Nights Like This

I am a delicate balance. I often wonder was this predestined for me because of my birth sign, the Libra. I am a creature constantly in search of balance in my life. It is an ongoing struggle at times but I knowingly and unconsciously seek for it in every aspect. I believe it is what makes my narrative so interesting. A coalescing of two sometimes far extremes, from my deepest passion for the performing arts, sweeping prose and harmonic poetry to love of hard hits on the football field and aggressive and swift game of basketball games. I wear ascots and drink cocktails while craving greasy chicken dinners and sweet tea from establishments loosely referred to as carry out restaurants. There are no linen napkins or white tablecloths there. But I love it all and my quest to find just enough of both seizes me.

It is the same with me and my relation to people, some of whom I love dearly. My innate desire to pull them close and keep them at arms length all once. Its been an interesting week. I was ready for it to end. I’ve felt happiness, confused, optimistic, lonely and loved all in the past few days. So here tonight I sit alone resting my body, gathering my thoughts and centering myself. And even here I wish for something else.

To be with someone and simultaneously left alone. Perhaps the advanced thought is that I wish for the presence of someone who I knew cared and wanted understand how I feel but would love me and respect me enough to own my feelings and be simple present with me. I have been by choice and default very independent and I don’t know that at this juncture that I want someone who says that they will climb my mountains for me but at least with me.

I want us to do it together.

I want him to say ‘we will make it through this season.’

But he is not here, just me, and I guess the middle, or the balance struck is the usual in this case. I’ll press on with myself. I’ll still count it all joy.

Changing Seasons

Here I am. It is that season again. The season that brings anxiety, questions, fear and typically transition. It is fall. It is a familiar cycle. A lot of transformative events in my life have happened in the fall. It is so symbolic. Though I shouldn’t be surprised for my life is punctuated by symbolism. Ultimately, I find it fitting.

So this fall I am walking a tight rope and not even sure how long it is or where it will lead exactly but I am on it and trying to move carefully and skillfully without falling. I am dealing with a lot of unknown factors in my career, my livelihood and in reaching up and out for my higher calling.

Lord knows I want to make what my grandmother called “good money” and at the same time I want to feel like I am truly doing something good. I want my next move to be a leap not a step. That is what I really want. I want it and think I’ve been working at it for some time now but don’t know when or where that work is going to payoff. It is my prayer and vision that it will. Sometimes my mind frowns but my heart musters just enough hope to smile.

The fall air is cool. While it is a welcome from what was a hot and humid summer it makes me long for arms to wrap around me at night. So many claim to love me but there isn’t one who wants to be in love with me. How could that be? I believe that question is now as old as my desire and yet still younger than my acceptance of who I am.

A very kind young man that I offered a few encouraging words to while he was going through a transition last fall that lasted through the summer called a few weeks ago to tell me thanks. I wonder if he had any idea that I needed to hear him say that he was doing well because it gave me more faith that I would too.

Seasons.

Stillnes

It is amazing what can happen when one sits still. This morning I sat in a chair and was drenched in thankfulness and gratitude. I closed my eyes and lifted my hands to God in praise and devotion. Oh, how glorious it felt.

Tonight I am sitting still and am in enveloped in a sadness and confusion, wrapped in the blanket of loneliness, wondering why I must sit alone. I don’t like this feeling and I wonder will there ever be a night when I find myself still and this feeling is long gone and far away.

When I sit still I hear so very clearly, whether I want to or not.

That Feeling That I Get

I remember what it feels like. It feels so good. It feels like floating on a cloud. It sounds like the popping of a bottle of champagne. It smells like something sweet and delicious coming right out of the oven. It tastes like a fresh strawberry covered in chocolate. It looks like him. Oh, when it happens it appeals to all of my senses. When it happens…but it hasn’t happened in a while.

I think it is safe to say that it hasn’t happened in months. I’ve not been enchanted by or with any man in some time. I long for that feeling though. I long for the feeling and just as much if not more I long for what that feeling makes me do.

It makes me smile from ear to ear. It makes me blush. It makes my heart jump. It makes me laugh and giggle at random moments. It makes me want to ensure my hands are always soft so that at anytime I can rub his, massage his back, caress his face and bring him warmth and energy. Oh, to be enchanted by a man, to fall under his spell.

I wish for a man to cast his spell on me again.

My Familiar

Yesterday I called a friend that I hadn’t spoken to in months. There was no particular reason that we hadn’t spoken. There had been no discord. We just had not picked up the phone to dial each other. Yesterday, I was so happy that I did. It was like sweet music hearing his voice. Our laughter was like a blanket I could wrap myself in. I was reminded how I loved him. How we have loved each other through all sorts of times and shared all sorts of memories and growing pains. It was slipping gently into the comfort of the familiar.

In this, my thirtieth year, I believe I have become more familiar with myself. It is both a grand and scary thing. I embrace it. I embrace what the past ten months have shown me, taught me, reinforced in me and even challenged me to say and do. And to think, there are still 2 months left before my next birthday.

I started to grow afraid of turning 30. In the weeks leading up to it I was so reflective. I thought about all the things that I knew I’d done right but probably spent more time on the things that I thought I may have done wrong. I knew 30 was a milestone. It just wasn’t the dawn of another decade it was the door opening on true adulthood. I could no longer toss around a twenty anything. I didn’t know what was going to be on the other side.

But glory. I now tell people that it was perhaps the best thing to ever happen to me. I believe I see things much clearer on this side, even the things I don’t want to see. I see them with much more clarity. That includes the things in me I need to work on or just let go.

My father called me for the first time in 30 years, I became the Godfather to a beautiful baby girl, I removed myself from the life of someone who I once counted as one of my closest friends, I’ve said yes and no and I continue to become more familiar with myself. I also now find more appreciation than I ever did before in the love of those who are most familiar and in the back of my mind fear that I will not find a man to familiarize myself in 30 more years.

But glory.

Here we go again

Ten years ago I was living in a city I no longer wanted to live in, attending a school I no longer wanted to attend, experiencing an internal struggle that manifest itself in very external ways, shaping my the foundation of my identity and manhood. Ten years ago I took several leaps of faith and through those leaps I have landed where I am today.

Ten years later I am continuing to explore myself, the world, where I am in it and where I want to be in and just what exactly I can do to make this world the one I want it and know that it can be.

Ten years is a mighty long time. Ten years is also just a blip on the line of eternity.

And here I am today, on that line, looking at the years that have past. Looking to the years ahead and wondering how I will view this moment.

In some ways I feel just as I did ten years ago. I feel like something has to give and that something may even be me. I feel like I am wading in the middle of an ocean with the ability to swim toward land but not quite knowing what direction to swim in. I feel like there is something great in store, but I just don’t know what it is. That is how I felt ten years ago. It is how I feel right now. I am unsure and at the same time very certain.

I was led to and took several leaps of faith then and I continue to pray that I’ll be led to and make the right leaps again. Even remembering that while leaping I stumbled and found myself bruised then, I understand that too was part of the process. The perfectly imperfect beautiful process that led me here to this moment in my life.

I swam in that ocean. I made it to land. I stood on my own two feet and when I couldn’t God lifted me, and I walked tall.

Here we go again.

Thats the Way the Cookie Crumbles

Over the course of the last week my communication with Chocolate Chip Cookie has completely broken down. The catalyst for this was a call that Chocolate Chip Cookie got from his ex-boyfriend. It was the call to come home.

It seems as though the plans of the ex who had not long ago moved out weren’t quite working out and so he wanted to move back in. Chocolate Chip Cookie said that the ex was still on the mortgage and that he felt like he had to let him move back to the house – that coupled with the fact the Chocolate Chip Cookie missed the dog they once shared.

And that is how the cookie crumbled. The ex moved back in last Saturday and every day since the calls and texts have dwindled. I’m not shocked by this. When he told me the ex called I knew that he would answer. That’s how these things typically go. The only thing that does slightly disturb me however is that in our last few sparse exchanges Chocolate Chip Cookie has felt the need to apologize for the communication being sparse or short.

He, like I am, is a grown man and that means too old to be apologizing for how we feel and what we do. He did whatever the heck he does with his ex and his friends that he had before he met me this weekend and didn’t reach out. I don’t want him to apologize for that as he did. I had a great and relaxing weekend with myself and I’m not apologizing for that. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Afternoon Delight

Earlier this week Chocolate Chip Cookie and I had a chance to spend some time together. We caught a movie and went to dinner after. I enjoyed our time together. It was just what I had wanted and my sweet tooth was satisfied.

Today was a rather long day at work, mostly because of a late afternoon meeting with someone who I couldn’t determine if he was dumb, lazy or both. Not the ideal note to end the day on – confused about the confused. Nevertheless, when the meeting was over I walked out in the hall and looked at my cell phone at just the right time to see it light up with an incoming call. It was Chocolate Chip Cookie and it was perfect timing.

I had decided toward the end of the meeting that my reward for the long day was going to blow my diet and buy a big sugar cookie from the shop across the street from my office building but with the call from Chocolate Chip Cookie I realized there wasn’t a need. I was okay with the unexpected call as my treat. I didn’t a sugar cookie I had a Chocolate Chip Cookie instead.

Table for One

I told myself that I wouldn’t allow this to happen. In fact I had been doing pretty good avoiding it for the past few weeks. Nevertheless it has happened. I am feeling kind of blue as I sit here eating a frozen pizza. I believe this is dinner and that is why I am disappointed.

The first Sunday in January and the first Sunday in February I shared a meal and most pleasant company with Chocolate Chip Cookie. Unfortunately, the first Sunday in February was the last time I saw him too. I’ve made a couple of attempts to see him and they both came at times when he couldn’t accept the invitation. To his credit he did invite me to dinner and movie but when worked called he had to answer and our plans were postponed indefinitely it seems.

I am totally interested in getting to know him but text messages and phone calls are no longer satisfying my curiosity nor hunger for face to face time. I know he got out of a relationship not long ago and wants to build friendships before anything. I know that in my head and there it makes perfect sense. I told myself not to create expectations and take it one day at a time. But I’ve reached a fork in the road where my mind and my heart don’t agree. So which road am I going to choose?

Part of me wants to go along to get along and see where this slow and steady exploration of friendship and learning each other leads. Yet, the other part of me, the most often seen and heard part of me, the me that I and everyone else knows – that part of me wants to get throw some engines on this thing and move it faster right along.

I fear both roads though. I don’t want to move so slow that the desire and opportunity are lost nor do I want to move so fast that I find that I’ve pushed him away. I need to choose a direction soon though and keep going. But right now I guess I’ll just enjoy my pizza alone.

I want to know...

I want to know his scent.

I want to know what his kisses taste like.

I want to know how it feels to fall asleep holding him or while he holds me.

I want to know he looks like when he first wakes up in the morning.

I want to know what it sounds like to hear him say the words I love you.

I want to know what it is like to truly know him.

I want to know when this man, wherever he may be, will reveal himself to me.