Wow, skills abound!

I just re-read my entry from yesterday and am kind of mortified by all of the elementary spelling mistakes that I made! As you can probably tell by reading it, I hadn’t spellchecked it prior to saving, and hadn’t re-read it after I’d finished typing it. I wrote it, saved it, and hurried to work.

I’d like to thank all of you for your comments, but more than that I’d like to thank you all for taking the time to simply read it. Thank you for listening. Just knowing that there are people out there who have been through (and, more importantly, made it through) situtations similiar to mine makes me feel much better. Knowing that there are people out there who care on any level makes me feel a little better. This is why I love this place.

Anyway, after writing that yesterday and spending some time whimpering on my sofa I made the decision to e-mail the entire thing to Dave. I copied it and pasted it into an e-mail, wrote a title, and prepared to send it.

I stopped myself at the last second. What was I trying to gain? Wouldn’t sending him this only leave him feeling confused (only the night before we’d gone out for dinner and a movie and had had a wonderful time). To him it’d probably be coming out of nowhere. Also: what if he took it all the wrong way? What if instead of simply taking the time to listen he ended up getting defensive and then angry? I wasn’t coming from a place of anger and I wasn’t trying to point a finger at him. I just thought that he should know how I’m feeling.

So, I instead decided to stop by his place after work.

"So what’s this thing that you want me to read? I kind of feel put on the spot, here, Riely. I feel like you’re going to expect some big reaction out of me."

"It’s not as bad as it sounds, Dave, I promise. I want to preface this by explaining that I’m not asking you for anything, here. I’m going to read this to you and you’re going to think that I’m talking about something that I’m not- I know that this doesn’t make sense now but I’ll explain myself further after I’m finished. I just want you to listen. I want you to understand how I’ve been feeling lately. After writing this I came to the realization that I’ve been carrying around these feelings for months- I want to purge myself of these feelings. I want to get them out of me so that I can move on. So that we can move on."

"Months? Why didn’t you just talk to me? Why can’t you just explain everything to me? The fact that you’re about to read something that you wrote just feels so formal."

"We have talked about this, but something always gets left out when I talk. That’s why I write, that’s why I’ve kept this online diary for as long as I have. Writing allows me to make sure that I’m not leaving anything out. I think that I did a decent job of explaining myself and how I’ve been feeling on this. If I were to just summarize it for you, I know that I’d end up missing something. I just want you to really understand how I’m feeling."

So after much convincing I read him the whole entire thing, only leaving out the last sentence where I mentioned that I’d been crying again (because I didn’t feel that it was necessary. I didn’t want to make him feel bad, I just wanted him to understand).

"So you want to get married?"

"Noo, no no no that’s not what I’m saying. Before I read this, when I told you that it was going to sound like something that it’s not, that’s what I was talking about. I wrote this framed in weddings, but it wasn’t really about weddings- it was about how I felt during those moments in time. I said at the end, there, that I don’t believe that we should get married any time soon. Neither of us are ready for that, it’d be a horrible mistake at this time. I’m saying that I see a future with you. I’ve never seen a future with anybody that I’ve dated in the past- I’ve told you this before. You’re the only one that I’ve ever been able to see a future with. I’m saying that I love you completely and that I could see us getting married someday- I’d like to marry you someday (again, not any time in the near future). I know that you can’t give me concrete answers- I know that you can’t make promises about where our relationship is going to be in five years- I just want to know how you feel about all of this- about me. We never talk about how you feel. Whenever I ask you bring up things that you wish were different about me- not about how you feel. I want to talk to you in terms of you, not in terms of me."

Long story greatly condensed: we talked a lot. No tears, no accusations. We kept conversation very light and straightforward. I explained that I feel like part of our connection has been missing for a while and that I wanted to find it again. He asked me what he could do to help. I asked him to be more affectionate toward me because I felt as though it had been lacking. He said that he would, and explained to me why he’d let up on the affection- not excuses, but logical reasons pertaining to reactions that I’ve had to his actions recently. He also explained his feelings about our future together. Everything made sense, everything fell into place.

I think that things are going to get better.