I Just Don't Want To.

I'm tired of this. I'm tired of crossing days off on the calendar on my bright yellow wall. Xs representing every day I've been apart from him-- too many blank squares standing between me and Denver-- me and the man I love with all of my heart. How is it possible? How can you give up so completely-- and then find what you've always wanted has been quietly sitting on the edges of your life for years. Years. I won't say that they were wasted. Nothing that teaches you a lesson can be a waste. You can't regret it, because you don't know what would have happened if things have been different.

I hate the map on my wall today. It's a "poster to color" of the United States. I've colored in all of the states that I've been to- within my memory. There aren't many left to color. I've even got the hard ones like Alaska and Hawaii. But Wyoming remains blank. Blank for another three weeks. But that's where he is. So that's where I want to be.

I can't explain this change inside of my heart. Home used to hold a fixed kind of contentment for me. I hated being gone from here. I loved the sun and the mountains and the wide ocean, and every familiar street and store. I still love these things, I guess. But... there's a piece of me- and not a piece like an appendix or that extra kidney (however useful it may be), it's like my heart or liver or lungs, let's say lungs- that is gone. That is where he is. And it's like I've given up all loyalties. It's like I've tied my fate and wellbeing and hopes into a knot and strung it around his neck, or something. I don't know if those are the right words.

It's not like I can't go on without him. I just don't want to. I want to be where he is. I want to cluck over his calluses and small cuts. I want to hear him dismiss them as nothing and look at him with my sad little eyes because I don't like him being hurt at all. I want to be silly about some things. I want to run to meet him when he comes home. Scurry about the place, making sure everything is tidy, although I already know it is. I want to make dinner with him. Giggle as he tells me about his day of work and laugh when he stops whatever he's doing to kiss me. I want to be married to him already. Now. Not in 72 days.

I'm impatient. I'm nervous. I'm stressed. I'm too much in love to be rational. I know his faults. He knows mine. We know in what ways we are compatible, and in which we are not. We know that there will be struggles ahead of us-- perhaps too many to number. I don't care- as long as we get to struggle through them together. I don't care about the hard times, as long as I get to be with this man I love and respect so much. I miss him. I miss him too much for words and I remember this feeling.

I guess for anyone who doesn't know me this may sound flippant, but I remember this feeling. I remember my freshman year of college-- and feeling this sense of devastating loss in my first months at school. A crippling loss. I missed San Diego so much I had to struggle through every day. The feeling became manageable. It didn't go away- I pushed it from me and I learned ways to cope with it- learned to distract myself in any way necessary.

I miss him more than that. I miss my man. We should have eloped-- I could be where he is now. But we have to finish playing this game, I guess. And talking with him on the phone every night soothes that pain to some extent.

I just can't wait to be his help meet.