“I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.”
Category: Letters
Sick, Sick Puppy
So, I’m pretty sure my immune system has -99 armor, and no one else I know could possibly rival that. On Monday, I had a high fever of about 102, and my abdominal pain has been increasingly painful.
Now, I could complain and whine because the pain is pretty excruciating. But I’m ignoring that just to document the most adorable things I’ve experienced throughout this doom and gloom.
Today, Paul took me on a short adventure to get my mind off of things.
1st stop: Ralphs for chocolate soymilk and straws. He bought me a giant carton of milk and straws to drink from because we were taking it on the road. The best part was having 9 straws continuously fall into the carton.
2nd stop: Curry House. I mentioned curry sometime during the day, and even though he wasn’t hungry, he grabbed a late lunch to-go just for me. Whoever said men don’t listen never met Paul.
3rd, 4th, 5th stops: Settlers of Catan hunt. Walmart had the cheapest price according to Google, but no Walmart stocked the game (go figure). We hit Target and Paul immediately grabbed it off the shelf. My favorite part was asking why he was so determined to buy it and his answer was, “Settlers is what brought us together!”
We’ve been playing World of Warcraft all night, and Settlers will have to wait until tomorrow. But Paul has been a trooper and trying to do what he can for me. He even has rock music playing in the background just for me. And we know much Paul loves his N* jams.
We both still can’t believe it’s been an entire year that we officially started dating. Hopefully, this blog experiment will eventually become a wonderful reminder of the best thing that has ever happened to me.
I still get butterflies.
Eagle Rock
As I signal for a right turn, I look in the rear view mirror and that’s when I see it. I see my own face in her face. I see the furrowed brows, the crease between the eyebrows. My heart stops, and I want to run.
I want to run away from the woman who has blamed the world without stopping to say thank you if only once in a blue moon. But I’m being drawn in. In to the woman who wasn’t ready for marriage. For kids. For this kind of life. The woman who was stripped of every dream she had. The woman who let things slip away because self pity is always easier than change.
I look back at the road, and all I can see is the unfortunate town that has increased the depth of the crease in her forehead. It’s people, it’s hole-in-the wall eateries, it’s all too familiar scents of “home” – it’s all there’s left.
Her frown only shifts downward, and I feel my own self dropping to the bottom of my seat. And somehow, I know. I know that the only way out is living the dreams through the children. But no one wants to live their life for someone else. And she says she’ll die soon enough anyway. What’s left for a heart that harbors absolutely nothing?
When I give up, I feel his hand on my forehead. With a gentle finger, he’s there in the passenger seat, rubbing out the crease between my eyebrows and I can’t help but smile.
I look back at the rear view mirror, and while I wish things were different, I find comfort knowing my life is not hanging onto her frown or her perceptions of what I should do.
It’s almost silly that his nearly flawless forehead reminds me that dreams are possible. That I won’t be that woman. That no one will ever be her. That my dreams are my own, shared with his, and he’d never let me frown so hopelessly.
I finally stop the car, and when we walk out, I can’t help but let my arm curl around her shoulder, hoping that there’s still a fire left in the chambers of her heart.
English 101
Early American literature has its way of drilling into my brain and leaving it in pieces as a reminder that I am nothing more than a mediocre college student, attempting to fill in the lines with something extraordinary. Turning page after page, absolutely nothing is sticking, and the same sentence is read aloud twenty times over until I conjure up the image of blinding my eye with a highlighter. But on certain days, when the weather is warm, and I’m taking refuge in the only home that I know, reality pushes me into the most comforting set of arms I could ever imagine. I look up and before Franklin or Hamilton or Paine can drive me back into colonial insanity, he places a rose on the page of my book, filling the room with the joy I thought I had lost. Before I know it, he’s off to work again, and the floral scent carries my heart until the end of the day when I am happiest knowing that I can sleep under the covers and wake up to my favorite kiss good morning.
The Little Things
“Your voice is about the only real calming thing I know I have.”
While he doesn’t say much when it comes to these type of things, when he does, they’re something else.
Wings
The best things are always the simplest of things. And they don’t really teach you that anywhere else. Until life comes along. You wake up sick in bed, and he’s there. And the hot bowl of soup that he puts on your lap is enough to melt your heart. He puts on a movie and tells you it’s Disney. Your smile quite isn’t enough to tell him what he needs to hear.
You realize you look awful, lacking sleep, feeling terrible. But he holds your face in his hands and tells you you’re beautiful. You are the prettiest little thing he’s ever seen and wouldn’t want it any other way. He picks you up, and spins you around as if nothing else mattered.
Night falls and ice cream sounds like a wonderful reward for sleeping away the pain of being sick. He throws your hood on because he cares more about you than you do, and your steps on the sidewalk are in sync with his. You jump on him after you’ve finished your ice cream and wish for time to stop and capture this moment.
He whispers the things that give your heart wings, and you remember how the best things are always such simple things.
American Love Letters 