A Change of Life, Just Not That One

I'll admit that I had become completely cynical about my chances of finding the right person to share my life with. I was considering getting back into the dating world, but I was also planning to wait until after the third book in my trilogy was published. After all, I didn't feel like I had the time to spend on vetting all the candidates one tends to find on online dating sites. So, I hadn't bothered to create a profile anywhere.

Funnily enough it turned out that I'd already met the man of my dreams, and it was more than a year ago now. We had political interests in common, so we were both members of a certain Facebook group. We're also both actual members of the Green Party, so that was a weird kind of synchronicity, among other things. With all our commonalities, however, we were more than a little surprised to find out we not only lived in the same city, but we were only a few blocks apart. Go figure.

Just when you think life isn't going to give you the one thing you've always looked really hard for, it can suddenly seem like it's throwing you a surprise party with all the perfect gifts.

When I was awake and aware I never felt lonely, but I knew that some part of me was. I used to have these dreams where I would be held by a specific man, who made me feel truly loved. I'd wake up feeling so ridiculously content, and I would close my eyes at different points throughout the day to hold onto that feeling, picturing it in my mind. Nearly four months ago I finally discovered what that felt like in real life. All previous relationships paled in comparison, and I realized that if I'd truly know what this felt like, I would never have settled for what I had before. I would have known the real deal.

Nobody is perfect, but sometimes you find someone who is absolutely perfect for who you are. They fit with you somehow. All the things that you're insecure about, and that you've been told are fatal flaws, suddenly they're things that are cherished by another person. Don't get me wrong - we weren't all sunshine and roses about who we were, pretending to be something different. We were both almost brutally honest about ourselves. I was pretty enthusiastic about telling him I swore like a drunken sailor, cracked every joint in my body, and the only thing domestic about my habits is the fact that I'm potty-trained.

For his part, when we started private messaging, he bluntly asked me if I was single, and said he needed to know because he was certainly happy to be friends with me, but he would be sitting there wondering the whole time if I was available. It made me smile, I can tell ya. And it was a first for me. After all, we met on Facebook rather than a dating site. On a dating site you're assuming the person you're talking to is single (though there are plenty who are trolling for a side piece, too). I'd never had a guy have the courage to be so blunt about his interest in me on there. Of course, he was pretty blunt about a lot of other things, too, like wanting to talk to me, see me, kiss me, you name it. And he had the confidence and courage to follow through on it. He still does, and it's something I find endlessly fascinating and attractive about him. Especially since a lot of guys seem pretty intimidated by me.

Of course, explosive chemistry helps. I'm not giving details, but I will say that time stands still when he kisses me. There's a Zen-like calm that comes over me when we're together. I've only been truly mad at him once, and from what I can tell I was being stupid. However, all he had to do was touch me and I was lost (as was the anger, though I tried to fight that). There's a magic in it, and I've never felt it before. Any time in the past when I've been mad at a guy, they've been mad at me, too, and so the last thing they were interested in was making me feel better. Yet, my boyfriend has got to be the most selfless person I've ever known. He can (and does) feel empathy even toward a person who should be his most bitter enemy. I've seen examples of it time and time again. Honestly, we need more people like him in the world. He just truly cares about people. He talks to them on the street, homeless or otherwise, he buys strange kids a meal, he stops to help people who have been involved in car accidents, he's politically involved, and he stands up for women online when men start acting like misogynistic jerks.

He's also the best father I've ever seen. He's been involved in his child's life from the moment of birth, and even against adversity he's made sure he remained a major part of his child's life. It makes me wish I was ten years younger so I could easily have a couple of kids with him. Not that it's impossible even now, of course, but the odds are against it.

We've both had our share of bad luck and bad choices when it came to past relationships, so you would think we'd be a lot more leery of moving forward with things, but we were pretty much living together within a week or two of starting to date. People thought we didn't know each other, even though we did. In truth I've never known anyone so well in my life. My own experiences kept my eyes open, and not just for suspicious behaviour, but also for the evidence that backed up everything I was being told. Fate stepped in, over and over, to show me that he was everything he said he was. My one instance of anger with him was all the more stupid because I've been given constant proof of his character. Yeah, I felt like an idiot...and well I should.

Have we talked about taking things to the next level? Well, in an oblique sort of way. Neither of us are against the idea of getting married. I just have one caveat there. It's gotta be a 'hell, yeah' kind of thing on his part. I mean, it would definitely be a 'hell, yeah' for me, but I won't do it if he doesn't feel like that, too. After all, I was told in a previous relationship that I'd dragged the guy into it (despite him being the one to propose). It was a month after the wedding, and that was the end of our marriage in that very moment. For me, anyway. I never felt the same way after that, even though I tried to keep going. My heart just wasn't in it anymore. I couldn't even bring myself to care enough to fight with him after that. I became rigidly logical and cold-hearted whenever he tried to fight with me. It was painful enough for me then, but if I had to go through that with my current guy I don't know if I'd survive that kind of heartbreak. He isn't the kind of guy who would say something like that, but without the 'hell, yeah' part of the deal, he might as well be feeling it.

Still, he feels more like a husband to me than any man from my past, with or without the marriage certificate. When I talk about him, or even think about him, I have to actively stop myself from calling him that. I'd have to say it's because we work so well together in everything we do. You know those things you try to do with someone that usually lead to fighting? Like hanging wallpaper, fixing things, etc. Well, we can do those things and just be happy to be together. We have fun with it, because we always have fun together, and we genuinely like each other. We enjoy talking about pretty much anything - though he's admittedly a bit attention-deficit, so I find myself repeating things, but then I have to ask people to do the same with my hearing being so crappy.

Probably the funniest part of all of this is how we started out being so logical about love. We both agreed that it took about two years to really get to know someone, and until then you couldn't truly say you loved them. Then I told him on our first date that he was going to fall madly in love with me. Go figure. Of course, my barometer for knowing if I love someone is a pretty morbid one. I try to imagine how I would feel if they died, and whether or not it would devastate me. Within the week I told him he'd smashed my barometer. I couldn't imagine my life without him.

So, you see, there's a reason I've gotten so far behind on blog posts and other writing projects. I don't blame him, of course. He's perfectly willing to give me the space I need to get my writing done. I just haven't been able to tear myself away from him. A first for me. I've always managed to work and do what was necessary before. Thankfully I'd already published book two of my trilogy when we started getting all crazy in love. I had a bit of breathing space. Or should I be calling it 'breathless' space, because that's how he leaves me.

It took me until I was 44 years old to find the man that was right for me. I've made a lot of mistakes in the past, and not just with my choices. I've also made mistakes with my behaviour within those choices. I know very well that I had my share of the blame to shoulder, and I needed to learn from all that in order to be where I am right now. It's tempting to wish we could have met ten or twenty years ago, where we could have saved ourselves the heartache we've both been through, but that might have been a disaster for us. We needed to be who we are right now, in order for things to work as well as they do. I needed a certain maturation. Our experiences form us, and there's no regretting those experiences when they brought us to this point. We each have offspring we might never have had, and we would never have wanted to miss out on them.

I guess the point is this. No matter how crappy things can seem, they can change in a heartbeat. I learned that lesson a long time ago, and it's something I keep trying to share with people who are going through hard times. I almost gave up on finding someone I could be happy with. I'd thought about dating, but I had no faith I'd find anyone who would put up with my foibles, much less someone I was willing to tolerate. And I certainly held no hope I'd find the exact person who was everything I ever needed and wanted. He feels the same. I can only hope he keeps feeling that way, and hope is no longer in short supply for me. Of course, it helped that my ferrets were all over him like he was wearing a meat suit, and he likes doing dishes.

The best part? I feel more free with him than I ever felt when I was single.