A guest house

Written 24 December, blogged today due to being offline for a while.

When I saw him today I felt swept away. I know that’s when somebody has really gotten into me: I’m suddenly caught up in their every physical detail, admiring with new eyes their now perfect form, regardless of how they may have looked the day before. All at once, he is radiant to me. I want to run my hands over him, caress him, smell him, taste him. If we were vanilla I would do all of that, hungrily, giving him no choice, but ironically if we were vanilla I wouldn’t have this kind of desire. So I content myself to simply gaze at him, indulge in some gentle, permissible touches, and ride that internal wave of feeling.

In most arenas of my life I have been fearless – I embrace change, I forgo caution, I dismiss security and risk anything for something beautiful and inspiring. But not so when it comes to emotional risk. Then, as much of this blog has pointed out, I prefer to hide away in a cool place so I don’t have to miss the heat when it passes. I was terrified when he first suggested I did, or would, love him. But, to my own twisted fascination, it seems my surrender has proven greater than my fear.

And the fear is withdrawing steadily. A small part of me is alarmed to notice this – as if somehow, staying afraid of something could offer protection from it. A bigger part of me is just bemused at the whole situation. Will I ever, in my life, freely offer love to anyone, or will it always be necessary to wrench it out of myself by force? A question I may be able to answer in another twenty years.

To begin with, I couldn’t say I loved him without battling with myself to form the words, and then breaking down into sobs of grief, feeling as though my body would implode. A few times he had to "assist" it out of me. I still hesitate, but now I have been able to offer it once or twice spontaneously – even in writing, shock horror, lol.

So, I’m not quite fearless about this yet – but the fear is offset by a kind of acceptance. I still believe I’ll one day be dismissed, and heartbroken. But it’s true what my favourite musician once wrote; that’s when you know you’re really living.