post-xmas realizations

Since I have possibly infected Cassie with Xmas flu, she has insisted I come take care of her if she gets sick.

This reminds me of my previous relationship. My ex got sick once, and all I wanted to do was cook her chicken soup and bring her cough drops and she wouldn't let me.

And now I believe that I wasn't really in a relationship at all before. I was having an affair of sorts. I was her, sorry for the cliché, dirty little secret. I was the other person. The one she saw on the side.

And it makes me feel kind of sick. Fleeting, though, because that is the past and it is over and done with. But I feel sick that I was there, in a place where I would allow myself to be treated that way.

And the contrast is so great now that I am in a real relationship, now that I am the apple of my girl's eye, as Stevie Wonder says. It is almost polar opposite of how things were with my ex, and that's sort of fucked up.

I want to be to the point where I don't ever think of my ex, or maybe just once in a blue moon. I am not there yet. I was so starved for love from my ex, it is hard for me to trust a situation where I am satiated. The process I am going through now is replacing the expectations left over from my previous relationship with new, positive ones from this new relationship. So as situations arise I see how much different Cassie is from my ex and I become a little more secure. Hurt from the old relationship fades away, the memories become more distant, muted.

It is a long process, but it is good for me to see the difference. I must never forget what it feels like to be starving because if I forget, how will I be able to tell if it starts to happen again? I will always remember because I promised myself I would never go to that place again.

Cassie is lovely though. She spent Christmas with us. Her family wants to meet me. She actually wants to spend time with me. She's funny. She thinks I'm funny (which I am, of course).

She's wonderful.

She said the L word to me this morning. I said it back. I wanted to. Krystal's Xmas present to me told me it was okay to say it, it was time. She gave me a book that was the lyrics to a Joni Mitchell song with illustrations. It was the song "Both Sides Now". It said, "Tears and fears and feeling proud to say 'I love you' right out loud." I knew then. I had been wanting to say it. And the book told me it was ok, that I would be free like a butterfly. So when she said it, I was ready, I said it back and it felt good and right, if scary.

So, yeah. That stuff.