I'm going to start this off with being very direct and blunt. Brad already knows this, so it's no surprise there.
A few times over the past year we've been together, I have come close to ending our relationship. We haven't written about this because it just seemed too personal. But even more than that, I've always told him what and how I was feeling and we've been able to talk our way through it. We always come out on the other end feeling stronger and closer to each other.
We decided to talk about it in the blog now because it feels like we've reached a major turning point and it really feels like some major issues have been resolved. Brad was not kidding when he said that one of the hardest parts of a relationship is realizing what your fears and insecurities are and facing them head on.
This is the first relationship for both of us. Neither of us has been through anything like this before. All the things that come easy, come very easy. It is very easy to love Brad. It is very easy to play and have fun with him. It is very easy to discover and enjoy all the things that go into making him a very, very special human being. It is very easy to enjoy and immerse myself in his beauty. Every time we have sex, it seems like it's the first time for both of us. For me it seems like each time there's always some little thing that happens I've never noticed before. I often get this feeling that every time we have sex, it's going to be different in some way from the last time.
But as Brad said yesterday, the hard things are very, very hard. I'm beginning to realize that in some ways, that's probably true for any relationship. Two people who have their own backgrounds, their own personalities, their own hopes, dreams and needs are surely going to have their share of difficulties. My older brother, who is one of my best friends ever, told me that it is inevitable for there to be problems or conflicts in any relationship where intimacy is involved.
But then there's the whole business of what we (and here I'm talking about me) do when all these killer emotions rear their ugly head. I pride myself on being a very rational person. When my friends come to me with some problem they're having, they all say I have this ability to step back and analyze it, break it down into all it's different parts, point out what's wrong with some of the logic and give really good advice on how to pull it all together to make sense of it all.
Most of the time I do a pretty good job applying all this to myself. I've written before about how my ADHD can sometimes get in the way and my thinking gets all disorganized for a while. But I'm pretty proud of myself for learning ways to slow myself down and get re-focused.
It's not my thinking getting all disorganized that gets me into trouble. I get myself into real trouble when my emotions get disorganized and all out of whack.
So, getting back to why we're writing all about this here. This past Monday, when me and my younger brother ate lunch at the restaurant where Brad worked, I was already pretty worked up before we got there. Over the past weekend Brad and I had talked some more about his plans to go to college this Fall. He's been accepted at this college in Vermont and it's something we've both known for a while was coming. We've certainly talked about it from all different angles.
First and foremost, I'm so proud of him for taking his education seriously and I totally support him going. I could go on and on about how awesome it is that he's been taking his future seriously and planning for this for years now. Plus, I have to brag on him for being so smart to make incredibly high grades throughout high school. This is a major positive thing for him to do, and if he ever said he had doubts about going, I would of course listen to those doubts, but I would be relentless in trying to convince him to go. He can write more about his future if he wants to, but I know his future is incredibly important to him.
In fact, I could go on and on about all the different things he has going for him. All my friends have fallen in love with him. My entire family has virtually adopted him. My parents see him as their son-in-law. My two brothers see him as their brother-in-law (in fact, my younger brother said he would drop the "in-law" part because he thinks of Brad as his full brother). I think if Brad and I ever broke up, my family would probably disown me and never forgive me. My younger brother said if that ever happened, I could move out and Brad could move in!
Every time we go some place together it's obvious that people are drawn to him. He's got this low-key presence about him and when you combine his natural beauty and his kind personality, it seems like everybody likes him and wants to be around him. When we went to Maine on that vacation after he graduated from high school (paid for my my aunt, who also dearly loves him!), he had such natural charm with the other guests at the B & B, he virtually was the center of attention while we were there. And he wasn't trying to be anything other than himself. I think he was kind of surprised at the attention he got and a little embarrassed by it all. One thing about Brad is that he is not a "put-on." I don't think he would know how to fake being a charmer. What charm he has is very low-key, innocent and genuine.
So, on Monday at the restaurant I was still thinking about him moving to Vermont to go to college. Then seeing how the customers in the restaurant were relating to him got me to thinking not only about how I was going to miss him this Fall, but I was feeling incredibly insecure about what his life will be like when I'm not there to be a part of it with him, like now. And you can guess all the stories my mind was telling me about that table of four college guys who seemed to be fawning all over him -- at least that's what it looked like from where I was sitting.
When we went to my work party this past weekend, nobody had actually met Brad before then, but he really was a hit. Not only with the women there (who really seemed to lay on a lot of attention), but also with some of the guys I work with. They found out he's really into soccer and they were all seemed to be competing for time arguing with him about different world teams, which Brad knows a lot about.
So, when I went to Brad's house Monday night to talk I was scared shitless about what he would say to me about how I acted earlier that day. Walking out of the restaurant without acknowledging him or saying anything was the height of rudeness and immaturity on my part. Nobody deserves to be treated like that. Before going to his house I was at home in my room beating myself up for being a fucking asshole. I was so angry and miserable at myself for realizing I had all this jealously in me. Even more than that, I was angry that I didn't seem to know how to deal with it.
Then all that anger moved into this deep, deep incredible sadness. Then it went into the most intense fear I've ever felt. I knew Brad was going to see the core of all this ugliness inside me. I knew he was thinking about how he was going to tell me he didn't think things were going to work out between us, and we should think about ending things. I mean, dealing with all this stuff from me is more than anybody should have to handle. I knew I had crossed the line with the rudeness and immaturity at the restaurant.
So, when I got to his house, he saw I was in bad shape. He didn't actually say anything, but just held the front door open to let me in. We went to his room and closed the door, and all he said was, "So?"
I started off apologizing for how I had acted at the restaurant. I went over everything I had been thinking and feeling -- all the stuff I am writing about here. I was talking for about 30 minutes and he hadn't said a word. When I finished, he took about a minute to think, and just said, "This is all about trust, Matt. We either trust each other or we don't. There's no in between. I think that's all I have to say."
Without going into all the details, cause this post is too long as it is, we stayed up talking about another two hours. I think we worked out a lot of stuff. I told him I wanted us to talk some more after we thought about everything we had been discussing. We're getting together tonight to talk again.
This monster called "jealously" is a fucking son of a bitch. I don't think it gets slayed with one talk. For me it's a lot about my own insecurities and I have to do that work myself. That might take some time. In the meantime, Brad said we have over a year invested in this relationship. He said he loves me. Pure and simple. He wants to take whatever time we need to work this all the way through. I'm totally on board with that.
So, yeah, love at it's best is both easy and hard. Damn easy and damn hard. For me it's worth it. There's a lot at stake when you love someone. Knowing myself -- all of me -- has been really hard. Loving someone as incredible as Brad is making it all worthwhile.
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