All Over Again

Yes. Things have been rough lately. I've shed way too many tears, and my emotional pain has sometimes been unbearable.  I've been here before, and I've suffered these all-too-familiar feelings before,  I know what it is like to feel alone in a crowd, to feel unloved in a room full of lovers. To feel hopeless, helpless, unloved, unwanted undesired. To feel like a failure.

Still, I also know the Joy of Loving someone, truly Loving someone, and knowing that they Love me back. That undeniable feeling of Hope and Joy for someone who truly 'gets' me. Feeling invincible. The butterflies when I'm being held, touched and kissed. The sharp intake of my breath when I'm being kissed or held, and I'm just floating on air. The pleasant giddiness of it all.

Just because I know that wonderful feeling, it doesn't prevent the earlier-stated negative emotions from coming on, and, granted, I have earned my stripes in the suffering department, so it's not really an overreaction on my part. I would almost dare to challenge anyone who feels I'm weak to walk a mile in my figurative shoes and get through it without feeling despair at times.

But this "All Over Again" I'm referring to is is the Love. No, there's not a recent Love or attraction over the past few days. Nothing like that. It's that I was reminded again how well Fetlife archives messages from our past by a friend, so I took a trip down 'Memory Lane' back to 3 years ago when I was in a fragile state over the unexpected death of my Mother, and things felt hopeless for me. I read messages that started off so innocently, and how they turned flirty, and then developed into a mutual wanting, and then Love, and how it happened over the course of a few months. I started reading them analytically, but in the hours of reading, I found myself falling in Love all over again with him.

I've never stopped Loving him, but the weight and burden of going through this shitstorm called life, I forgot just how much I'm Loved by him. I forgot how shy we were, and how afraid we were of opening up to each other. I forgot what a delight I was to him, and how much tenderness was expressed between us. I needed to remember that it's still here. That our commitment to each other still stands. How much he loves not only me, but Stitch as well.  The sacrifices we all made so we could be a Family.

Yes, I always say how important it was and is, but I forgot all those wonderful feelings that came with it.  How he described me in his early journal writings. His eagerness to please me, and my uncertainty of whether I could actually take a chance with someone new, someone who had what I thought of as character flaws, most notably smoking cigarettes and an aversion to rejection that was so strong, I wound up in an M/s relationship against my better judgement with him.

I'm alone right now. Stitch is asleep in his room, and Shilo is at work, but reading those notes, messages, and journal entries have me feeling it all over again. Falling in Love over and over again with someone is perhaps the best feeling of all.  Remembering how very precious I am to someone else. Retracing those first few steps into an unknown and untested territory.  Giving up, giving in. Feeling all those feelings just like the first time, but knowing the rest of the story. The one that says "and they lived, and they laughed, and they hoped and they dreamed. They had struggles and storms, and held onto each other when things were tough, and even though there were times that they got frustrated and felt like giving up, they didn't. They just kept Loving each other whether they were crying or at odds with each other, because that's what people who Love each other do. They don't give up."

I think that's the best part. Whatever discouragement I've felt is now tempered with falling in Love once more with Shilo.

Addendum: Stitch and myself have been together for 12+ years, and while it may seen to some that Stitch is on my back burner, it's not that at all. We seem to weather storms together without the uncertainty that has happened more recently with Shilo. This isn't to say we don't have our 'moments,' it's that we are so established that we don't worry. Stitch is a talkative extrovert. I know that one day, it will be the same with Shilo even though he is a quiet introvert. It's the difference between the tested and not-so-much tested, the new and the not-so-new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZi6qNi9TeU