What having the same casual lover, for ten years, has taught me about love.
Two months before my senior year began, my mom walked in on me, in the basement of my family home, with my pants down around my ankles.
That day she got a view of my vagina she hadn’t seen since early childhood, and honey, I’ve changed some.
It was really what was behind me, rather pressed …and pushing into me, that was what she soon would take issue with. A man, she didn’t know, yet was quickly getting to know more of, the longer she stood there.
In hindsight, better her than my dad…
All the same, it set the tone for one very peculiar senior year of high school.
That didn’t matter to me, no sir, I was having sex with the 4th man of my dreams.
He was slightly older, not creepy older, still pushing it.
He had a sneaker collection that just screamed, cool guy, and my tender pyt ass just knew if we were fucking, it was because we were in love, clearly. Que the fairytale sequence that unfolds when high-school me thought about love.
Oh life, a humble teacher.
Time has wisened me, yet one thing remains.
I love that man.
Yet, it’s different…
I’m different.
The girlish infatuation has waned, the jitters of wanting to make sure I said just the right things during our rounds of witty pre-coital banter has subsided.
And yet, I love him.
My love is so free flowing, honoring the desire to tell him I love him is now just for me.
I need nothing from him.
I want nothing from him.
Even as I moan, I want you, into his soul, my breath hot in his ear.
All of him he gives.
I am lost in this world of freedom that is safe from the spoils of questions that sound like what we should do after this, or thoughts that feel like, because of these moments we are sharing we should do something else or more.
Asking nothing from him.
In turn, asks nothing of me.
Because, in truth, this is us. This is how we work.
Our beginning is our end.
The relief found in that freedom is nearly as intoxicating as the 2nd and a 3rd orgasm.
My therapist used to tell me, the key to love was to give and expect nothing in return.
“Surrender, surprise can also feel like gratitude”.
To a recovering control enthusiast, those words are about as jarring as walking in on your teenage daughter doing it doggystyle in the basement of your home.
And yet, should you…let it go, you’ll both be fine.
