Day 1

It's amazing how quickly a moment can pass by.

I got off the plane, she was there waiting for me.

I fell in love with her all over again the minute I saw her. My legs were literally weak. Not the cliche weak, used as a metaphor to show internal emotion. My feet tingled, like they were falling asleep, and my thighs gave out like muscle failure in a workout.

I had to force myself to walk.

It was awkward, it was clumsy, but we spent an hour together.

She dropped me off at my mother's, wouldn't kiss me, but was open to giving me time.

I suppose that's all I can ask for.

3237 Days Since, None Left Until

DAY ZERO

It's 1 PM right now. In 30 minutes, I leave for the airport. In about ten hours, I walk off the plane.

Destiny awaits.

I just wish I knew which destiny is waiting...

3236 Days Since, 1 Left Until

Wow. Time flies.

In the month I've been keeping this blog, each day seemed to inch by, crawling along at its own steady, nerve-wracking pace.

Yet here I am, less than twenty-four hours before I'll board a plane and... well, I'll get off and see her. That's about all I know.

I talked to her today. Text messages were exchanged yesterday (she finally got the birthday card I sent her), but today she answered the phone and we had a half-hour conversation. I was nervous as hell, far from my usual articulate self. She was not, seeming much more at ease with the whole situation than I, but who knows whether that's a facade or not. She's always been much more relaxed, more "go with the flow" than I. She said she's not nervous, I have no reason to disbelieve her.

I remember nine years ago, getting off that plane. My mother & family were there, my future sister-in-law, and her. The phone conversations, the letters, all the lead-up to me walking off that airplane, I was as nervous then as I am now. I wanted to grab her, kiss her hard on the mouth, hold her against me, but with my family there, all I could really do was put my arm around her, rub her back a bit, smile at her and feel the emotional tension build in the air. It wasn't negative; it was just the situation dictating that we couldn't act on our wants or needs at that moment.

We went back to my mother's house, everybody stayed up talking for a while. Eventually, my brother & his fiance left, my parents went to bed, and after a bit of alone time, she had to go home for the night. I walked her to the car, grabbed her around her waist, and kissed her.

With that, all that tension, all those nerves and hormones, everything came crashing down into a perfect moment.

Maybe it will again.

She surprised the hell out of me today when she said "Let whatever happens happen." To hear that from her, to have my thoughts repeated to me, made me feel much more at ease. I told her that, while I have many things I want and hope for, I have no expectations of her. That, whether we spend every second of my two weeks together or we only have the airport, I want her to spend her time with me because she wants to, not because she feels she has to.

I don't think that will be a problem.

I asked her today if she believed in God, to which she assured me she did. I told her that, with that belief, she has to see that there is a reason I came back into her life, and that it happened when it did. That, as she's sitting in my ex sister-in-law's house, the woman that introduced us, talking about me, she gets a call from her sister-in-law that I'm trying to get a hold of her.

She seemed to agree.

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game is about to start, meaning that it's exactly twenty-four hours from now that I'll be taking off from John Wayne Airport, on my way to whatever awaits me.

Three thousand, two hundred and thirty-six days have passed since I last touched her.

One more until I will again.

I don't know if she loves me as much as I love her. But I do know that she loves me.

And that's enough.

3230 Days Since, 1 Week Until

Soul Mate or White Whale?

Lately, I have been only writing in this blog when I talk to her. I just don't feel like I have anything to say unless there is something new to add. I've chronicled our history here, I've poured out and poured over my heart & its intentions, I've written basically all there is to say, at least as far as the Cliffs Notes version goes. I could write an endless epic in prose about this woman, about her affect on me, about how I feel about her, and I'd never come close to finishing it.

But here, I finally have something to add that doesn't include a conversation with her. Sure, I tried calling her last night, and we exchanged a text message today, but there's nothing important in that sense to write about.

This, as the bolded sentence fragment above suggests, is a tempest within my mind that I've been dealing with for the last few days as The Date draws closer.

It comes down to simply this: Is she my one true love, or is she an obsession?

Let us see both sides of the argument here.

Side 1: Soul Mate

First off, I'm really sorry I couldn't find a better picture than that. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find pictures of romantic love, soul mates, that kind of thing, using Google image search? Well, OK, it is VERY easy, but the last thing I want to paste here is a pic of some 19-year-old girl getting penetrated by multiple men. Seriously, it was VERY hard to find a picture that came even close to what I wanted.

And I suppose that's because everybody's image and definition of love is different. Everybody has a different vision of what the physical manifestation of their heart's true desire would look like. I like this one not for the flowery beautiful white people embracing, but for the light that emanates from them, because that's part of how I see it.

And that's how it is with her. I truly believe that I have loved her my entire life, I just didn't know it until I met her. Actually, that's not true at all. I just didn't know it until she showed me.

I have never been the guy to aggressively pursue a woman. I'm not the guy who thinks a girl is cute, and tries every trick in his book to get in her pants immediately. I've always been the kind of guy who gets to know a woman a bit, who flirts, who talks, who wants to know a bit about who he's going to stick his penis in. Not that I haven't been your average, sex-obsessed guy with no regard for feelings. Because that's exactly how it started with Beth (fuck I still hate that name).

While up North one Christmas, my future ex sister-in-law showed me her picture, and I was smitten. Well, at least I didn't know I was. All I felt was horny.

So, at a drunken high school party at my brother (who was out of high school) and my future ex sister-in-law's house (who was not), I met her, I came on to her, I made out with her, I held her hair when she threw up, I tried to fuck her, and she didn't give in.

But there was something there, and I exchanged addresses and telephone numbers with her.

She wrote me a letter telling me about this hot guy she was totally in love with, I called her to tell her it really wasn't like that and I wasn't in love with her or anything, we talked for hours, she wrote me telling me she was in love with me, I called back and slowly let her down, and we fell for each other over a six-month period until I saw her again.

We had lots of sex, and I finally realized where my heart lay, and I told her so.

When she joined the Army and left me, it broke my heart. I was very angry for a long time, but she was never out of my thoughts. When I joined the Army (yes, a stupid move to prove something to myself and her), her picture was in my wall locker for as long as I had one, even though she had married less than a year after she broke it off with me. There were other women, including the one I married, but she was never far from my thoughts, and not a day would pass without me actively thinking about her. Occasionally, when I'd start to lose interest when having sex with one of these women, I'd think of her to speed things up...

Thinking back on it, every woman I have been with since September of 1999 has been a rebound woman.

In high school, I was the shy type who would admire from afar. Every woman I'd ever wanted never became a part of my love life. As I grew older and more self-assured, the women I ended up with were usually those that things just kind of fell into place. There was no magic, there was no true passion, we just kind of fell together.

Until Beth. Everything with her seemed fairytale, seemed a part of a perfectly scripted play of romance. At least, in retrospect it does. I know I'm sugar coating it, but in comparison to every other relationship I've had, it was. And in comparison to every other love I've had, they've all paled.

Even those I would carry in my heart for a long, long time were nothing in comparison to the years and distance I would carry her.

At any point in any of my relationships since, including on my wedding day, if you had asked me "Would you drop everything with your current love for just the chance, a one-in-a-million shot, of restarting your relationship with her?" I would have answered honestly, and I would have answered "yes" without even taking a second to think about it.

And it would be enough if I were alone in this. But to find out three months ago that a lot of these same feelings were being carried in her heart, were on her mind after all these years, well, it floored me. I was a 25-year-old when all this happened. She was 18. I had been in a few long-term relationships and had my share of sex before her. She hadn't. The fickleness of love in those early years, when hormones yell louder than emotions, I expected that I had been long forgotten when I tried to contact her in December and when I wrote that letter in April.

I was wrong.

Now, in one week, I face the great unknown. I know what's in my heart, but will my head fuck it up? Will hers? Will we see each other, touch each other, and feel the spark, the light, the epiphany that we are finally in the right place? Or will one of us, while the other realizes that they were in love with an image, not a reality?

Goddamn I think too much.

Fact of the matter is, I love this woman. I have loved her for nearly ten years. Regardless of what happens starting in one week, three hours, and fifteen minutes as of the writing of this sentence, I will always love her.

And that's enough for this argument.

Side 2: Obsession

Now is where it gets tough. I have to completely ignore everything I wrote in the above argument, and look into the darker parts of my personality.

The fact of the matter is, I have a tendency to obsess. It's always been a problem. My ex wife noticed it right off the bat. I would fixate on something, dedicate a hell of a lot of energy to it, then lose interest and move on to something else. It has been a repeating cycle in my life, and unfortunately, has been a part of my love life, too.

Starting with puberty, I would fixate on a girl, "love" her deeply, then move on to someone else. I can even remember an instance from my youth when, after a falling out with one object of my teenage affections, I willed myself to love another girl. One object of my affections would only fall off when replaced with another.

The fact of the matter is it has been damn near a decade since I have seen her, since we have been together. A third of out lives have passed. We have each been through so much, grown so much, that while the core of our personalities may be the same, that may be all that is. We didn't have the chance to grow together, only to grow separately.

Yes, I am in love with her, there is no doubt about that. And she says she still loves me, has said it many times. But are we in love with each other, or with an image?

I fully admit that she has been my obsession lately. She's constantly on my mind, the first thought in my head when I wake and the last before I sleep.

But unlike my usual obsessions, this one has lasted ten years. Recently, it has burned far more brightly than the little smoldering ember it had been for most of that time, but that's only because it has had far more oxygen to feed off.

Have I really been in love with her all this time? Has it lay semi-dormant in my heart, waiting for the right moment to awaken? Or am I just guilty of idol worship, making her into whatever image pleases me most?

The Verdict:

Who the hell knows? I don't, and won't for another week. I do know that I love this woman more than I ever thought possible, more than any other that has come through my life by tenfold. She's the only one I've ever considered might be my soul mate.

A week from now, I will walk off an airplane. She will see me before I see her. Walking down the stairs and onto the tarmac, I will be nervous, but the jolt I'll feel when, after scanning the crowd, I finally lock eyes on her is unimaginable to me right now. I'll smile, controlling my racing heart and adrenaline, walk up to her, and touch her.

With that touch, everything will be clear.

3224 Days Since, 13 Left Until

And the walls come crumbling down...

I'm regretting inventing the name "Beth." It's horribly plain, invoking images of milquetoast girls in ankle-length dresses eating picnics under old-growth oak trees. Her real name is so simple, so pretty, and so fitting of her to give her an alias seems almost criminal, in the very least a betrayal of her spirit.

She's no "Beth," that's for certain.

I damn near deleted this blog last night. I nearly did so because I thought all was lost. At about 11:00 PM my phone rang with a different ring than standard and a different tempo in vibration, and I answered with a smile on my face and a flush of love and emotion.

It was all quickly shot down.

It took a few seconds, maybe a minute, before I realized that she was mad at me. Angry. Pissed. I had left a message on her voicemail a few days ago, saying I wouldn't "hold my breath" waiting for her to call back. I meant it in a light, jokey manner.

It wasn't taken that way.

I called her again yesterday while I was at work. I didn't leave a message. I figured the caller ID would be enough to alert her that I had called, and I meant to call her again later in the evening. The first words out of her mouth she asked why I hadn't left a message. It went downhill from there.

She was angry, she was upset, and I ended up having to take a half tablet of my anti-anxiety meds to calm myself down. It was upsetting, and nothing I could say could calm her.

It was more than the misunderstanding of a voicemail that led to this. It was the weight of all this crashing down upon her. She told me that she didn't know if she could be what I wanted her to be, which was particularly upsetting. She was a bit incoherent at times, and I asked her more than once if she was alright, which she said she was.

I have been on the heavy side in our conversations, but with reason. First off, it's who I am. I'm a thinker, a philosopher, and what is on my mind will not remain hidden at this point in my life. Second, my big brain, extensive vocabulary, and depth are what won her in the first place.

Last time around, I kept my heart hidden from her, kept my feelings locked away, afraid to show them to the light. I'm making no such error this time. If it doesn't work out, if the spark fails to reignite, if in the end the waters are too wide to navigate, it won't be because my pride stood in the way of letting this wonderful woman, this beautiful mind, know exactly how she makes me feel.

But because of that, I guess she felt pressured. She told me numerous times she wasn't looking for a serious relationship. That she didn't know if we could work, if she felt that way. I tried to tell her that I never wanted anything from her but for her to be herself and follow her heart wherever it may lead, but it just wasn't getting through last night. She was upset, and when the conversations were over, it was a very bad night to try to go to sleep.

...and the walls are quickly rebuilt

I was going to call her this morning when I got to work, try to work things out with clearer heads and calmer hearts.

I didn't get the chance.

At eight o'clock this morning, my phone rang the same unfamiliar ring from last night. Still drowsy, I picked the phone up and saw that she was calling. I almost hit "Silent," until I came to my senses and answered the damn phone. She isn't my ex-wife, after all.

Turns out this was a smart move. She almost immediately apologized, telling me that she was drunk last night (I figured intoxication was probable from her incoherence). I told her that she had nothing to really apologize for, and explained the joke.

I told her the most upsetting thing for me was when she said "I don't know if I can be who you want me to be." I told her that all I want is for her to be herself, to listen to her heart, and be happy. That was my main concern, I told her, so long as she was happy that's all I need, whether she's happy with me or without.

I told her the reasons I can be so heavy.

Everything was great, better than new today. She told me she loved me. She called me "baby" in a text message.

God, I love this woman. It lay dormant for a while, but has always been there.

And hopefully, God is a lover of the underdog and likes to see second chances.

I hope.

3217 Days Since, 20 Left Until

Wow, didn't realize it had been so long since I had posted here. It's technically now Friday, and I suppose that I just haven't had much to say.

Just one thing, really. Yesterday (Wednesday, June 25) was my 3rd wedding anniversary.

It was also Beth's birthday.

I didn't call my ex.

I sent a text message to Beth, and sent her a card.

3213 Days Since, 24 Left Until

CONTACT!

And again the focus of this blog changes. And again my mood, demeanor, and outlook completely changes. An hour ago, life was bad, horrible, hostile, and lonely. Now, life is good, uplifting, and full of promise.

Yeah, I talked to her. Beth. God, I hate writing that name. I know why I picked it, but I'd still prefer to use her real name, shout it from the mountaintops. Anonymous love is for glory holes and chat rooms. My heart is intimate.

Every fear I had is now quieted down. Not put to rest, just hammered down with Nyquil and Valium into a comfortable (and hopefully prolonged) snooze. And that's OK with me. If it weren't so hard and unpredictable, would the reward be as sweet? If this were guaranteed, would it be as exciting, would holding her in my arms be as worth it?

It should be noted, too, that today was the 9th anniversary of the first time we made love. I had arrived up north the night before, twilight still barely in the sky at 1 AM on the Summer Solstice. The next day, she came over, still shy, nervous, and 17 years old. I was 25.

She turned 18 three days later, and it had been my attention to wait, but after six months of phone conversations and letters, once she was in my arms I could not wait. It was sweet, it was loving (even before either of us had told the other we loved each other), but wasn't as perfect as the movies always make it out to be.

I told her this tonight, and she giggled a bit, responded with a "Wow..." and that was about it. I told her the reason I knew about it was because I got a message on myspace reminding me that her birthday was in 3 days, so it brought the memory back, but that wasn't the complete truth. Since we've been talking again and she reminded me when her birthday is, I knew. It just took a little kickstart, a little nudge, and the date immediately came to mind.

We haven't talked about sex much. I haven't pushed the issue at all, and have rarely made even subtle remarks. It's not because I'm afraid to come on too strong or I'm afraid of being seen as wanting only one thing. Hell, when she fell in love with me in 1999, all I ever talked about was fucking.

No, the reason I really haven't brought it up is that it's really not a big concern of mine. In all sincerity, it's quite far down the list of things I want on this trip. I will be extraordinarily happy if I walk away with her heart, but don't remove a single item of her clothing. Seriously.

Of course, if anything happens, I'm incapable of fighting nature when it takes its course.

More tomorrow.

3212 Days Since, 25 Left Until

It's amazing how quickly this little blog has turned from what I thought it would be into what it is. Yes, I'm still making a trip up North. Yes, I still hope to see the woman called "Beth" here. Yes, I still hope to pick up right where we left off, fall desperately back in love, get married, have babies, watch them grow, grow old, retire & die. But that's less what this is about.

It's more about my problems with my ex-wife. At least, that's what has been affecting me most these last few days. It's been nothing but fights & arguments, and as much as I want to be a good guy, I'm not. I've turned into a giant prick, I've been deliberately cruel, and that's not who I want to be.

I knew when I was writing the last entry that I was wrong, I knew her fucking somebody else was affecting me, but I just didn't feel it. Not until she showed up yesterday to give me my keys back. And then there was another fight today when she came by to pick up a check & I lost it when she said he'd be bringing her by. The fallout of that conversation will still be toxic a thousand generations from now.

I need to just let go, but I've never been good at that. So what I need is to just keep her away from me. Not just that it's poisonous for my soul, but I become a venomous serpent around her. I'm cruel, I'm mean, I'm not making this easy for either of us. And I need my karma in tip-top shape if I expect anything good to happen to me next month.

On that note, I tried calling Beth again today, and got no answer. But, the phone rang through this time. No immediate voicemail message stating that she'd lost her phone, just the same message after four rings. That generally means that the phone on the other end is ringing.

Of course I don't expect her to call, I'm too smart for that.

But hopefully, she has a phone again. And with God's help, I'll talk to her tomorrow.

3210 Days Since, 27 Left Until

Well, nothing new to report here. I've heard from neither my ex-wife or my old love, both of which are expected. Neither have I tried calling either of them myself. Maybe tomorrow on the latter, maybe soon on the former (she still has to drop off her damn keys.)

I splurged on myself today. Took my lunch break at work and walked across the street & bought a new digital camera at Radio Shack. The last one I had my ex-wife lost during a week-long meth binge with her girlfriend from one of her stints in the county lock-up in March, and since I saw how cheap they've gotten, I went ahead and bought one.

I gotta say, in all honesty there's only one reason I bought it: My trip next month. I bought a 2 gig SD memory card, and I have hopes of filling it with pictures of and with a certain little blonde girl. Of course, pessimist that I am, my hope dims daily. Maybe I'll see her, but I doubt it'll be anything like it was all those years ago.

I had a picture of her that I took with me in the Army, to remind me of why I was there & the love that would not leave my heart. It was taken by my mother on July 4, 1999 at the lake where my grandparents own a small cabin. It was a candid moment, neither of us knowing we were being photographed. I was smoking a cigarette, and she had her arms wrapped around me from behind.

It was my favorite photo of us togther.

I was hoping that there would be others, but now I'm not so sure.

And perhaps that's for the best. I don't know that this is something that's meant to be. A lot of years have passed, and while the core of each person never changes, a lot of things do, and it may be too much. It's that core of her that I love, and it's the same in her heart. Who knows where it will end up?

But that's the point. I wouldn't be writing this if we were having the same long-distance relationship we had 9 years ago at this point. This is the great unknown, an unlit corridor along this hallway of my life. If it fails and nothing happens, I know I have given it my all, have been forthright and true to my heart, my wants, and my needs.

If it succeeds, then I will be a bit surprised, but a whole lot happy.

3208 Days Since, 29 Left Until

So my ex-wife is fucking somebody she met at an NA meeting.

Not much of a surprise there. She's free now, and she's free to fuck whomever she pleases.

Not that that ever stopped her before.

The funny thing is that this time, it doesn't bother me. Well, not true, of course it bothers me. but it bothers me more in a "I'm not getting laid, but she is?" way, rather than a "She's my wife with somebody else's cock inside her" way.

But in a way, it's funny. Let her go, let her hit bottom, and that's where she finds herself at home. She's an addict, and now she's fucking one.

And yes, I do find myself wishing I still were the one naked with her. But I don't wish to be the one who her probation officer orders around. I don't wish to be the one she cheats on, she runs up phone bills with calls to ex-boyfriends on, the one who has to put money on her books in jail & tries to figure out how to earn back the $5000 she owes in restitution and has to help find her a job after she plead guilty to stealing that five grand from her last employer.

So, I think it's a fair trade-off. I don't get to fuck her, but she doesn't get to fuck me, either.

But none of this matters, right? There's Beth afterall.

The pessimist in me doesn't think so. The pessimist in me knows what's in her heart, but is scared to death of what's in her mind. It's been almost two weeks since I've talked to her, and the lack of information coming in makes my mind run in circles, analyzing old data, growing more and more paranoid as the positives fall to the wayside and the negatives take center stage.

Sure, the last time I talked to her, she seemed very open to my suggestions that she should have married me instead of the men she did. She seemed to like the idea of heading out to the lake my grandparents own a cabin on & doing some fishing (the same place, mind you, that we first spent the night together and had some really great sex). She didn't hesitate to answer "yes" when I asked if she'd pick me up at the airport.

But, she has made no effort to contact me. She has lost her cellphone, and the message on her voicemail still confirms that, but I've left messages the past three days & have yet to get a phone call from her. In fact, since the first time we talked on the phone, she hasn't called at all; it's always me that initiates.

I know she's scared. I think she's been hurt very, very badly, probably by her first husband. I think she married her second husband because she didn't like the way her first marriage failed. I think she's been so burned by relationships that I'm especially scary to her.

Because I know she still loves me.

With that still in her heart, it has to be scary, as she has no bad memories with me. We weren't together long enough to make them. So, if she jumps into this and it bites her in the ass, something nice, a relationship that was loving and healthy, is destroyed.

Or, at least that's what I think.

Because that's exactly how I feel.

But my heart is on a set course, and that course bypasses my brain. I understand her reticence, her caution, I really do, because my brain is screaming these same things at me.

I just hope and pray that she starts listening to her heart.

Right now, I don't even know if I'm going to see her on my trip. She's the main reason I'm going up there, and I fear that she'll "puss out" again.

But there's always hope.