And I already miss you.

I cried myself to sleep Friday night.
I left home Saturday afternoon.
I finished moving in Sunday night.
I had my first class Monday night.
I’m writing this Tuesday night.

That’s four days. And I already miss you.

I think a lot of people – myself included – would think that I’m a little too clingy when it comes to my partner. I’m very attached and long distance for the past three years has caused me to experience some of the worst emotional roller coasters in my life. It’s been an uphill battle, and it’s taught me a lot about myself and the things I value.

I keep looking back on my last day with my partner. It was a great day. It was our date night. We went out to this restaurant we’d never been to before and tried a sandwich made famous by Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel. And then we watch The World’s End (which was amazing, if you’re looking for a review).

By the end of the night, we were both yawning uncontrollably and ready for bed. For a moment, I forgot that we didn’t live together and I walked up my driveway expecting him to just follow me inside. Then it clicked in my mind and I had a bit of an internal breakdown. I flopped onto the driveway and stared up at the stars for the next 15 minutes. He came to lay beside me, no questions asked. I didn’t talk much during that time. I wouldn’t have been able to without choking on my tears.

But I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to tell him that I’m going to miss him. I wanted to tell him that he’s home to me. I wanted to tell him that every time I think about how long it’ll be until I see him again, I get a lump in my throat and can’t breathe, much less speak.

It’s a couple days late, but I guess I can tell him now:

James,

If you’re reading this, know that I love you. I’m so proud of you and everything you’re working towards. Your work ethic and determination amaze me. I want to grow up to be like you. The time I spend with you makes me a better person. If I could hop in a car and come see you, I would drive all through the night. I’d show up on your doorstep with a bouquet of fruit flowers, a bottle of whiskey, and the 8th season of Supernatural. And I’d make you miss all of your classes to watch it with me. If I could, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight (within reason; you can go to the bathroom by yourself, I think).

I know that what I’m doing here in Portland is what’s best for me, my family, and for us later on in life. And I know that I’ll appreciate the time I’ve put into this. I know that my education is teaching me to be passionate and take pride in my work. But that doesn’t make it any easier to be away from you.

I hope that I’m making you proud. And I hope that when this is all over, I’m able to take good care of you. You deserve all the kindness, respect, love, and generosity that I have to offer. And I plan on giving it you.

And I already miss you.

Love,

Kris

Unrelenting Desire

So, basically, the first time I met my partner, I went pretty much insane.

I remember seeing him and thinking to myself, “God, I hope he likes me. He looks like such a nice guy and he’s really cute and I just hope he doesn’t hate me.” My mind was going a mile a minute the whole time I was with him. I wanted to be his best friend and his girlfriend and his whole world like, right then and there.

I made the decision right after that that he was going to be my boyfriend. That was it. That was endgame. There was no stopping me. I stopped flirting with other people that afternoon. I made an executive decision to tell the other chick that I was interested in that I just wasn’t available. I mean, I wasn’t in a relationship yet, but I was considering it an inevitability. I wanted him so bad that day.

And every day after that.

And it’s funny that I still feel that way about him. Almost five years later. I haven’t wanted to be with anyone else since I met him. And I know that sounds kind of insane because people can’t control crushes and stuff like that. I know that sometimes you’ll have a “What If?” moment with someone and rethink your whole life and it’s whacked out and crazy for a minute.

I’ll admit, I’ve had crushes in the time I’ve been with my partner. But I’ve never wanted to be with any of those people. I’ve thought they were cute as hell and had a personality like nobody’s business. But not once have I ever had that “I have to make him/her mine” thought. Not since him. Not since that day that I met him.

I have an unrelenting desire for my partner. It’s a crazy feeling and it always surprises me that I wake up every day still feeling this way. But, I’ve never had a day in the past 4+ years where I haven’t wanted to be with him. Even when we fought. Hell, even when we broke up. I regretted leaving his side immediately. Because I knew deep in my core that leaving him was doing the exact opposite of what made me happy. God, he makes me happy.

What I’m getting at here is that love is stupid crazy. And it’s not the same for everybody. But my personality is one that wants things. And I think that, for the rest of my life, I’ll be wanting to be with him.

I love you, James. If you’re reading this, get over here and give me a kiss.

And you will never know / Just how beautiful you are to me

I always thought that when two people are in love, they love in the exact same way. That everything is equal. I’d subscribed to that mindset through the first year and a half of my current relationship. But then I moved away and I learned a very valuable lesson:

In every relationship, there will always be one person who feels that they love more.

I’m not saying that this is correct, though for some people it very well could be. But it always feels that way for one or both parties. Because love is so confusing and multidimensional and traumatizing. We feel this way because people just show affection differently.

I guess the best way to illustrate is to tell you about my relationship with my partner. He and I have been together for four and a half years. We’ve been through a lot together. We’ve fought through scary situations together. We’ve been there for each other through death, depression, inexplicable fear, you name it. And he’s perfect.

God, if I took the time out to describe this man to you, I’d run out of space… and time. He’s gorgeous; it’s like looking at the fucking sunrise. He’s so smart, too. He’s good at everything that I’m bad at and he always makes me look like such an idiot. And he’s got these adorable freckles all over his back. And that’s why I love summer so much; because I get to see them. Kissing him is like a religious experience. God, it’s fucking insane. And every time he cuts his hair, I go into this state of mourning and I don’t even know why because it’s always perfect, no matter what length it is.

I love everything about this guy. Like, literally everything. Even the things that drive me insane, like when he can’t put down his fucking phone when he’s car shopping. Or how every trip, no matter where we’re going or why we’re going there, ends in us looking at fishing lures. Or that I’m always the one to apologize first, even if it’s not my fault, and he just loves it. If he didn’t do those things – the things that make me want to scream at him – I’d feel like something was missing from him. He’s just so… complete. He’s so perfect and flawed and irritating and beautiful.

And every time I want to tell him how much I love him, I stop. And I revise. And I tone it down. Because there’s always a nagging feeling inside me that says I love him more than he loves me. There’s that little voice that says I should really only go about 75% of the way, or I might scare him off. That maybe I should wait for him to say “I love you” first this time. Every time I get the urge to buy him a gift, I wait and think about whether or not it would be too much. That maybe my gift-giving intervals should be longer? I write him a letter nearly every day, but I almost never send it to him because he’d probably think I was crazy.

I like to think that I don’t love him more, that we love each other pretty equally. I think we just express our affection in different forms, in different waves. For me, showing him that I love him means writing him poems and painting a picture and buying him a puppy and paying a pilot to write “I love you” in the sky. And for him, it’s a lot quieter.

That doesn’t mean I don’t feel his love, because I do. It may not be as out there as I’d do it. But all it takes is a kind word or a stupid voicemail on my birthday (that I never delete)… and he’s got me hooked all over again.

Sometimes, I find myself saying, “He just doesn’t love me the way that I love him.” But then I think about how stupid it is to expect an entirely different human being to think the exact same way that I do when it comes to love. That’s such a ridiculous expectation, right? That almost seems cruel to ask that of someone.

No, I don’t think he’d risk getting arrested to hop on stage at an Ed Sheeran concert and proclaim his love to me on both knees. That sounds like something I would do, sure. But that’s not his style. He’s the kind of person that would say it in the way he kisses my cheek while asking me to get out from between him and the stove. He’d be the guy who would hold my hand for five of the six hours on the road to Idaho, even if my hand gets sweaty. He’s the one who goes and gets waffles because I say, “Waffles sound delicious right now.”

We’re not the same, and we never will be. But the way he says “I love you” makes me really happy. And I think that matters a lot.

Daily Struggles

I’m not quite sure as to where this post is going yet. I’m really just writing to vent and get all of my thoughts out of my head and into some tangible format that makes it easy to sort through them later. Best get started, then.

 

I take every kiss seriously. Really. Every kiss is a big deal. Yes, there have been many kisses; today alone consisted of at least thirty. But every kiss, no matter how brief, is important. I believe that a kiss can speak volumes.

On the cheek: “You are important to me.”
Between the knuckles of the hand I’m holding: “You’ve taken such good care of me and I really appreciate you.”
On the chin: “I’m happy right here. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
On the corner of the mouth: “I want to see and feel you smile. Your smile is my favorite thing.”
On the lips: “There is no one else I’d rather share this moment with.”
On the nose: “You’re playful and I really like that about you.”
On the neck, just below the jawline: “You’re worth the wait, the distance, the extra effort. You’re worth every minute of it.”
On the collarbone: “You’re beautiful and I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

I wish I could convey my feelings into actual words. But whenever my partner asks me what I’m thinking or how I’m feeling or if there’s something wrong, I never have anything meaningful to say. Take tonight for example. Here are basically all the things I wanted to say tonight when he asked me 5 billion times “What’s wrong?”

I feel like my entire life revolves around making you like me. Yes, you’re my boyfriend. You have been for four and a half years. So obviously you like me. But that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that I spend so much time and energy trying to get you to understand how I feel about you. Because you’re my best friend and you’re everything I want out of life. And when I look at you, I feel like being happy is something that I can actually attain, and that’s not something I aspire to feel with anyone else.
I wish that every time I kissed you, you kissed me back with the same passion, responding to what I’m trying to say. But I don’t think it’s fair for me to expect you to feel as strongly about me as I feel about you. Because unless you’re as emotionally complicated as I am, that is just impossible. All I want is for you to understand what it means for me to love you as much as  I do.
On a completely different note, I feel like I don’t deserve you. Because you are amazing and deserve someone perfect. I feel like one day, you’re going to see that you could do much better and then I’ll lose you. I don’t know how to keep that from happening. It’s my worst nightmare.
So, what’s wrong? I am. 

Why can’t I just talk to him? You’d think it wouldn’t be so hard after 4+ years. But apparently, it is. Because I’m a crazy person. Why is my life so goddamn difficult?

 

This blog post got a little too real. But I got all of my thoughts out of the way, which I guess was the point. Pardon the rant. I half-promise the next post will be less insane.