flaws and all.

There are three distinct times I can remember being madly in love with him.The first came out of the blue on a chilly autumn evening. We had been together for a few months, and we were in his bedroom, both enjoying an easy silence. You know, when you are so comfortable with the other person that you don’t feel the need to be constantly talking? We were both reading, he was studying, and I looked over at him, with his hair down flat, his nerdy glasses on, in pajama bottoms that hung off of him like they were made to fit an elephant, and it hit me for the very first time that I loved everything about him. Flaws and all, with the pressures of presentation to the outside world all washed away, in that exact moment my heart felt like it could burst at the seams with love.

The second time came in February of the following year in the beautiful city of Montréal. We were both drunk out of our minds after a night of dancing, stumbling our way to the subway that would take us back to the sanctuary of our hotel. Laughing uncontrollably, at what I can’t remember, which tends to be the best kind of laughter. He stopped for a moment and asked if I was cold, and I said that I was, especially my ears. He rubbed his hands together and placed them over my ears and smiled the most sincere smile I ever saw creep across his face. Then, in a picture perfect moment, he leaned in to kiss me, in the middle of a downtown street, when he slipped on a patch of ice and fell flat on his ass, taking me down with him. Of course, in our drunken hysteria, this made the entire situation even more humorous. Here I was, flat on my back in the middle of the street, when he leaned over and actually succeeded in kissing me. And at the heart of that busy city, everything stopped existing except for he and I. He had become everything in the world that mattered to me and for the first time, I didn’t care.

Finally, that fall, after the fallout of our relationship, months of land mines and harsh words and emotional bleeding, he picked up the phone and called me. It was the kind of conversation whereby you display extreme honesty – you’re open with one another about your fears, your past pain, everything. And after months of wishing he’d say the words, he suggested we give it another shot. I had my doubts, and he said ‘wait…stop talking, stop what you’re doing…go outside’. To which obviously I was very confused, but reluctantly complied. ‘Look up’.

My eyes were greeted with an astounding meteor shower, millions of streaks crossing the clear night sky, shimmering like diamonds in the black depths of an endless ocean. It simplified everything to the very core, the most romantic gesture he had ever made – inviting me to stop thinking and to just allow myself to take in the natural beauty of it all. In the most exposed way possible, I could see and feel how clearly he felt for once. There were no mixed messages this time, no ulterior motives or forced emotions. Only love was left to sear across that summer sky, for me and me alone to truly see.

‘I just wanted you to see it’.

When we ended that fateful call several hours later, I was in tears. Tears of sheer happiness that what I had wanted to badly to believe had, at long last, come to pass. The man without feelings had feelings after all, and they were for me. All my efforts were suddenly not as wasted, and all of my love was suddenly not so horribly misspent. He loved me, after all, and all that time, not once had I stopped loving him. Unconditional, forgiving, put-it-all-on-the-line love.

But they’re right when they say that love, alone, isn’t always enough.

~ by glamnesia on June 10, 2008.