Some nights, I hold my own hand as I fall asleep so that I don’t feel as cold. Last night, being one of the aforementioned nights, it didn’t help. I have read various self-help and heal-all books, with authors instructing me to- and I quote here- “sit with the pain”.

     Lately though, I feel the pain is no longer a welcomed passenger in my car or a visitor on the front porch bench. It is starting to show up unannounced and as it wraps itself around me like an unsolicited cloak in the summertime heat, I tell myself I am not going to survive this loss very well.

     I want someone who cannot start their day without hearing from me first, and uses that as the spark that ignites the next 12 hours we have to endure before our next encounter. I want someone who thinks nothing of reaching across the bed at night to pull me close, closer, convincing me that this is so much better than the last 18 months I’ve spent sleeping alone. I want him to say what he wants to say, because he means it; after all, the ball is in his court.

     It seems ironic to me (and not the kind of irony that makes you laugh and subsequently sigh, reflecting on your misfortune) that I was placed on a pedestal for so many years and could not live up to the standards of all that came with it, resulting in a crack at the base, a tear at the seam, or faulty design. Now I can’t help but think of myself as so far low on the totem pole, the competitor in me is fighting her way to the top, but there is no room for balance up there.

     This is not what I had in mind, and believe me, I am the chief underwriter of the “things don’t always turn out the way you plan” school of hard knocks, but I am sincere when I say that I don’t want to fight, argue, battle, compete, for a place on someone else’s calendar, agenda, schedule, heart. And it’s not because I am lazy or feel that I am too entitled to grab up what I feel could potentially be an equal partnership.

     It’s simply because I cannot afford to lose and have a gut feeling I already have.

     I think what scares me the most is not that he will watch me walk away, but that he will let me. He will let me because he has not yet learned the value of me. I will avoid the opportunity here (albeit tempting) to sound like a want-ad and say something about how much I have to offer, because the truth is, he should know it already. I have made no qualms or false promises about where I want this to go, and who I see us being, but then the hours roll into days, and I will catch just a glimpse of him when the moon is out. A few hours later, I am alone again, waiting by the phone and I feel like that fool I swore I would not b(e).

     The offer has been on the table since the day I walked through that door because I am no good at hiding my feelings, and my eyes are a dead giveaway. Do not mistake giveaway for free-for-all.

     Maybe it’s just not the right time. Is there ever a right time for love? Maybe his heart is so big, so open, that I have gotten lost somewhere in there. Maybe it is me, or maybe he is in love with someone else or other bigger things just happen to take precedence over the smaller ones. Perhaps I need to fire my mailman, because I’ve missed another memo. I know I am a writer, but I am also a reader and my job as the protector of my heart is to read the clues I am (or am not) given so I don’t trip up again, landing in someone else’s state of mind.