Today

Every day there is something new to be learned, either big or small.

Today's lesson was huge.

I have harbored some fear from my past that has, until recently, been relatively silent in the back of my mind. Maybe it's the upcoming out-of-country experience that has brought it flailing to the surface, or maybe just that enough time has passed for me to realize this relationship is real and isn't going anywhere. And that scares the hell out of me. The ever living hell.

With that feeling of being scared and my past fumbling to the surface, I let my paranoia and need for self protection get the best of me.

I have to realize now, I don't need self protection. Well, not in the same ways as I did, at least. For the first time ever, I truly looked those fears in the face and released them. Of course, it was after a lengthy 'discussion' and many tears.

After awhile, he asked me why I was crying and I honestly couldn't say why. But I realized, in a place where I couldn't verbalize it, that I was releasing years of training, years of hurt, pain and anger. I knew I had to. I've never had to before. If I was with someone, I either didn't care enough or cared too much, neither one being healthy. This is healthy. And because it is, I have to do what's right for him and myself. I am only better because of what happened today. And that part of me fought it, kicking and screaming, because it didn't want to change. It wanted to be proven right. But it's wrong. The rest of me knew that, and now all of me does.

I have never had a reason to let those things go until now. And it took today, and all that happened in my life before, to make me realize that. I have let it go. I feel lighter.

Of course there is still a bit of fear.....I couldn't imagine my life without him now. But it's not the overwhelming, paranoid fear that was guiding me for awhile. That was the last bit of my former life I had to give up. And I did. For me, but most importantly, for him. He deserves nothing less than all of me. It used to hurt my mouth to form the letters to make the word "trust". It was always so dirty, something that was earned and thrown back in my face, or given blindly and trampled. Something that people would say to me to make me believe their lies and deceit.

But now I feel a little flowering thing in the middle of my stomach. I recognize it from when I was young. It's been gone for years, but it's there, coming back. Every moment it's getting stronger, and through these tears I know it's only a matter of moments before it comes bubbling up to the surface, overtaking me, enveloping me.....that once dirty word, 'trust'.

I know that we have lived years in these last few months of our lives, but there are still some things that were slower to catch on to the rest of me, and it was trust. It was allowing myself to fully embrace completely, everything that's been happening. There was always some part of me, tiny or huge, that was waiting for the next shoe to drop. I was happier than I'd ever been before....none of that was fake. Not a single thing was fake. The love is pure and there, the happiness is pure and there.....but it always had a nasty companion that was waiting for the "but".

There is no fucking "but". This is it. This is the storybook romance that we were fed as children and always believed could happen to us. I have spent so many years claiming it was shit that when it really did happen, I couldn't see how it could possibly happen to me. Ah, denial ain't just that river......

But now I am free of it. It's amazing what soul searching and life changing you can do when forced to! But I recognize where it was coming from, understood why it was there, and let it go. It was tired of staying in my gut, coloring all of my relationships, coloring my life.

I just needed to find someone I could trust to release it with. And I've found him. All my life of searching, and I've found him. It's unbelievable but true. I never thought it could be me, and it is. And I have to realize that. And I do. As of today.

I have finally found the person who will love me like I love them. And my god, if that isn't an insane amount of love.