy, but living in reality and contemplating things with a clear (although sometimes irrational) head.

i guess with my time away from him i have been given time to reflect on a relationship that has been "real" for the last four weeks. real in that i have been here and we have been living together, on the same continent, and existing as a real-life kinda-couple.

the time has been beautiful and better than i expected it would be. the time has made me more confident, more in love and more happy. the time has made me trust that Muffin is someone i COULD spend the rest of my forever with.

but as everyone knows, i love to over-think things... everything. and i have a LOT of time to do that currently, with LaDonna and Heyward at work all day and just sitting around a lot. the over-thinking leaves my brain a great deal of time to worry and paint very vivid pictures of things that could be happening in my absence. i know it's not fair on him, but i can't help it. with all the time that i have known him, i have only known things to result in my heart being broken, so i find myself worrying about the day that my brain is SURE will come, when he will do something REALLY stupid and mess all of this up.

i worry about when i go away because anytime i've gone away in the past, he's abandonded me or hurt me... when i went into the home he lost hope and joined the ARMY and had babies. when i went to the seaside for ten days he married Origami. they're two very excellent examples. obviously, i'm aware that it's unfair of me to think that he would have waited for me all the time i was in the home or kept his word in 2007, but i guess the scars from being burned are still there and i am reminded of them in times when i am in a similar situation.

i love The Muffin, and like i've said in countless blogs, i just worry and have a stupidly vivid imagination.

currently, today, Muffin is my life and i've no doubt that we'll be old and senile together one day, once i've crossed this hurdle and gotten my head out of this place that only causes tension and upset in a world that should only really be filled with kisses, cuddles and lovenotes.

worrying schmorrying....

I was sat at my desk last Wednesday morning, participating in a day that felt much less tense and ugly than the several that had preceded it. 

I was going through files, deciding what was fit for archiving and what I could send for destruction when Clarke glided into the room as she always does… she actually glides, with her amazing fashion, posture and smile. Since her recent birthday, which marked her half a century on the planet, she seems to have become even more beautiful than before… her general appearance sets her at approximately the same height as me, gives her perfect skin and a figure most teenagers would literally die for. She is astoundingly beautiful and I secretly hate her every time she comes within a ten-yard radius of me because I just know I will not be that stunning at fifty… there’s not even a tiny chance of that happening. 

Clarke stood behind me, fiddling with the grey stat-file cupboard and asked how many days it is now… I glanced at her in a nervous way and told her that it was thirty-six and pulled a face… a face that displayed pensive excitement. 

She said that I look like I’ve lost a lot of weight. 

I told her I had. 

Then she cocked her head to the right and asked if I’d been worrying. 

My bottom lip quivered. 

She asked how things have been with Muffin… I said they hadn’t been great. I outlined the roughdraft of that essay by discussing the lack of contact, the busy-ness and the fact that he seems to enjoy participating in leisure activities with his estranged spouse (going to gigs, meals out and generally hanging around). 

Now, I don’t want to sound unreasonable, as I KNOW he is living with her and I KNOW that some interaction is unavoidable, as I have been there myself with my own special version of “The Estranged,” but in my opinion, there are two problems with the situation… 

ONE: he lied to me about one hanging-out incident… he says he didn’t, but I am not stupid and I am capable of reading people, particularly when all I have to go off of are words and subtle reactions to things said. He was planning to go to a gig that I was fairly certain Origami was going to be attending as well (as she is a big fan of the band that was playing, likes to drink (and the gig’s general location was IN a drinking establishment) and likes to make things awkward)… I found it difficult to believe that he would be attending on his own so I quizzed him on who his musical companion would be to have him respond with a performance of this very strange monologue that involved a lot of pauses and “erm”s and “uhhh”s before saying he was going alone. It wasn’t until the next day that he told me that she “was going anyway and it was silly to waste the gas taking separate cars.” (Which, again, I completely understand, but don’t bloody lie to me.). I then proceeded to become aware of a photo on the Book of Face that featured him eating a giant burger at a restaurant… the photo was not dissimilar to one that was taken by a different female three years ago at a restaurant in Cheyenne… it’s existence caused me to hark back to THOSE fabulous memories for a short while, which was nice. It came to light soon after that Origami had taken that photo and they had gone to dinner together… how quaint. 

TWO: just after Christopher and I split up and Muffin and I started speaking again I would hear on a daily basis how he felt about me spending ANY time with Christopher ever… even if it was something so simple as Christopher coming in and cooking something whilst I was making a cup of tea. Muffin would tell me repeatedly that when he got back to america he would not spend even a single moment with Origami and why did I have to hang out with MY estranged? I don’t like the double standards that seem to have been set into place and when I confronted him with this he rebuttled with, “Yeah, but you still hang out with Chris.” I enquired as to what specific event he was referring to and he said, “Well, you still go to gigs together and stuff.” Right… let me tell you about the gig that I “went to” with Christopher that Muffin is referring to... I was working at the pub on a busy Saturday about two weeks ago. I hung out with Nick in the kitchen all night, looking fabulous and only emerging once to watch one single band. I stood against the hedge in the beer garden with Nick, Dave, Beth and Noele and danced my little heart out, attempting to burn off some of the calories from the three cheeseburgers with onions I had eaten whilst in the kitchen with Nick. I was acutely aware of the existence of my estranged husband to the far side of the garden but paid him no mind. After the final chord of the final song had been played I was making my way back to the kitchen to serve some more ravenous, drunk customers when Christopher cornered me and forced me to participate in a game called “Let’s Have The Most Strained, Uncomfortable Conversation EVER.” I played and feel like perhaps it ended in a draw after our discussions about his work, my leaving, job progression, hair styling, clothes shopping, fish, shoes and bosses. I then pranced back inside with my beautiful hair and tiny apron. And THAT is apparently a night out? Hrm. 

So those are my two reasons for feeling slightly unsettled… unreasonable? I don’t FEEL like they are…  I feel like I shouldn’t allow myself to become a part of some spectacularly hideous double-standard situation that ends up frustrating me until I murder him, because I WILL. I had enough double standards in my last relationship and I will not settle for anything but the best from now on. 

I am attempting to make all aspects of this relationship as perfect as possible… as perfect and as little like the shitstorm I was stuck in with Christopher as possible. 

One of the biggest parallels I am finding in the two relationships is the fact that I am participating in the school of thought where I am pushing goals further and further away. At the moment, I won’t lie, I’m not happy with the way our relationship is going. I feel like I put in a great deal more a lot of the time so as to make sure he has photos and videos and phone calls and emails from me. I make a conscious effort to make sure a new photo of my face reaches him in SOME way every single day so he can see me… feel as close to me as possible. With him, most days I can barely remember what his face looks like. I know it sounds dramatic, but it’s painfully true. I am so busy most days that I just don’t have the time to go onto the Book of Face to peruse his beautiful visage for hours… I don’t have time to search through my emails to find that ONE photo so I can familiarize myself with his face over and over again… It’d just be nice if he put a little more effort in. It just seems to get worse… he said it’d be better when he got back from Iraq and it’s not. He’s about to travel down to California to see Molly  for like two weeks and I will most likely not hear from him at all during that time and when I do they will be those ever-dreaded photos … of him and his daughter. 

I guess I just feel like so many thrilling things have been going on in my life in the last month that he has missed…  tattoos, weight loss, gigs, citizenship, haircolour changes, new clothes… I’ve offered him as many photos and endless stories as he can handle to fill him in, but I can’t help but wonder what things I have missed-out with him. How is he coping with life back in America? What’s he bought since he’s been back? How much weight has he lost? I just don’t know anything and worry that I am travelling to America, 9,000 miles, to live with what is more-or-less a stranger. 

Again, I know that’s a shockingly dramatic statement, but it feels so much like that. Like I just don’t know who he is and I’m just HOPING that when I get to America it’ll be okay… the problem with that is that I did that with Christopher. Prior to moving to England and starting my life with him here things were mildly horrific… we argued a lot and all I did was keep telling myself, morning, noon and night that it was going to be better when I got to England and we didn’t have to be apart anymore. I pinned all my hopes on the arguments stopping the instant I wrapped my tiny arms around his neck and kissed him again, so when this didn’t happen and when the arguments were just more heated because we had one-another’s facial expressions to scrutinize, I pushed the bar again, saying that things would be better once I was out of the house more and I had a steady job… 

again, no. once I got a job I was tired at the end of the day and he wanted sex and I didn’t and we just argued about THAT and why didn’t he do the dishes whilst I was a work all day and where’s the milk he promised he’d go buy? 

THEN my mum died and I said that I would be better once I had settled on medication and in therapy. 

THEN I lost my job and I said it’d be better once I had a permanent job. 

THEN… 

I think you can pretty much see where this is going, can’t you? It never ended and the cycles just resulted in our love’s demise. 

I don’t want the same thing to happen to myself and Muffin. I don’t want to feel like because right now I am saying that things’ll be better when I get there that our relationship will dissipate the same way my last one did… I want to make sure that I don’t fall into that cycle. 

I’m becoming very aware of the fact that I need to make ME happy… at the moment I need to live for things that will better my life and make me feel fulfilled. it depresses the hell out of him, but I am making sure that I remember that I DO have a return ticket booked and if things really do feel awful after I arrive, then I only have a three-month wait before I can return to the land of accents and cups of tea.  

I think for a week I was setting my mind into position of “defeated” before it had even begun though…  preparing myself for coming back on my return flight and wondering why I was even bothering going in the first place. I had played-out a scenario in my head that saw me stay here and live the fabulous single life for a while… being promiscuous, decadent and some other adjective I can’t even think of at the moment. For a week I had seriously considered calling it all off, so terrified of the possibility of it not working that I didn’t even want to bother because we would both just end up getting hurt anyways. I had lost the will to get excited when I heard his voice, forgotten how to say “I love you” and not sound bored… 

Anyways, back to Wednesday…  the day happened; I finished the workday and then the work week, which was an extra-special shade of short due to a tattoo session having been booked on Friday. Friday evening I talked at length with Graham about all of the above. He was the second person to have heard the entire story (the first being janey, doi). We talked it through whilst nursing pints of booze and he really helped me to clear my head. Post-serious-chat we discussed bands and lyrics and committed ourselves to a moviedate this Wednesday (“Inception” for danie again! yay!) and to make mega-mixes for one another (one of my favourite things to do like, EVER!). 

Since then, over the weekend, I am finding the weight noticeably lifted… I have been focusing on the more positive things… realizing that I shouldn’t expect things from my relationship, but rather be grateful for the things that I get…. The emails, photos, videos, phone calls. Despite their rarity, they are such beautiful little sparkly parts of my day... or maybe that’s because of their rarity? I love Muffin and really, honestly want to give this a go so I can see what kind of a perfect thing we can create together… some sort of magical super-couple that has seen ten years pass with every possible obstacle in their way but with love persevering at full speed.

i've got a feeling...

That I will find myself increasingly frustrated with a lot of things up until I leave. Not intentionally, but because my brain seems to enjoy playing the overanalyzing game a lot at the moment. 

I feel like, with all the stuff that goes on between Muffin and me… all the conversations, photos (the few exchanges that do take place) and videos (the even FEWER exchanges that take place), our relationship is rock-solid. I feel like… hrm. Well, maybe not “rock,” unless there’s some sort of rock that LOOKS super-strong, but is really quite mooshy and crumbly on the outside with a really, REALLY tough centre. That’s what I see our relationship as…. Is there a rock like that? I reckon there’s got to be somewhere. 

That’s what I feel about our relationship…  like we are BLOODY solid at the core; we are strong in our convictions, support and respect for one another. Our history is beautiful and has built us up as a couple that can withstand most anything because of what we have seen and endured both together and individually. 

But when you travel out, there’s a layer that makes-up about 1/28^th of the rock that is a little out of control and that you just can’t maintain, no matter how hard you try… bits keep falling off. Like if you were to take a bowling ball, cover it in maple syrup and then roll it around in corn flakes then play catch with it. The bits just won’t stay on and things just get messy. 

The main reason this layer is so out of control is because of the distance and time since we’ve seen one another… 

We are currently 3,000 miles away from one another, next week we will be 10,000 miles apart. It is a horrific distance that is no good when you just want to be near someone. This distance is made all-the-worse because of the fact that we have spent a total of two weeks face-time together in the last eight years. The emotional pulls that take place in a situation like this are huge and painful. Some days I wake up and feel like I am being ripped-apart, like all of my limbs are being pulled-off one-by-one. I hate this distance and I hate the fact that the world is so stupid and large and I can’t just take a quick walk to wherever he is at any given moment. I just want to be able to smell him again. I want to smell him and show him I love him. 

The time for words has now expired and they seem to have become mechanical and monotonous for me. 

There are only so many times you can SAY that you love someone before you aren’t as affected by the novelty of it anymore. In the beginning, when he first told me he loved me again I would become giddy and out of control with fits of glee, but now, all those words seem to bring (and I’m not complaining about this) is a warm sense of security. Knowing that someone loves me to the ends of the earth and back is nice, but… sigh. Emails, phone calls and videos just aren’t cutting the mustard anymore. I need the real deal and I can feel myself becoming slightly more frail every day, and I presume this pattern will carry on until I get what my mind and body think I need. 

I need human interaction and warmth from Muffin. 

I feel like the words I say to him just don’t do justice to the things that I feel and I hate myself for not being able to spin more magical word-webs. I hate the fact that on the days when words don’t come so easily to me I cannot just go up to him, kiss the left side of his neck and actually make him feel the words form from the movement of my lips as I whisper that I love him into his ear. I want him to become caught-up in an olfactory storm as I come up to him and hold him… smelling my perfume, laundry detergent and lotion. I want every single one of his senses to know I love him, not just his ears and eyes. I want him to taste the words on my lips along with the flavour of the quavers I’ve just eaten. 

The other reason this layer is so crumbly and stressful is because of the reason our core is so strong, our history. 

Dane has broken me so many times in the past… broken me, cheated on me and left me for other females. Every single time I start talking to him again I always proceed with caution and get caught up in a whirlwind of the emotions that initially made me love him and want to spend my life with him all those years ago. This stint, since we’ve started talking again, is the longest we’ve spoken throughout the years. Nine months. Usually, by this time he would have gotten married or had another kid or gone on a shagging spree to rival some high-grade porn star (I’ve not got ANY idea of the names of porn stars… just think of one and compare that person to Muffin when it comes to past promiscuity-levels.). 

This time though, the velocity of everything is so much greater… the words we say, the things we are doing, they are bigger than anything we’ve ever encountered as a couple. We are actually doing this and there is absolutely no turning back… I’ve bought my ticket and I am leaving in just over eight weeks. But in those eight weeks, I worry about how much might change. 

When he and I very first started talking again, when Christopher and I had just split up and were still living together, Dane told me that he was concerned that I might participate in one last ‘moment of intimacy’ with Chris, as a way of ‘sealing the past,’ as it were… he had told me that he had done it with past partners and suggested that he might do it with Karri upon his return to America. 

Obviously, this did NOT happen with Christopher and me. I had no interest whatsoever in participating in any extra-curricular intimate activities with him after the date of severance. 

Since then, Muffin has come leaps and bounds in his divorce; he has announced that he will be divorcing Karri upon his return not only to her, but to his family, he has informed her of my moving-in with him upon my arrival to america and has also started the paperwork process (don’t even ASK about this, as it is a massively sore subject due to Karri’s amazingly great lazy-levels… they supersede MY ex, which is not something to be sniffed at!)… despite all the things he has done and said both to me and Karri and despite the devotion he has pledged and the complete comfort and security he has tried to instil into me, I regularly find myself remembering the moment we had that conversation…. The way my stomach sank at the thought of him going home and sleeping with Karri again, even if just for a final hurrah. 

I have just never known any better from him… he gets frustrated with me when I mention the fact that I am worried he will cheat on me in the seven weeks before I arrive, but I really, honestly feel completely okay with the gingerness I am approaching the relationship with. Everyone keeps saying to me that I’m “THE One” and I should take solace in that fact and trust him, but my logic dictates that I’ve always been his “the one” and that most certainly didn’t stop him from doing all the things he’s done in the past. 

Overall, I DO trust him, I honestly do… I just occasionally get one of these stupid little twinges in my tummy that reminds me what I’ve been through with him over the last nine years and helps me to bear in mind what he is capable of…  the heartache he has the ability to inflict upon me. I mean, if I didn’t prepare myself for this and he did do something, where would my heart be left? It wouldn’t. I would completely fall to pieces. I feel an overall need to protect my heart and make sure that in the unlikely event that something WAS to happen to it, that it receives minimal damage. 

So here I am, fifty-seven days away from america and feeling pensive and tired. I presume a lot of it comes down to the fact that I have been mega-busy and just haven’t had the time to sit down and talk to Muffin much lately. We have both been so, so busy that an even bigger chunk of distance has been placed between us. Gone are the days that we used to sit around on the phone for hours at a time, talking about how much we love one another and all the things we’d do to be together… gone are the web-chats late into the night… the words pinging up through the fibres and cables that make the internet possible. It’s all gone and all I really have is the hope that when I arrive it will be fine. 

I’ve no doubt that the first several weeks will be absolute bliss… existing in the world that we had dreamed about when we were sixteen. The world of adulthood and living together and not having anything try to pry us apart. But once all that special, glittery dust has settled, what will we have? I’d like to hope that we will come through it with a beautiful relationship. That we will settle into a routine that suits both of us and allows us to work off of one another happily and well. Overall, I am certain this is how it will all work out, but I still worry from time-to-time that I will have to catch that return flight home. 

I love him… I love him such a substantial amount and I hate that I am having all these stupid little pangs. They have certainly decreased since booking my ticket, but some are still there and they just hurt. They make me feel guilty for not trusting him… make me feel guilty and stupid. I hate that I feel like I can’t trust my heart or him sometimes. I hate the uncertainty and fear. 

I am trying to just not focus on it…  to not focus on the fact we are apart and the fact that SHE will be the one that is there, waiting for him at the airport when he arrives home from his deployment. That SHE will be the person that gets to help him adjust to being back if he needs it…. I hate it. I hate that she most likely doesn’t see that despite the fact that they are splitting up, she will get to be there for him when he needs someone the most. I hate that she has taken advantage of him for all these years and right now, I am not in a position to do anything about it.

Granted, in fifty-seven days I WILL be doing something about it. 

In fifty-seven days I will be there for him like nobody ever has been. 

I will love him as gently as he needs it and show him that it is possible for someone to be there for him unconditionally and selflessly. 

In fifty-seven days I am going to be everything he ever wanted and I can’t wait.

tell me about it... the love...

Him: fucking shit I love you
Me: tell me about it
Me: about the love
Him: it's so amazing the neighbors are going to be like damn
Me: oh?
Him: it's so much love that love bugs are going to like damn, those two are already in love
Him: cupid's going to get shot by OUR arrows
Him: and then cupid is going to be like
Him: damn man, that shit is pointy
Him: and it hurts
Him: and we'll be like, yeah, we know
Him: now you see how it feels
Him: you jerk
Him: and then venus is going to explode
Me: the god or the planet?
Him: the planet will explode into a gabillion jellybeans of love and the god will cry bubble gum tears of love
Him: and we'll prance all over the world
Him: mainly greece and rome
Him: and be super awesome
Me: god i fucking love you
Me: thank you for making me so happy

All I ever really cared about was Tuesday…

Every Monday I get excited…  my mind starts whirring around all the possible items that I will get to list and explain my love for for the week… I LOVE doing my lists, they are one of my favourite parts of the week… I was desperately sad to have not been able to do a list for the last two weeks, not only because of my inappropriate love affair with all things list-related, but also because there was SO much hearting going on… I honestly don’t think there’s ever been a period of time that I have hearted SO much… my book has had SO many pages filled out over the last week and I can promise you that this list, it will be quite possibly the longest and most fabulous list to date. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll TOTALLY be jealous of my hair (even I’M jealous of it and it’s my own bloody hair!)
So without any further ado, the list!

 Muffin… bound to be the first thing on the list, really… he’s now officially existed in real life with me and gone and pretty much every single moment of it was absolute bliss… I attempted to envelope myself entirely in the fact that I had him here with me…. I still found myself in shock sometimes, like it hadn’t completely sunk in. I’d look at him and think, ‘holy CRAP, this boy is actually here with me!’ it was all very surreal but amazingly perfect… I love every single tiny thing about him. his hair, his eyeballs, his nose, his clothes, the way he smells (personal favourite thing about him), the relative smallness of his ears compared to mine (23mm smaller, actually), his tattoos, his feets, his hands, his neck, his bear arms, his piercings, his voice, the way he talks, his taste in things, his sense of humour… I literally I could go on for forever… I love him so much. I know I sound like a stupidly gushy girl right now, but I am so happy and I don’t give a crap. I could exist every single moment snuggled up to this boy and never regret a single thing I might miss in the meantime. He is perfect in every single way possible… I never actually knew it was possible to find someone who is everything you ever could dream of asking for and then some, but here I am with this boy in my life who has superseded any and all hopes, dreams and desires by leaps and bounds… he’s incredible and still baffles me.  

Watching my two favourite boys bond… I love that I have been given the rare chance to watch the two most important boys in my life bond… Pow, the boy I spend more time with than anyone EVER was playing gigs the last two Saturdays which we attended… the first was in Nottingham, we arrived and after the sound check I perched on a booth with Amy (hang on, I’ll get to her later!) whilst Muffin and Pow went through the gazillion photos Muffin had on his camera from his trip so far… I just sat with a stupidly happy grin on my face from that moment on as I watched them share little laughs and chats… it was outrageously special to witness… to see Pow, this boy who has been a solid rock and listened to me piss and moan for the last five years meet and play nice with Muffin, the boy who stole my heart ten years ago… it’s magical. I was so terrified that they might not get on and I would have to have that “dan, I really don’t think you should be moving away with him” chat with Pow. To know now that I won’t have to have that chat… it’s a relief. I told Muffin up front that if Pow didn’t approve then I would seriously reconsider moving back stateside… that I wanted his blessing before I committed myself to anything. After the last gig, this last Saturday we three were riding a coach back from London. Muffin was sleeping (precious bear!) and Pow and I talked… I asked him what he thought of Muffin and he said that he absolutely adored him and that he rarely bonds with someone so quickly… since then Pow’s been speaking his praises, my favourite being at din dins Sunday night when Pow offered a little toast (with his cup of tea) saying that he felt it was an honour to meet Muffin and that he was going to take care of me until we were together again. Pow loves my boyfriend and I love that fact… I love that I can speak to Pow about Muffin and he’ll validate my love for him by talking about how amazing he is… this, knowing that my two boys bonded, this makes my little heart much more relaxed.
Sex… for the longest time I have been living on my own little planet with regard to sex… my relationship with the estranged left a lot to be desired. It got to the point where I HATED getting into bed with him because I knew he’d harass me and I knew I’d have to offer him another lie about why I didn’t want it THAT time. If I’m being honest, I’ve never really been THAT bothered about sex anyways… I’ve had three partners in my life and in between two of them, there was a three-year gap with little or no upset on my behalf. I spend a great deal of time wondering what is wrong with me when I read all those women’s magazines or watching those female empowerment films and see the highly-sexed women who have no less than three sex toys and two partners a week… I always wondered why I never had that huge, deep-seated burning in my little loins for a little rumpy-pumpy. It wasn’t until about two months after I started speaking to Muffin again that it seemed a switch was flicked. Up until his arrival all I could think about was how amazingly brilliant it was going to be…. Now that his visit has come and gone, I have officially lost another six lbs which I can only attribute to the fact that I can’t get enough of bed-themed funtime with him. It was all so new and exciting and he makes me feel incredible and so, so comfortable. I feel a little like I’ve just woken up and am experiencing all this stuff for the first time in nine years… I’m no Carrie from Sex in the City, but I am well on my way to being…. Oh I don’t know, some girl who likes a good rogering on a very regular basis.  
Pow… there are few people in the world that I adore more than him… we’ve both been extremely busy the last couple of weeks so we’ve not spent a GREAT deal of time together, but we’ve still been in contact and it’s been nice… when the three of us went out for the meal together it was just nice to have eye contact with Pow… to gauge how he’s feeling and to talk to him… my favourite thing about him is, when he and I are hanging out, he watches me. I don’t know if he thinks I don’t notice, but he does it all the time… when we’re at his watching films, at dinner, just talking, at a gig… he can occasionally be found just watching me and it makes me feel so comfortable. So when we were out at dinner the other night he watched me for ages and it… sigh, there’s no words to explain how it makes me feel. He’s just such a special boy and I have no idea what I’d do if he wasn’t in my life.
Painting Tipp-Ex on my nails
Mousakka
Aubergines
Carla Bruni
Pecans
Trying out a new recipe
My polka-dot dress
Collaborating on projects with Pow
Big lips
The fact that my boss sent me an email that said, ‘FANTASTICO!’ on it
Pressing warm photocopies to my face 
Morningtime phonecalls from Janeyface… these are my favourite because most mornings, whilst I am on my way into workies I will get a text from the janey that simply says, ‘call you?’ to which I ALWAYS reply in the positive. She rings and I walk down the street in a gleeful haze of laughter and knowing that she is one of my best friends in the entire world. I love the looks I get as I shriek and double over in fits of laughter in the middle of the pavement at half seven in the morning… I love the fact that we do this mostly every morning.
The fact that Robert Z’Dar added me on facebook
Board games
Anticipation
My Zen garden
The pig face
When Chevy’s happy
The torsos in my lounge
Big windows
Snap Dragons
Poppies
Bachelors Buttons
Excellent moustaches
Cherry Carmex
Otto who works in the canteen at workies
How excited everyone got for Muffin’s arrival
The first Muffin/danie photo
Listening to The Muffin breathe as he sleeps
My pink hair
Chicken Tikka Kebabs
Stephanie Smith
Dave Culleton
Just lying around and watching a film with The Muffin
Being warm… not hot, warm
‘Caribbean Queen’ by Billy Ocean
The very first glance I got of The Muffin
Learning how to be close to someone again
Learning about someone’s daily foibles
How big the holes in my ears are now (28mm and counting)
Muffin Kisses
Kissing Muffin’s left shoulder
Hugging Muffin
‘The Hangover’
London trip with The Muffin... and all the loose cannon photos that were taken (please see below)

My hair
The Museum of Natural History
Ringing the bell on the bus
The dogtags The Muffin had made for me
My Vans
The smell of Muffin kisses
The fact that Kate named a calf on Rich’s farm ‘Manface’ 
Amy Blackwell… no word of a lie, this girl is just magical… she is the first of ALL of Pow’s girlfriends that I have ever been allowed to meet and she is wonderful. She was out two Saturdays ago when Muffin and I attended the HJG gig and her and I bonded like woah. I’m not sure why we bonded so much on Saturday in a place FULL of people as opposed to in Ali’s house on a relaxing night in (our last and first meeting) but I enjoyed myself nonetheless… her and I sat in a huddled corner and stared at our perspective boys, turning to one another regularly to squinch up our faces and express how much we love them without the need to shout. We drank and chatted and generally had a wonderful time. She loves him so much and that’s what he needs most…. He needs someone that’s going to love him despite his little freak-outs and just hold on to him tight. I reckon she’ll do him a world of good and I am pleased I’ve finally been allowed to meet one of the girlfriends. I love Amy and I cannae wait for our next bonding session which will be taking place Friday. Yay!
Hot Japanese Girl
Pound Coins
‘I Love You Phillip Morris’
Waking up to Muffin’s face 
The BFF super-date that is in the pipeline… I am SUPER pumped for this… as I’ve mentioned before, I will be getting my scalp tattooed… I will be doing this soon and janey will be coming up to visit so’s she can hold my tiny hand and cheer me on. Not only that, but now, Pow will be prancing to mine the night before so’s the three of us can have a super bff partytime. I LOVE the thought of having a fabulous night in with my two favourites… I honestly can’t wait! SQUEE!
Really cold cans of cola
Muffin’s new tattoos
Making fun of The Muffin’s estranged partner… who is completely insane and a total biotch. I HATE her name, her face and everything to do with her… I mock her mercilessly…. It pleases me.
Popping my wrists
Being certain of things 

Jaacqy
Goncalves
Potterton
Writing on my hands
Mathlock Bath
Stretching my ears
Foggy days
Muffin texts
When bits of my tattoos peak out of the sleeves of my shirts/jackets
Mini Rolls
PaperMate Liquid Expresso pens
How completely insane some people can be… a prime example of this being the fact that an old friend (who is consequently NOT an old friend anymore… just a person I have fond memories of and who seems to hate my stinking guts and creep back into my life in an explosive way periodically to try to hurt me in as many ways as possible) seems to have been posting status updates on Facebook recently complaining that it was HER idea for me to get the ducks tattooed on my scalp… this is funny for three reasons… 1. I have not spoken to this particular individual for nearly nineteen months and when we WERE talking I had absolutely NO inclination to get my scalp tattooed at all, whatsoever (we DID, however discuss HER getting the ducks tattooed on her fat arm once, for about forty seconds). 2. It was Pow and Lee Lee who suggested it to me about five weeks ago, in my house, in my bedroom. 3. It WASN’T her idea. I mean really, who in god’s name actually feels it’s appropriate to publicly complain about someone so ridiculously stupid? She needs to get a life.  

MC Lars… Oh. My. God. When Muffin said that he wanted to go to some gig in Birmingham I was reluctant and a little moody about it… I don’t really go to gigs anymore and when I do, they are small, VERY local gigs that don’t cost more than a fiver to get into… I don’t go to gigs that cost more than ten pounds JUST go get in and cost a further twelve pounds to travel to the locale and a FURTHER thirty-five pounds for a hotel room since it is too far away to get home on time. because all these factors were in place for this gig I was a little moody about having to go but I went because I wanted my big bear to be happy and LOVED the idea of a romp in a hotel room with him. we arrived in Birmingham and got a taxi to the hotel… we mocked it’s tiny size and pov interior before prancing into central Birmingham for some shopping and din dins. After stuffing our bellies with pizza and our minds with serious future talks we hopped into a cab to the O2 Arena where Muffin lost it and got super excited. We arrived JUST in time to see MC Lars, who muffin had been singing the praises of for the last two days. We pushed our way up as near to the front as possible and they began… the INSTANT I saw him I fell in love (or was that lust?) and the moment the first words came out of his mouth I knew I had to marry him. he’s hysterical and has a stage presence that makes me swoon. When they finished performing Muffin found him in the crowd and said hi. We chatted with him for a little while about Muffin being in the ARMY and my living in England after moving from the US. After about six minutes he had to go but said we had to go to the after party and told us where we needed to go. After the gig we pranced to a local pub and waited with pints… we kissed and snuggled and made fun of one another until the arrival of Lars. He saw us and immediately waved and came over… he sat with us and we proceeded to monopolize all his attention for the rest of the night. he got us pints, shots and talked with us until the wee hours in the morning when the band was being herded into a taxi to the hotel… I can officially say now that I am in love with MC Lars and you should listen to him and hang out with him after a gig,… he’s a fabulous boy! 
Our night at the Paragon Hotel... quite possibly the most shite hotel in the world but magical nonetheless!
Dane's signature

 My newest tattoo... yes, it's a vagina and yes, it is permanent! 
Feeling like people love me
The fact that Stephanie rang me to see how i was yesterday
Blowing my nose
When Chris isn't satan when we talk
Dane's dad
Bananas
Planning projects
How easy it is to talk to Dane
having the ducks together for the first time ever... a tattoo dane and i always said we would both get... something i designed when i was fifteen just before i started dating Muffin... he got his ages ago and i got mine about three years ago... they are now bff!

the following photos... 

 

 

i love you, i can't touch you anymore...

the last time i saw him was yesterday morning, 29^th March at 0708am...
we held one another in the queue together until I wasn’t allowed to be snuggled up to him anymore and then we held one another over the barrier until he was too far up the queue to be able to touch me anymore... even then he left the queue three times to come hold me and kiss me. The final kiss was the best one… I held the left side of his face with my right hand and kissed him as hard as I could. My left arm wrapped as tight around him as possible. I held my breath and memorized every single detail that I could in the seventeen seconds we held the kiss… I memorized the smell, his eyes, his lips, the taste, his hands on me… everything. My mind scrambled in a million difference directions in an effort to commit every single detail possible to memory.
i watched him until he disappeared through the final check-in... i watched the space where i saw him last for a further ten minutes. I’m not sure why I watched the empty space so long... I don’t know if maybe i was hoping he would suddenly come back out and say that he just couldn’t leave me and that he was staying forever...
dave asked me if i wanted to wait there until his plane left... i declined, knowing that if i stayed it would just lead to more crying and i would most likely have to give in to one of those cries that ends in vomiting and i didn't quite feel like being sick.
On the way through the airport i sobbed violently, hating already that i was walking without his hand in mine. feeling immediately like part of me was just gone... like someone had taken a large cutting implement and torn half of my limbs off... it sounds cliché and I’ve never felt anything like it before but it's fucking agony. I actually felt like the best thing to do at that moment is slump in a corner and fall apart… I had no strength to walk or communicate and could barely stay awake by the time we got to Dave’s car. The entire journey home just featured me sobbing in between tiny cat-naps.
Arriving home was horrific…  more painful than I thought it would be. More painful than it had been when Chris moved out. Somehow, without the loss of any furniture or the stuff on my shelves or cupboards, my house felt emptier than it ever had… I sat in the dining room with Dave for a short time, recalling that a mere eight hours prior I had been sat there with The Muffin and Pow… I instantly hated the dining room and wanted to be out of there.
After dave left I dragged myself up the stairs and stood at my bedroom door for two minutes before holding my breath and going in… I stepped past the threshold and waited… performed an internal investigation to see what emotions my body was going to throw at me… I meandered around the room, touching everything I could remember him touching, smelling everything I thought might smell like him. I flicked on my PC and stared at it… not really sure what to do. I opened my email and started writing him… within three words I started to cry again.
all i knew how to do at that moment was cry. I sat, slumped in my chair and stared at the photo on my desktop (which changes daily now, to my newest favourite photo of Muffin and Dan); replaying in my head the fake argument we had when he saw I hadn’t changed my desktop photo to one of him within two days of his arrival.
the crying didn't start there, in that chair though... it started two mornings prior when i realized i would only have one more morning watching him... i woke and hated myself for not memorizing every single detail about every single morning he was here. i hate that on that last morning i had the stupid compulsion to get up and start a load of laundry and have a bath instead of staying in bed and committing more of his face to my memory. i hate that i didn't spend more time touching him with my eyes closed so i could have named every single blemish and curve in the event of my going blind... i hate that i didn't plant more kisses on his face and neck... that i didn't spend more time kissing every single inch of his body...
instead of memorizing him i opted to sit in the bath and cry... janey and I have been discussing emo things of late… this comes as a result of some of her own personal crisis… she and I have been joking about all the emo things that she has been doing (one thing being that she wept into a bowl of muesli and then proceeded to eat the muesli and her accompanying tears). After a suitable amount of bathtime crying I stopped and thought to myself how much janey would laugh because I was actually just bathing in my tears.
After my bath I kissed him… I kissed from the big toe on his right foot up his leg, his side, his shoulder, down his right arm and every one of his fingertips. I laid next to him and kissed his face until he couldn’t stay asleep any longer…
The remainder of the morning was spent looking at one another and kissing each other’s faces…  I existed between states of weepy and he cuddledattacked me when he noticed I was getting misty in the eyes. We took photos and had some amazing sex before we pranced to the store for things for din dins. The whole day was spent talking… we talked about the future and what we would do… how we were going to work things out and how much we were going to hate being apart… how painful it was going to be.
A nice din din was had with Pow and then we packed his stuff… a little ball developed in my stomach that got harder and harder with every passing minute. I became tense and worried about what my emotional state would develop into. After he finished packing we laid in bed and talked... talked and touched one another’s faces. We tangled our legs up for the last time and kissed until we fell into our last sleep together for at least six months. The sleep lasted two hours before we had to get up…
the journey to the airport was horrific and painful. I kept kissing his face as he snoozed… the remainder of our time together felt numb and like it didn’t happen… something to do with checking-in, getting a coffee, walking to the terminal… all I remember is that I wanted to hold his hand as much as possible and I didn’t kiss him nearly enough.
Fast-forward to the beginning of this post… here I am today… at work… miserable. I feel like I am completely out of juice and ready to lie down for a nap for the next six months. I have never, ever felt anything like this in my life. It’s agony. I never could have prepared myself for what I have been feeling… the only person I can imagine understands is The Muffin, purely because he’s going through it as well…
I got to speak to him this evening which was just what I needed… I miss his voice so much… I miss him so much.
Please enjoy some of my favourite photos from his visit.