impatience

i don't wait well. it's a weakness of mine; if something important is coming up, i am on freaking tenterhooks until it happens. case in point: i am currently waiting for my student loan disbursement. five business days is INTERMINABLE when you have a ton of things to buy. i'm antsy as hell waiting for the direct deposit to show up.

but this impatience pales in comparison with the waiting game i have to play now. i wonder if this is how people in jail feel as their sentences wind down. i am so. damn. close. to having absolutely everything i have ever wanted in this life. there's just the matter of having to snip those last few threads of entanglement before i can get totally free. i have no choice in the matter, either; there's just no way to advance the timetable.

all i can do is think about how little time is really left. i've waited this long. i can wait a little longer.

veneer

as open as i am in this setting (i.e., i will write just about anything here), it may surprise some of you to hear that i can be quite prim, proper and even shy in my real life. i really am more southern than i let on, in the traditional sense. i tend to live by the axiom, "would my grandmother approve of me saying/doing this?" this governs how i dress in most situations, and it definitely governs how i act.

but sometimes, just sometimes, i let my guard down. as traditional as i can be, every so often i let go and indulge every dark instinct that streaks through my brain. and you know better than most what i can do when properly inspired. i usually traffic in innuendo, flirtation... generally skirting the issue and hoping that you get the message i'm sending. but you cracked the code, didn't you? you broke through my carefully constructed veneer of propriety and found the passion underneath. you got me to be blunt with you, and i ate it up like sugar candy. you lead, i'll follow.

i want nothing more than to give you exactly what you want. you know this, and you indulge me my strange shyness. but every so often, you goad me, you push me, and you get me to deliver the goods. i still can't get over how unbelievably satisfying your insistence can be, and how receptive you are when i open up to you and tell you specifically what's going on in my head. in your hands, i am skilled; with your enthusiastic encouragement, i can be what you want. i only hope your experience is as satisfying as mine is. you are so, so worth it.

all falling into place

feeling like this worries me. it's in my nature. when things are this nice, this even, this fulfilling... well, damn. it makes me jumpy. i mean, it's not a cynic's way to look at life and see 72 degrees and sunny all over the place. i am much more accustomed to the agitation, the drama, the uncertainty. but life has provided me with untold amounts of comfort and assurance in the past few days.

my graduate program started tonight. and despite the fact that they gave as much time to the campus ministry staff that they did to the tax law program, it was a wonderful experience. i had pleasant conversations with a couple of potential new friends and got myself used to my new academic home. after the program ended, i took the train home, walked into my new apartment and took a good look around. there are still boxes freaking everywhere, but it's really starting to look and feel like home. damn if i'm not proud when i look at this place. it screams, well, me. my diplomas hang on the wall. it's just chocked to the gills with the sense of being MINE. i haven't felt this way about a space in which i've lived in, well, never, actually.

as i live and breathe. it's weird to say this in a season of what should be mourning the past, what's ending, and what i'm leaving behind, but i am so damn content i can't stand it. the future is so full of promise that it's ridiculous to even contemplate. i have no idea what it'll be, but there's a lot of good in front of me. i'm about to go through a tough academic year that will open doors for me that i never foresaw even being able to come near. i've got the love and comfort of good, close friends. i'm about to end some associations that have only held me back.

it's enough to make a girl believe. almost.

sweetheart

this weekend has been painful and enervating in so many ways. i look like i've been beaten with a tire iron. i'm bruised, sprained, sore and achy. but believe it or not, my heart is as full as it can be. these things all began, as many bad things do, with dollar miller lites and a shot of tequila. with that ever-so-appealing mixture coursing through my body, i went home with my favorite obsession and apparently ravished the hell out of him before... well. we don't need to get into what happened next. anyone who's ever been to college, or seen a movie about college, knows that.

as i lay on the bathroom floor, cursing miller brewing company and jose cuervo, i felt a rolled-up towel being slid gently under my head. a cup of water appeared next to me. my feet moved a little bit, and he sat down on the floor next to me. for the next hour, he talked to me, held my hair back, stroked my back and generally made sure i was alive. when i was hit with a particularly violent reaction, he picked me up and held me. through my misery, i felt his hand rub my back, soothing me through it. when i laid back down, he said, gently and with concern, "oh, sweetheart."

if you read my work, you can see imprints of this man woven through nearly everything i write. he and i have pushed, pulled, confused and delighted one another for so long now. we've been friends, lovers, adversaries and allies through it all. but when he called me sweetheart, he changed the game. this has been a long time coming, but it's here. we're in a different sort of relationship now. there's still no name for what we are, and i don't think there ever will be. but that's okay; we are people who are well used to existing outside the mores and conceptions of society. but now, there's a name for me, and that's all i've ever wanted.

sweetheart.