Bittersweet

When the moment came, there was a flash of relief, as expected
but then panic stepped in.

And then the realisation :

The crafted dream is over, but I wanted the reality, after all.

These thoughts always come too late.
I hate them...

*****
Being patient, going out of the way to pick someone up at three in the morning, with morning shift at seven, swallowing pride and losing arguments, bending over backwards to accomodate someone...

... those were the easy parts.
Patience? It's nothing special. Anybody can be patient, if they want to be... it doesnt bite. And if you do it out of love, it's really quite easy.

The hardest part was when I'd tell her as she got ready to go out, or as we stepped out the door that she looked wonderful, or beautiful, and she would brush me off, or almost sneer in disbelief... so saddening

... if she could have only known what I was thinking, as we lay side by side looking at each other, or as I sat over her at sunrise and looked down upon her sleep bedraggled face...

Thinking, feeling : the deepest, most aching sadness, for when the time would come, inevitably, when I would never get to see her again.

Thinking, seeing : Gut-wrenching, each time, looking down on those eyes closed in repose, and on her ears, and hair, and jawline, watching her breathing, and thinking how ugly she could look from some angles, and how how pretty from others, yet from all of them she was so, so beautiful to me.

And sometimes for no good reason at all, I found my vision misting over, as I drew my fingers lightly across her brow.

Perhaps I should have realised earlier, that it is in my nature, like it or not, to fall in love. And perhaps then I would have given us a real shot, and tried to live with her, rather than for her... who knows.

******
I set this up. I was ready for the consequences.
And maybe I will be, in time.

*****
I loved it when she bent my fingers or shoulder around at funny angles as we walked along, not because I loved the inherent sadism in it, but because it made her laugh...

Perhaps the lines got blurred, between loving, and falling in love, in my head.

Perhaps sometimes loving someone is as simple as wanting to make them laugh.

I hope I gave you something good out of all this, my love.