blue and fuzzy

my first love relationship didn’t happen until college. it was this slow progression from flirting to friendship to being caught up in the idea of someone holding me close, listening to me figure out my world and sharing his own.

i ran like hell after a few months…D wasn’t a jerk…didn’t cheat on me…just gave me the space to run even if he couldn’t promise me the space to return. he tried…but time and circumstance dance a complex step and sometimes it is hard to keep up. in his case, an ex-girlfriend became the mother of his child and real life – not the college facsimile – took over.

of course by then i realized what i had let slip through my 19-year-old life. but you can’t go back.  and sitting where i sit now…i wouldn’t want to.

young and stupid…i thought i loved the guy i dated before D. in retrospect i realize he was never particularly appreciative of the person i was or the one that i was waiting to become…i think i just made him feel good…safe…loved. it wasn’t reciprical.  his perogative…but it battered my self-esteem in a way i never really grasped until D showed me another way to be with someone, another way for someone to be with me.

even 10 years later i still think of D with a smile and a blue and fuzzy feeling. happily married the last time i heard from him, (such a painful conversation to have at the time) but thinking of him still makes me smile…smile that he was a part of my life…the part that put the finishing touches on the ideas about love that women can’t teach you… the ideas that my father sowed early. i was intelligent and interesting and could do anything…and most of all that i was deserving of everythign wonderful the world has to offer. my dad took me as far as dads can take you and D carried me the rest of the way…even if i didn’t realize it then.

i realize it now. not because i’m happily married or even engaged, but because i’ve been dating a man that has become a blue and fuzzy for me. someone who appreciates me as i am…has created a humor with me…trusts me…shares with me…loves me…loves me…loves me in a way i think D and my father would approve of.

and i have no idea what the future holds…love and life are fragile and my world could tumble down around me before daybreak. but tumbling won’t change that right this moment i have embraced the lesson D drilled into me gently when i was so young and naive…to always know what i want, to be comfortable asking for it, to be with someone who wants you to have that. a priceless gift wrapped in blue and fuzzy wrapping…

Tags: me-ness