Without Fear

Madman is happier alone, and I am happier not trying to teach him how to be half of a relationship. I suppose I will always love him, but what good is loving someone if you're both miserable together? We're better friends, and, after a week of being without one another, have finally come to that agreement.
Naturally, my heart took about two days of pain before it was hopeful again. It's a mixed blessing, recovering from heartbreak like I do. While I know myself ridiculously well, I know it looks to everyone else like I'm constantly rebounding.
Today, though, I stopped worrying about that.
I met someone, admittedly through the internet, who I really thought would be no more than a friend. With such a rough week, by Friday night, all I wanted was to be around people again. So, Mr. Nice Guy, with whom I share an MOS (military occupational specialty) and a great deal of mutual acquaintances, as it turned out, invited me to come over to watch a movie. Had we not known so many of the same people and been talking so much like old friends, I wouldn't have agreed. Over the span of a weekend, I realized how good it felt to be close to someone, to be accepted and held and talked to. Mr. Nice Guy is anything but "my type". He is so goofy and nerdy it astounds me, thick glasses and all, but I have never relaxed around someone so much so fast... There was no question of him disrespecting or putting me down. We clicked, immediately and completely, and I find myself laughing and smiling constantly with him... I can talk to him honestly and openly about things, even things that involve other men. I feel safe and cared for and absolutely wanted when I'm with him. He's every bit as affectionate and goofy and sweet as anybody I could have dreamed. He is, in some ways, my opposite, though, as he has a shy streak a mile wide and is far less verbal with his affection than I am. His compliments often come out awkwardly and frequently only once he's had the time to think through it all and phrase it just the way he wants. It all amuses impulsive, open, outgoing me, but it also takes me to a level of flattered that astounds me. He is what every mother dreams her daughter will bring home, and what every father wants his son to be. He understands mechanics, likes guns, is big and solid and muscular, incredibly smart, and has great manners. He's also startlingly observant, which is something that will, inevitably, throw me. He sees my reactions to every word and movement, and responds, without being asked, to all of them.
Madman has a way of making me feel broken and damaged, as, I suspect, he takes some amount of his identity from what pains he's experienced. I don't want to do that. I don't want to be the person who holds on to the past, though I think I have a bit too much up until now. I don't want to feel broken anymore, I've spent enough of my life trying to heal. It's time to start living again, and to stop trying to figure out what is wrong with me. I am human, I will never be perfect, and I'm okay with that.
I haven't attended any Baha'i community events in several months now. I sent a long, rather pointed email to a fellow Baha'i who consistently pushed me to do more with the community, and, several times, implicated that I hadn't done this/that/the other simply out of laziness or not wanting to. His idea of how we might best reach out to people and mine are clearly very different, but this is, frankly, a very conservative Baha'i community. I respect even the most strict tenets of my Faith, but I believe, even more strongly, in the message that has been   forgotten and/or missed for so many centuries that is such a central focus to the Baha'i faith: LOVE ABOVE ALL ELSE. So long as I love my fellow man, and do my best to help and teach and guide others, I am doing right by God. I've known this in my heart all my life, and, while I have every intention of helping with community responsibilities, I don't believe that completing every Ruhi book known to man and being on every committee there is would be the best use of the talents and strengths God gave me. I have always preferred diversity and openness. I respect all faiths, races and walks of life, and will always do my absolute best to bring them together. I simply don't lean towards the school of thought that assemblies, committees and organizations are required to help people. Sometimes being an example to others does more than all the fundraisers one person could handle.
That's the way I see it.

The Devil In Her Eyes

The first time I met my paternal grandmother, she said something that should go down in the history books as involving physic powers:
"Boy, you can just see the devil in her eyes."
I tend to believe this may have been about the time my parents began considering "selling me to the gypsies". They did threaten me with such a fate later in life, to which I responded, "Really? I could go live with the gypsies?! When?!"
From there on in, it was pretty much them making bets (or, if you ask my dad, battling over 'dibs') on how long, exactly, I might live.
I have been raped twice- both times in vehicles, both my friends-of-friends.
I have broken my leg in three places, by jumping into a swimming pool- with no water in it. On a dare. And played soccer, climbed monkey bars, and beat the crap out of some boys with a half-leg cast and crutches.
I have had stitches more times than I could count.
I have been an alcoholic.
I worked for/ran with the carnival my first summer as an adult.
I moved away from home my first chance.... you know, besides getting kicked out.
I joined the Army.
I have 53 hours worth of tattoos, and counting.
At one point, I drank, smoked and dipped tobacco.
I swear like a frigging sailor, and it borders on uncontrollable.
I like blowing things up.
I set a quarter of my back yard on fire in fourth grade.
I almost got suspended-in Kindergarten- for hitting one of the boys. (Back.)
I convinced my sister there was a talking mongoose living in the walls of our cinder block home.
I still beat up on the boys every chance I get.
I joined the Army to be a medic mostly because it meant I would get to put needles in people and taunt them if they didn't like it. Oh, and because I couldn't think of any job crazier that women were allowed to do.
I lived in a hotel for a few months- the same hotel the head housekeeper got stabbed to death by one of the tenants while I was out at the mall.

My grandmother knew too much. Her brother was a historian for Salem and it's witch trials, and I can't help but believe that there's something a little spooky about our family in general. I've survived hell and back, and I'm not the least bit scared of death. I'm not afraid of heights, I'm not afraid of snakes, spiders, driving too fast, flying, or any of the other phobias people generally seem to have at least one of. I like knives, I like guns, and I'm perfectly okay with the idea that I could die any day.
I am happy, and I will, in one sense or another, survive anything this world has to throw at me. I may be high-strung some days, but, mostly, I'm just along for the ride.
I mean, who's going to hurt the girl with the devil in her eyes?

This Moment For Life

A lot seems to have changed- quickly.
Someone I've been very close to, as a friend, who has listened to me whine and/or flirt about/with other men for the last two to four months (I've lost track of how long I've known him now) and I have finally started calling what we have a relationship. He confessed to having feelings for me the first time in a highly drunken manner, after being at the bar with me, and seeing me flirting with a bartender. Things with the bartender blew over quick fast and in a hurry, yet my friend stayed by my side. He'd seen my "slowly blooming relationship" shut itself down and restart itself a few times, and, well, I finally let it go once and for all. Initially, I thought that his professed interest in me was a drunken lonely man talking. Lately, though, we've been inseperable. Even when I was talking to someone else, he has been the person I've spent all my free time with. He's the person I tell things to, and the person I go to for help when I'm frustrated or overwhelmed- which has been more frequently than I'd like to admit.
Madman. That's what we'll call him.
One of our mutual friends, and his co-worker, said Saturday night, speaking to him, "Of all the people I know who are mad at life, you are my favorite."
It suits him.
He grew up in the same town as me, and not with an all-too-different family history. He's six months younger than me, and here we are, twenty five, and meeting in our hometown, after both having traveled the world. Go figure. Dad and he get along great, though they initially met long before I'd had any intentions of dating him. I've had feelings for Madman from the jump, but, well, I was scared. I suppose there's no shame in admitting that.
I've spent lots of time with the guys he works with, and am, to date, the only fellow Soldier to have met his best friend, a beautiful, petite Mexican girl who I'm relatively sure some of the guys think he made up. So, after plenty of other people asking if we were together, and me continually dodging the question or pointedly saying "No.", yesterday, I spilled my guts to him. I told him I just wanted to be his. He asked what I meant. I told him I didn't want to have to wonder if we were just friends who liked each other or if we were together, and that, if he wasn't ready, he didn't need to rush, but I wanted to be with him if that was something at some point he wanted, too. His response (all of this through text messaging, mind you) was very simple: "We r together." One of his good friends pointed out that it probably had a bit of a 'duh' tacked on their in his mind, and Madman later confirmed this to me when I asked him.
Madman isn't someone who dates much. At all. His longest relationship was 3 months long distance. We've already spent 2 months, at least, primarily focused on one another, if not technically "together". He's already stuck around more than twice as long as most people I've seen lately.
Saturday night was interesting for me. We went to a bar with a lot of his friends, and, as usual, I was the designated driver- and the only girl. I had no problem with this, and dressed up, even. I was in a good mood- until we got to the bar. I was not comfortable.
I began to rage at Madman over his lack of claiming me, and a passing, joking comment he'd made to one of the guys. When we had a moment alone, Madman's response to my sudden anger was very, very simple and very, very honest: "Don't do this. You know I don't understand this, or how to handle this. Tell me what you need from me, and I'll do it."
His incredibly simple statement threw me. It made me realize that I was about to repeat the cycle of running the moment I knew someone might last. I excused myself to the bathroom. I thought I was going to cry, but I didn't.
The lesson hit me like a lightning bolt in the middle of a beach-themed bar, as I sat in the stall, in my black leather mini-skirt and high-heeled boots:
I felt out of control of the situation. The only part of the situation I could control was what I had with Madman, and I needed to be back in control to feel safe.
I was messing up what had survived two months and plenty of chaos because I hadn't had words for my fear and anxiety.
Madman's reaction to my anger was so simple and straight-forward, it forced me back into myself, and made me see that he really had no intentions of doing anything wrong- and that I knew that. There was no denying to him that I knew he meant no harm. This man has put up with me screaming and crying and telling him things that I have no doubt he would have rather not heard, when none of it had anything to do with him. He'd told me once that, anything I needed, just tell him, and it was mine. This man wouldn't hurt me, and he knew that, and he knew I knew that. And he told me so.
He doesn't understand that showing me pictures of his female friends on facebook and talking about them might make me jealous. He doesn't understand it because I haven't told him. I haven't told him because, eventually, it occurred to me that he doesn't want to hurt me, he just wants to share this part of his life with me. He doesn't understand why I like to touch him and be touched so much, but he's stopped putting up his walls when I do it, and starting responding to my touch with his own, not because he likes public displays of affection, but because I told him how much it bothers me that he didn't. I don't doubt for a second that he has no idea that I'd like to get roses or have him run me a bubble bath or any other typically romantic things. I know he'll never think of it on his own. I also know that all I'd have to do is ask, and he would.
We don't use the word love. I don't think he's ever used that word with a girl, though I haven't asked, either. I know that the sudden urge to tell him I love him was the reason I had to step back and look at what our then-friendship really meant to me, and what I wanted from it. I know that it's there, and, well, I know I love him. Someday he'll come out of the blue and tell me he loves me. I can wait for that, for a change, because the reason it's going to be so incredible when he's ready to say it is because I think I've known it all along.

There's people who will read this that will be, at once, hurt by it and happy for me. I haven't forgotten you. I didn't write this one for you, though, I wrote it for me. Not because I care about you any less. Because I care about you- I love you- and always will.
I just can't keep living a life of apologies and deferred dreams.
What is meant to be will find a way, and, right now, this is what's meant to be.
I hope I still have a place in your heart and life.