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.