The Story of a Boy...

So...he's moving in.

My Boy...

How do I do this?

Can I do this?

The actual date is not confirmed, but at some point in the next few months, I will merge my life with someone else's...again. Someone different. Someone I met by chance, who took a chance on me...us.  In a few short months I will have this newfangled family and I'm...terrified.

We are not wet behind the ears, he and I. We bring baggage. Lots of it. We're not naive. We know exactly how hard it's going to be. Therein lies the rub. There is nothing unwitting or ignorant involving this union. It is wide-eyed acceptance of...everything. And there is so much...

I've written about Boy before, focusing mostly on the generosity, the love, the passion...and all of that remains as true and steadfast as the day we met. There is no other like him. But, what remains untold is what we are taking on for each other. Our pasts. In order to make it, to give a go at the long haul, we've had to come to terms with what has brought us here. My story is rather benign. College sweethearts marry, have children, divorce, remain friends. The story is tired. Yet, his is not. It's ripe with heartache and despair. It's the stuff of movies. Yet, it's not. It's real. It is a tale told tenderly and I've carried the details delicately in my heart for the last few years. I've listened and tried not to pry until, at some point, a nearly complete picture was entrusted to me. I'm grateful for the trust that has allowed me to, now, put it down in words.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, was written for him. Son of an intensely abusive alcoholic, he recalls "getting his ass beat" on a regular basis. Nothing in particular, and everything, would set off his father. They lived in fear. His mother, intensely protective of Boy and his brother, whisked them away in the middle of the night. Her jaw broken by his raging fist for the last time. He never saw or heard from his father again. The man he calls father today is his stepfather who adopted and raised him and his brother as his own. It was years before he realized that his adopted name was not his given name...

...and so he was, Boy...born out of abuse and saved by a mother who had the strength and sense to want a better life for her sons. Throughout his youth he was a reckless risk-taker. A tempter of fate. A Casanova. A firecracker, barely able to be contained. A juvenile delinquent with a heart of gold. He tested and stretched every limit and wooed every girl that couldn't tear themselves away from his baby blues. And then he met her...

...she was beautiful and so very smart. Intimidated by her intellect and affinity for the finer things, he didn't speak to her for months after their first date. Regardless, fate took it's course and their young love affair began. He was enamored with her laugh...her smile...and he proposed as so many often do when that unmistakable feeling overrides logic. They married outside on a lovely May afternoon and life was at it was intended to be. Until it wasn't...

...she was beset by a crippling depression, one she hid during their courtship and early marriage. When the dust settled on their early tenure as husband and wife, she laid down and cried. And he carried her and loved her and tried to save her. Until he couldn't. Feeling exhausted from bearing and living the life of another human being, he left. Just for a while. A breather. A break from a young life burdened with too much grown up responsibility. He worried about her and checked in on her and then he found her. Alone and unable to bear a life that life had not given her a mind to bear...she took that life. And left him to discover the ruin. In a running car in a garage that once belonged to a house that love inhabited, he found that love snuffed out. By her own hand. It crippled him and broke him and he lost...faith...in love...for the second time...for a very long time...

...and yet that wasn't all, but that's all for now. So, you see, it's never been just he and I. It's been us. The ghosts of the past included. Paid in full. Over the last three years we talked about how we're going to incorporate the pain of the past into a future filled with promise. We take it with us. We use it to grow as a couple. We acknowledge that what they did to him, they did to us. And we carry it. I've never met anyone like him. Like a phoenix, he's been resurrected from nothing more than once. Incredibly strong and optimistic...I admire his outlook. I also know he didn't choose me with a light heart. He chose a partner who could carry and share the weight of what got him here. Gladly, my love. Gladly....

My Puzzle Piece...

"You are impossible not to touch." 

Boy says this to me as we're lying in bed Saturday morning, the Blizzard of 2010 confining us to this spot. I am grateful for it in a way, a reprieve from life and responsibility, if only for a moment. My head is nestled snugly against his neck and I understand what he means.  Our connection is electric; has been since day one.  It's more than just the intense attraction of a fledgling relationship, it's a magnetic force pulling us back to each other time and again.  Our hands, eyes, lips, forever gravitating towards each other. It's nearly impossible to explain and every known cliche' comes to mind when trying to properly describe my affection for this man.  I don't even know if the words exist, but what I do know is that, from the moment we met, I finally felt like I could rest.

I met Boy in April of 2009 and my  year prior to our first encounter was wild, wonderful, exhausting and intensely heartbreaking. I had met him at the end of my proverbial dating rope. I had tried on nearly every version of every kind of man, only to find that each one just didn't fit quite right.  It was disheartening and completely exhausting.  Every free night was date night and I was becoming an expert in my field.  I knew the right questions to ask...the ones that elicited laughter and thoughtful responses.  I batted my eyelashes, flashed my pearly whites and tilted my head ever-so-coyly to the right.  I had mastered the art of conversation and kissing, all of which were met with rave reviews.  I dated the too-young-for me guy, the bad boy, the geek, the Hungarian, and all the rest in between who just missed the cut. I had become a cliche'.

And then there he was.  Unexpectedly wonderful. The last puzzle piece snapped into place and I could finally see the whole picture of my life.  There he was. I sat across from him at dinner that first night and knew, on some level, that the time had come to put my former life to rest.  And rest I did. For what seemed like weeks I slept and slowly disentangled myself from the men that had carried me to this point. Some easier to say farewell to than others, but if I was to prove that I had changed, then all of it had to go.  All of the old insecurities and failures in love. I packed them away in my U-Haul of memory, shut the door and waved as it drove out of sight.  

"You are impossible not to touch." 

It's true.  He is.  He fits me, thrills me, protects me, talks to me, loves me and I can feel it deep within my bones. The ache of true love coursing through me. 

Years ago he was married and she left him.  The kind of leaving that you can't take back.  The kind of leaving that changes you inexplicably. Sometimes I hate her, because, in another life, she hurt this man I love so deeply.  It is absurd, our paths will never cross.  But I think about her and, mostly, I feel sorry that she missed out on him.  Sometimes I'm grateful to her, for putting him on the path that lead to me. In a weird way we are connected, for she gave me the last piece in my puzzle.