My Unexpected Cake

Love will always cause you pain.  There is expected pain, and there is unexpected pain.  I have experienced them both and I have to tell you, I'm not certain which one I would prefer.  I am experiencing the unexpected pain at the moment, and of course I think that the expected pain is preferable.  However, I remember thinking the reverse at the time that I was experiencing expected pain.

Expected pain comes from an event that you know is inevitable. Such as death, surgery, impending divorce, breakup, titty twisters, etc.  Unexpected pain comes from a source that was determined as passive and apathetic.  For example, the toe nail you clipped that shot into your eye or the coffee table that bruised your shin.  When I split up with my husband, and even prior to that when he was slowly detaching from our agency, I knew that the loss of said agency was going to be painful.  Now, I have met a man that is comprised of everything that I need, everything that I want, and everything I didn't know I wanted and needed..and he is beyond the scope of my grasp.

I shouldn't say that he is permanently out of my grasp, but for the time being, I don't see anything coming of it.  Don't get any ideas, he is not married.  Let me just tell you, that my personal moral code will never allow such a thing.  I can't give you specifics, because this is the world wide web, but just know that there is a barrier that seperates me from this potential suitor.  In addition to this obstacle, I suffer from a lack of ability of understanding why someone would choose me.  I realize that this is an oddity, I know that I am not an unattractive woman, and I know I am an intelligent woman, but I also have this uncanny ability to see everything wrong about myself.  I see the cowlick on my forehead, I see that I have a tendency to leave keys in the freezer, and I see (most notably) that I am a twice divorced woman with two children.  On top of all that, I am just a quirky individual.  I am nothing you expect me to be, and usually even more of what you wouldn't expect me to be.  I have come to find out, that when  you aren't what you are expected to be it is human nature to go find what you were expecting.  However, it is this phenomenon about myself that makes me think that I might just catch his eye....maybe?  He seems to thrive off of the quirkiness of life and the world, and yet he manages to maintain a mostly conventional air about him.  An air that, no matter how hard I try, I just can't breathe enough of it.

I need to take a moment and just lay a few of these things out.  He is incredible.  I feel like I could sit and talk with him everyday and never run out of things to talk about.  One thing I hated about my ex (one of them, ugh), is that you could never have a viewpoint that was beyond the borders of his own.  I do not act, or believe, or think traditionally.  I realize that there are many different beliefs and viewpoints in the world and I love discussing them.  So, I am sure that you can see how this could have been quite the cohabitation conundrum.  My lover boy certainly takes on the attitude of "agree to disagree", something I can highly appreciate.  His love of his pets, and the way that he speaks of them made me instantly blush.  I've never met a man with such an emotional attachment to anything, most especially a cat.  I've met men who speak of their wives and children with half of the affection.  When he talks about this cherished animal, you can see in his face the care for it.  All that went through my head was "I wonder what he looks like when he is looking at the face of a woman he loves."  His eyes are so intense, he can be talking about politics and economics and his eyes are still tyrannically intrusive and affecting.  I have had to make an effort to avoid the study of him, and let me tell you, I haven't succeeded in doing so.  I hang on his every word, and each day I desperately try to just let them go, but somehow I still remember every second of it and every aspect of the conversations we hold (no more details, I wouldn't want to come too close to making an identification).

I am a very focused woman.  I make a plan, I execute the plan with clear and decisive perfection, and I succeed.  I promised myself that I would focus on rebuilding myself and raising my children and that I would complete this first phase of my academics before letting a man in.  If he approached me tomorrow and offered to wisk me off my feet I know for a fact that I could never say no.  After knowing me for more than a mile, you will know that determination, perserverance and discipline are the most deeply rooted qualities that I hold, but he melts them (Damn it).  It is to the point, where I am experiencing a very audible pain over this matter.  There is such a meaningful connection and chemistry between us that I am hurting over this.  I can't find a flaw that would make him a "deal-breaker", and I can't alienate myself from him.  I know how to deal with expected pain, because I have dealt with it many times over.  But I don't know how to deal with unexpected pain.  I have felt unexpected pain many times throughout my life, and it has never fully died.  I lost my first boyfriend (who eventually became a very close friend) to a car accident. The pain of his death is always kept alive by regrets.  When Ryan and I broke up it was because we both knew that we were too young to be so committed to a relationship.  We thought it would be a good idea to break up and then get back together when we were both older and more prepared and capacitated to have a serious relationship...and then he passed away.  That pain will always live inside me because of the regrets that it is coupled with.  I don't know how my mystery man feels, but I do know how I feel.  I do know what I see and I always know what I want, and I don't want to live with another layer of pain added to my unexpected cake.

I can't approach him, I can't "confess" any of this to him.  There are several reasons for this, first of all, I believe in a more chivalrous tone of dating.  I respect the masculinity role that men should abide by, therefore, I feel he should start the talking.  Second of all, it just wouldn't be right for me to put him in a situation like that.  He has far more at risk than I do. I respect him and his position enough to leave it to his choosing what can and cannot be risked (that's to say that he would want to initiate anything, of his feelings and intentions I haven't a clue).  Lastly, I don't believe in impropriety and I firmly uphold professionalism and propriety, and an action like that violates all of these.

So what is the answer? Fuck if I know. (I was in the Marine Corps, step off)  I can't approach him and I can't not approach him.  So what is my answer?  For now, I will write a blog about it.  For now and for later, I will put faith in Providence as I always have before.  There is a God (which one, I'm not too sure), but he has shown his guidance of occurence more than once throughout my life.  So I will follow my path, and "pray" that I will never write a blog one day that uses this particular unexpected pain as an example that is coupled with a regret.