May 23, 2004

Just Got Home from MM’s Home

I have become downright domestic...

I had dinner with MM. She made ribs, I made mashed potatoes (scallions, bleu cheese, and more herbs than should be legal!). It was a good dinner. We just hung out this evening. I did some homework, she gardened. We organized a cupboard and cleaned up after dinner. Overall a wonderful evening, even if it was über-domestic.

The reality is that I am happiest by her side. Damn, I am so much in love with this woman.

I guess that it is time to begin trusting love again. My heart has been broken so many times that I have become somewhat jaded, calloused toward the idea of loving again. I always felt that I would keep the better part of my heart for me. My plan was to find somebody with whom I could be friendly. I would never really use the “L” word and would avoid entanglements. That way my heart was well shielded, not vulnerable, and therefore not breakable. I am a good friend. For me to offer friendship is to offer something worth-while. I did not trust love. I felt that love itself had betrayed me, especially after my second marriage died an ignominious death.

I could have understood S telling me that it just could not work. To be lied to was hard. We separated under the pretense that we would reconcile. I clung to that promise for way too long. When she decided, rather unilaterally I might add, to pursue a divorce I was devastated. In retrospect it is best for both; I still hate the way that it happened. I just wish that she had been honest rather than playing along, letting me be duped. She did not want anything material. She just wanted out but could not find the nerve to say so. She says that she values the friendship. I have a dictum that I live by. I will trust you until you prove that you cannot be trusted. I will not be angry if betrayed; I may even understand the motives. I will, however, never trust you again. I just don’t trust S anymore. I felt the same about love.

MM has valid reasons not to be trusting. She told me that she has issues with trust. I look at her and I see a person that is incredibly trusting, especially given the recent past and history of broken promises. I see her as exceptionally trusting. I think that when her doubts surface that they are onerous and it seems like she cannot trust. I have never felt anything but trust from her. She is a beautiful soul and a wonderful woman.

She loves and trusts me. I love and trust her. I am learning to trust love again. I think that it was not love that betrayed me, but my inability to be a good partner to the women that shared my life. There have been three that I have been attached to, L and S, to which I was married, and P, who was a girlfriend of nearly three years following my first divorce. All three ended, leaving me broken-hearted. Each left a scar that was sore and a source of uncertainty and incredulity. I swore that I would never let myself be hurt that way again.

But I am risking the same hurt by letting MM so close to me. I would not have it any other way, though. I trust her and believe that she would never intentionally hurt me in any way. I am willing to trust her and to go where I said I never would: into a love that is deep and intense, that becomes definitive of the person that I will be with her. I am risking much. So is she. But we are doing it together…

And so the Dancing Fool has a partner in this life’s gavotte.

And I am such a smitten, lovesick fool….

No comments: