I have loved men throughout my life. They all, good or bad, played significant parts in my life. In the molding in who I am today. I learned to have patience, to forgive as to not have my own heart become bitter. I have learned to look beyond my own thinking and try to understand the thoughts of another no matter how foreign to my own they may be. I have loved other men. But I was in love with NB.
There is a love that I read about, saw exhibited in others and had come to believe that it was out of reach for me. That I was somehow incapable of experiencing that kind of unconditional love for someone. From the beginning with NB there was a knowing of each other that couldn't be explained. A sense of having lived in another time together. An understanding of what the other needed without speaking the request. A calm and relaxation between our souls and spirits; a familiarity that spoke to us both. Over the last year of our relationship due to some emotional trauma NB went through, I lost him. First emotionally, then finally physically. We speak now and then, touch base to see how the other is doing. But what once existed between us is now only a memory. I can hear in his voice at times a longing for what we once had, yet an emotional inability to move toward that again.
It's been confusing in sorting out my feelings. But moving forward has helped and I find my dilemma has been this: Do I miss the man or the relationship?
As much as I love him still, it's not the same. The man I met almost 3 years ago is no longer there. The man I talk to or receive a text from these days is not the same man. I have come to understand that it's the relationship I miss. Not the man.
I miss the familiarity that comes over time. It's woven through many conversations, shared emotions and experiences of life. Trials, burdens, revealed secrets and joys making up it's fabric. Rituals that naturally arise out of your sexuality with each other. The feeding of your souls and spirits as you are mingled in each other's existence. Being known, accepted, celebrated and loved.
In making my way in the single life I have come to understand that many of the men I have chosen to even consider as a potential partner all have had bits and pieces of what once laid in NB's heart. I realized then why I wasn't making any progress in moving forward. I was trying to restore what I had lost. An impossible task! None one will ever be NB. No one will ever give me what I had with him. It was uniquely ours. But that was a time in the past. Never to be lived again.
I cherish the relationship, and do miss it, but I take with me into the future the knowledge that I have the capability to love. My eyes are open to what and who may lie ahead. My heart is finally ready to see into another. To experience a new direction and journey. To taste the flavor of another man and let him deep into my soul and learn of his. To no longer be looking to what has been familiar and what I have been missing but to see what I still need to discover in someone new.
To learn of a new touch, a new look and a new way to reach another. To take the time to unfold what lies in him and let another fabric naturally be woven through the exchanges of our lives coming together. To find someone that over time makes me hungry for his taste, his smell and his touch. To once again let the darkness within my soul light up at the sound of his voice as he speaks my name. To know and be known thoroughly again.
Of course I miss the man. The man he once was. But I know now, it's the relationship I had with him, the familiarity that I have missed even more.
