My Worth - 8-5-09

My worth is great, as is what I have to offer. I am precious and worthy. I deserve to be loved truly and without reservation. I deserve to be pursued, to be made a fuss over. I am worth great effort, hard compromises, and no secret wonderings of whether I am wanted or not. I deserve truth in the inner parts and no guards. I deserve to be wildly loved and greatly cherished. And I deserve these things because I am willing to give all of this in return.

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Whatever happens with B____, whatever comes of this critical mass to set our courses once and for all, I will have what I want, one way or another. I am cared for and planned for. I am a well-watered garden.

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Wisdom is mine. Knowledge and understanding, too. A discerning heart as well to make use of it all. These are mine because I ask for them.

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And at the end of the path these bricks form – love. Love with abandon, the love that requires all your weakness and flaws to make you strong and true. The love worth all the risks because it will repay a hundredfold. This love is mine. It is mine now. And it will be mine for always.

My Creed - 8-4-09

My life has a purpose. What I do is not my job. It is who I am. What I do is do what I love. Create, learn, say “yes,” and move forward. I will continue to do these things and remain steadfast in my commitment to be amazed.

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You give me wisdom, God, and I will not stagnate. This is my covenant with you.

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I am here for a reason. My life has purposes and “becauses” I can’t even imagine yet. They have crystallized from my pain and been stitched into my DNA. My life matters. And nothing will change that. This is my creed.

Unexpected Development - 7-20-09

If there is one thing I have learned from this past month and a half, it is to trust God. It is to trust his will for my life and to believe absolutely that all things are being worked for my good. After all the heartache, questions, crying out, and going under, from the death of my love to the unexpected opportunity of letting it flourish again, the one constant has been God’s strength. My one consistent focus has been on wisdom, whatever form it should take and whatever it should do with me. Wherever it may lead me, wisdom will carry me through to a safe harbor where I am wanted and loved unequivocally, where I am free finally to let out all my heart’s stores and have them take root.

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Whatever happens with this latest development, when B____ unexpectedly texted last Saturday night, I will be cared for. My feet will find the right path and God will take care of me. Whoever the One is, God will lead me to him and into his ready heart. I will have what I dream and God’s own wisdom will guide me to it.

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What unexpected peace I feel at a point where I have no idea which path will rise up to meet me. God does answer my prayers.

Defenseless - 6-26-09

I love him, I love him, I love him. With each passing day that he holds himself away from me, I love him and face my helplessness. It’s been over two weeks since I’ve seen him, and sometimes, he takes on an air of unreality, like I conjured him out of my loneliness. But then I think of his quirks and flaws and know that I would never have made those up, and I feel almost a gratitude for those flaws, those differences from me – they mean he is real, that he exists.

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It is breathtaking – a little more of my breath stolen every day and not given back – to see how defenseless I am to him. Whatever he does to me, whatever comes of this trying time for him and for me, I am laid open, not even an inadequate hand to flutter protectively over my bared chest. I would give him everything. Everything. I love him, I love him, I love him. I love him so helplessly it is difficult in this shadowy time to use his name – it has too much power over me. There is at present too much potential for destruction in that name. His name is locked in my heart, branded there. I have two tattoos now – his name, like his scent and his voice and his mouth, has marked me for his.

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In the blessed intervals between my crippling uncertainty, my wobbly patience is laid over thickly and securely with my glowing conviction that he is mine. He was made for me. I am for him and I claim him. In this difficult time he is going through with his family, of which I know almost nothing and of which he shares nothing with me, I cover him with my love. I speak my love over him, wrap him up with it from my side of the ocean he filled with his doubts and his weariness. I protect him with that rare thing – my love, that which I have held from every other male I have ever known or tried to know. Will he ever know the crushing value of what I offer? Will he ever truly understand, should he ever take me in his arms again, what it is that he holds? He would have laid at his feet in silk and ribbons and patience and awareness the sum total of all this woman holds within herself. Worlds within worlds within worlds. A love that would burn for him and him alone. A lively brain and instinct for miles and a quick-learning wit. For all my flaws, I can love well and I can love long. His children are in me. Does he know this? Does the idea occur to him in unexpected flashes before he pushes it away in his uncertainty?

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Can all the wanting and almost awed wondering I saw in his eyes truly dissipate so quickly, so suddenly? It is rather debilitating to have gone for thirty years never being made to feel wanted and beautiful and finely made, innocent and good to be so, and then within a few weeks have all my defenses dashed in his open admiration and tender care, only to have it all sucked away into an unknown void like a star going supernova. It leaves me shaken and waiting and so silent and always wondering. My head hurts with all the questions. And all I am left with is prayer. It is all I can do.

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I spread my love over him like Boaz’ cloak over Ruth, claiming him and standing for him in all the unknowns that lash me. Surely my love and God’s love are enough to bring him through this and back to me. Surely this is not all to be wasted. Surely I was not laid open like Christmas turkey, utterly defenseless against him, after all these years, just to pray for him for a couple of weeks. Surely God is far more efficient than having to sacrifice an already teetering, dying heart that so easily came to life, for the sake of a man who could feel honestly before leaving just as honestly. Surely, all of this, all of the startling coincidences, all the tiny pieces snapped into place, all the love I was never able to give until this big, warm, kind man unlocked it with his inimitable scent – surely all those harmonious pieces are not to go dashing about the board with no hand to draw them back together again. Surely, surely, it must mean something that I, who has never come close to loving a man before, who stayed untouched for so long I came to think I was untouchable, have chosen, or been chosen, to love this man with all the heart, all the need and passion and purity, that I’ve been harboring for so many years.

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I was made for him. The fact that he cannot warrant how wonderful I find him shows that all the other women were wrong for him – not because they were bad or more flawed than me, but simply because they could not see him. I can see him, like I have the only set of lenses that can focus on him, or I’m the only one who speaks his language. I see him as so wondrous precisely because I can see him so clearly, as he cannot yet believe. He is a marvel, wrought by God’s own hands, just for me. He is for me, and no woman will ever be able to love him as I do. I think he is exhausted by stress on all fronts and scared of the quickness and surety of my love. I think he went on Match.com with the right idea of what he wanted, but didn’t realize he wasn’t ready for what that was to be dropped so quickly and easily into his lap. I think he was not prepared to be loved so well, or so truly, or so quickly. He does not know – as well as he knows me – how sure and true a thing like that is precisely because it’s me who is giving this to him. He knows but still doesn’t accept that it has never come close to happening for me before because he is the only one with the key.

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And so I keep grasping for faith where I have none, somehow finding bits and pieces of it that weren’t there before in the waves of love that sweep over me. I love him. I love him, I love him, I love him. And someday, this torture of wanting what doesn’t want me will be over and I will be truly loved back.

Is It Coming? - 6-24-09

Oh, God, I don’t want to hurt anymore. I don’t want to call this into existence, but I have such a feeling in me. I don’t quite recognize it. What is this expansive, airy horror, this great big, still, spreading thing? I think it’s fear. Fear of the coming pain if what I am afraid is true is, indeed, true. It’s the anticipation of the agony. It’s seeing the torturer coming, seeing the despair in the distance that has no obstacles to stop it from reaching me. After so many years of pain and despair and loneliness, barely making it through sometimes, I can’t bear the promise of more of it. I’m afraid of the pain. I can hear the boots ringing out as they come for me, the sound of the key in the lock, the grating of the door. I’m so afraid of the pain that could be coming for me. It’s going to hurt so much.

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And my heart will not break. It will not rip or tear or fall apart. It will merely shrink back, lose the volume it took with love. It will take on the hardness of porous coal or the tough stringiness of a piece of gristle. And I may not even cry. Thirty years of being alone trumps a few glorious weeks of being in love and feeling safe and whole and free. And I will not speak of it to my friends or to my parents. I will not even speak of it to myself. It will be as if he never existed. And if this love does end in pain as it must if it does end, then I, who has valued even pain and trial for the truth of the experience, will say it would have been better never to have loved, never to have met him and seen the locked door of my dreams creak open at last to shower me with the warmth and light of possibility. A few weeks of love are not worth more pain after a lifetime of it. And I will survive and not weep and have nowhere to go from the pain of the loss. And no one will see the crack. Because there will be no crack. You can’t be alone for thirty years and not have learned how to be alone again. Force of habit.

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But oh, God, please, I don’t want to hurt. Please say you will not go from my side, that you will not leave me for one moment if this comes to pass. Bring him the love he is looking for, peace and joy and wisdom in his every decision. Fill him up with life and hope and faith. I love him, I love him, I love him. Does it make any difference that I love him? I love him. I lift him up to you and pray that he makes the right decision and has unprecedented wisdom straight from your head. Oh, give him the life he deserves. He is so wonderful and so honorable and worthy of such respect. Show him the path to what he wants, even if it is away from me. And should it indeed lead him away from me, shore up my heart to bear the reasons for it from his mouth, and please don’t leave me in the echoing silence left in his wake. I am afraid of the pain.

Pulling Away - 6-17-09

I wish he would come to me now. I wish he would take me into his arms and murmur to me that he wants me, that he wants only me, that he will want me for the rest of his life. I want him to listen to me, to hear my need, and to tell me he wants me to belong to him and him alone. I want to be wanted, more than anything he has ever wanted. I want to be loved.

The Unthinkable! - 5-1-09

Oh, my God. I can’t believe it. I am in love. It has actually happened. This is not one of those numerous visualization entries. This is happening now, this day. It is here.

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His name is B____ M____, and he is me, in pants. We already share half a brain. And what makes this so incredible, aside from the obvious, is that a matter of days ago, I had no idea he actually existed. Then he found my profile on Match.com and emailed me and the rest will be history.

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And the kicker is that I haven’t even met him in person yet. We’re going on our first date tomorrow night. I have fallen in love with his mind, his personality, his character. And he ain’t bad-looking, either, I can tell you that! He is funny as hell, honest, decent, clever, funny, ambitious, kind, gentlemanly, funny, chivalrous, mature, easy-going, grounded, and funny. He is a lawyer who is in it to help people. Our jobs are so similar. He can really understand my situation. He’s been there, but he, like me, is at heart an optimist, always wanting to believe the best in people.

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He has so many of the qualities I wanted in a man. He has a large, close-knit family locally based, he makes a good living and probably could support me. He is all the qualities I mentioned above and the most amazing thing is that from talking on the phone with him, I truly think he would not only understand my values and my virginity, but value it as I do. It didn’t come up, of course, but it’s a definite comfort I have in that regard. And as a prosecutor for Newport News (ironically he works a few miles away from me), he deals with violent crimes all day, so I would imagine he would truly value my innocence, my inexperience, my virginity as an antidote to what he deals with all day long. I always wanted to be that for someone, but never thought to articulate it, even to myself. He also is concerned about me working in that part of town. He said, “I don’t even know you, but I just want to give you a hug! You shouldn’t be working there!” And I felt all warm inside. He is protective already. He really would be good at taking care of me, and at the same time, he is cool and easy-going and doesn’t give the impression at all that he would be intimidated by my smart, independent side.

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B____ is 6’5”, 210 lbs, size 15 shoe. He never put himself down, which is a real turn-off for me, but he clearly has a sense of humor about it. But I love it. I love that he’s so much bigger than me. Already, though his voice and his emails, I feel surrounded, protected, and safe.

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I am amazed. I am just astounded. My cheeks have been hurting for two days because I can’t stop smiling – grinning, more like. I couldn’t help myself – I told my friends, and they could all see how giddy and grinning and happy and giggling I was. I can’t wait to be able to go public with him, with all my friends and family – they will fall in love with him. He’s just so sweet and outgoing and smart and funny and good! And even though I told myself I’d wait till I had actually, you know, met the guy before telling people about him or saying I was in love – I couldn’t. from everything I know of being in love, even though I’ve never been in love before, this is it. I have never felt this.

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And like another visualization entry, I am so looking forward to tomorrow night. B____ just makes me so comfortable. I’m not nervous at all. I keep thinking, in fact, “Do I have to wait all day till I see him?” Now that is astounding.

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What’s so great is that my friends who have known me the longest, Analiese, Annie, Rachel, and of course Jessica, all really know how big this is. They know how significant it is that I, who have never made the first move, was the one to give B____ my personal email, then my number. I was the one who actually said we should hang out. And I’m glad. I’m glad that first move was me because it really showed me how natural this felt.

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I’m like all those people who are in love whom I always just watched before. I check my email constantly, grin and giggle at the thought of his hilarious emails, daydream about him. Ever since yesterday morning – God, was it just yesterday? – when I read his email where he said “Everybody’s Changing” by Keane is one of his all-time favorite songs and I flippantly called my mother on my way to work that I had to marry this man – ever since that moment, I was gone. He is the one. The One. He is my husband. I’m now thinking about the wedding, the kids, the family holidays where I’ll knock this take-out-raised kid’s socks off with my cooking. I won’t tell him all this yet of course. But he’s just as into me, I can tell. He took his profile off Match.com right after we talked on the phone last night for the first time, and he called me “hon” in another email which made me want to dance a little jig. He is not looking anywhere else, but he’s not rushing me. He’s genuinely content just to get to know me and go at my own pace. Amazing. Unbelievable. Miraculous. I think I may just get a fall 2009 wedding after all.

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I actually woke up last night – after taking 3 melatonin – at 2:45 from thinking about him! He woke me up! I am in love. Honestly, if he asked me to marry him tomorrow night on our first date, I’d say yes. I’m in love. I’m in love!