A short-ish note to my significant other, though he probably won’t ever see it
Sometimes, I get upset with you. You’re confusing, I have no idea what you’re thinking or if you’re ever thinking about me, and when we’re apart so much it’s hard not to worry about what the silence means. You don’t tell me that you miss me, if in fact you ever do. You’re more likely to surprise me last-minute with a date you’ve been planning for a while (which I do enjoy very much, by the way, and wish we could spend time out together more often) than to also remind me that you know I exist in the meantime. Unlike me, you don’t seem bothered or anxious when we don’t really talk for a day, or even two sometimes, and I don’t think you really understand why that’s alarming to me. But as we’ve gone along, as I become more in tune with who you are and how you love, it has gotten easier (note: still not easy, but I’m working on it) to keep my fear in check and let myself hope that maybe, just maybe…you want this as much as I do.
The worry disappears when I’m with you because I see laughter in your eyes while I tell you all the ideas I’ve had since last I saw you. I hear fondness in the tone of your voice when you laugh at my many threats of bodily harm (all of which you deserve, by the way). I feel your desire when I interrupt your work to kiss you and you pretend to complain but kiss me back anyway. The anxiety vanishes when you call me at 11 p.m. on your way home from designing at Starbucks and you’re absolutely exhausted–not mad or aloof or tired of my antics like I’ve thought for two days–but you take the time anyway to ask about my day and stay on the phone listening to me chatter until you fall asleep (usually, this happens when I ask you a fairly important question, but I suppose I won’t hold that against you). Most of all, I know you care about me when–after you let me sleep an extra 30 minutes while you shower and iron your clothes–you wake me softly while you brush your teeth and you don’t get mad when I curl up for 45 more seconds of pretend-sleep with my head in your lap…even though you’ll have to deal with awful traffic on your way to work if we don’t hurry up and leave.
It’s still hard for me to understand at times why you don’t verbalize things the way I do, or why we fight about the things we fight about when neither of us understands exactly why we’re fighting or how to make the other understand or why we’re even mad in the first place. I don’t understand why we’re so different and why things that seemingly should be easy feel so hard for us sometimes. I don’t know why you think I’m so befuddling when I feel like I explain what’s going on in my head all the time in ten different ways. (And, if I am confusing, I don’t understand why you don’t just tell me what you’re thinking/feeling and then ask me what I’m thinking/feeling too?? That seems to make sense…)
What I do know is that you are the most inspiring, passionate, interesting, fun, talented, handsome man I have ever dated, and I am a lucky woman to have you in my life. We probably have our work cut out for us as we figure out how to keep this thing afloat through the rough patches that will inevitably come our way, but I wouldn’t want to make that journey with anyone else.