Saturday, April 7, 2012

Musing: Keys Revisited

I remember a few months ago writing about lost keys. How no matter how hard you seemed to look for that one thing that eluded you, as long as you kept searching so doggedly for it, you rarely find it. I promised myself to stop looking, to stop putting myself through the let down of hearing that familiar jingle only to find it was just pocket change or hair pins. I stopped stressing so much about the keys, and lo and behold, they ended up coming to me.

I could tell you about all the times I thought I was in love, only to find it was just infatuation mixed with a bitter, large dose of desperation. I could tell you about all the times my kind heart was taken advantage of in the name of lust masquerading as love. I could tell you about the guy who broke my heart and kick started this whole inner peace journey that I find myself steadfastly and easily walking. Or I could tell you about now, the time where love snuck up on me.

Those guys in the past put me in que to be who and how I am, and so I don't regret them, or what they've taught me. I don't regret the heartache, I don't regret the headache, as they've lead me to now, where I can show and tell how much I appreciate and admire the guy in my life. 

I'll be honest and say that I don't really know what this kind of love is. I love my parents. I love W and Soul Brotha. I love sitting in the sun with my iPod blasting Dwele G and a sketch pad. But this? I've never felt this before. It's a calmness injected with an underlying giddiness. A closeness that doesn't need to smother to be intimate. A playfulness that I've never really let anyone see in me. It's all these little things about me, not him, that have changed that make me think this is the real deal.

The main change I think is that I feel like a woman no Shania. I forget what exactly he'd said but after he said it the thought that made me smile and raise my eyebrow was "Oh, he's gonna be the man..." Not to say I've never felt like a woman before but I've always felt like a woman among dudes, guys, and boys, never a woman to a man. I've never been evenly yoked with the guys who were interested in me, or vice versa. There never seemed to be this even flowing of energy where, my energy so easily complimented theirs. I was always the one putting in work, always the one being there for them, always on a grown woman stance while they could never really be the man I needed. 

The feeling that I'm in now is shaking me to my core. I've always hoped but never really thought I would find a person who saw me as I am and not who I pretended to be, not who they wanted me to be. He knows about my insecurities and hang-ups, he knows some of the annoying things I tend to do or say, and here he goes, coming to see me and sh*t. I guess the truth is nobody ever proved to me I was worth that much; I was worth weak game, a trip to the dollar theater (that I had to pay for), but never worth getting to know really. And whereas I'm the one who emotes and expresses more with my words what and how I feel, he tends to want to show more than tell, and man is he showing me.

I suppose the reason I'm so shook is a mixture of not knowing really what being in love with a person is like as most of my tentative relationships with guys, dudes and boys tended to be one-sided. I'm shook because he's proving that he wants ME, not me in a couple months, not me in a couple years, but me right now, as I am. I'm shook because falling has never felt so right before. I'm shook because I'm entirely into this person and would really rather not mess everything up with being so high-strung. 

I can't really explain how I know this man is the one who's worth it. I can't really explain how I fell in love so quickly and easily after guarding my heart with such vicious seriousness. And the truth is, I don't have or want to explain it. I don't want to rationalize and suck the fun out of finding out if, indeed, it goes as deep as I think it does. I've found my keys, and no doubt I have a destination in mind, but who's to say it can't be fun getting there? 


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's beautiful Tes, really. Enjoy it, revel in it, breathe it in and hold it in your lungs.

Chunk