Ramblings of CrouchingTiger622

     I didn’t grow up in a home where people said “I love you”.  It wasn’t that no one loved each other, we just never said it in words.  My mom didn’t express it that way and I never learned to have a need to hear those words.  Even now, I have to make a conscious effort to say those words to my sweetie.  And I am not overly touched to hear those words.  They are just words.  I know what love looks like, what it feels like.  I am in love with my sweetie in a deep place in my soul, where words don’t even have a place.  I love him like I love myself.  He is me.  I can’t bear to think of the world without him in it.  I have felt his love radiate across the planet, letting me know he is still out there loving me.  He is unable to hurt me because he could not bear the world without me either.  He can laugh at me, knowing that he laughs also at himself because I am his.  Our souls are bound in a way that was not our own doing.  It was like that since first we met.  Is he my soulmate?  Another word that will limit our relationship.  He is the one who keeps me endlessly laughing.  His smile lights up my soul.  I cry for him when he is in pain.  He would give his life to protect me only to have me die without him.  I know this is more than love.  It’s how I feel, it’s what I do.  He is a priceless treasure from God, irreplacable and pure.   

I believe in you

I’ll give up everything just to find you

(Evanescence)

Today is Sunday and I sent my sweetie a text when I got home from church.  We are doing the long distance thing for the moment but that will be changing soon but I’ll get into that another day.  As it turns out, he was at work, apparently in a staff meeting with a customer.  He likes to text while he is in meetings; I think it keeps him awake.  He sent a text “Luv me today?”.  Of course I said of course, then asked him the same.  He texted “Yep, since the day I first laid eyes on you”.  That put a grin on my face because I know what that means.

When he first laid eyes on me, it was twenty years ago, in Angeles City, Republic of the Philippines.  I was stationed there and he was visiting from Korea.  I met him at the military recreation club and if we didn’t fall in love at first sight, it was with first sentence.  I was very comfortable traveling the country and would fearlessly go to visit all sorts of places that I heard about.  Most of the men who were stationed in the Philippines were more interested in meeting the Filipinas who worked the bars outside the base gates so I was not interested in any of the guys from my base.

I wanted to show my sweetie all the places that I loved and he let me.  And what an adventure it was.  We swam at fancy hotels downtown, shopped at open air markets and explored the malls of Manila.  Once, when returning from Manila, we were the only Americans on a Rabbit bus (the local bus line).  It was pitch dark and the bus was speeding through the country side and the rice patties.  It was scary but romantic…until the bus broke down.  Within an hour, the driver and some helpers repaired the bus using the light of flash lights and we were on our way.  We both always remember the sense of danger and sleeping in each others arms in a roasting hot Rabbit Bus.  We fell in love during those days.

Things happened and we lost twenty years of being together but my sweetie and I have found each other again.  So when he says “since the day I first laid eyes on you”, I know what he means and I know that he means it.  He loves me, no doubt. 

There is this guy who stubbornly refuses to get out of my thoughts.  It is very distracting.  I try to hear my boss talk but all I hear is the guy’s words.  This guy is everywhere all at once….Miami, Long Beach, Manila, DC, New York, Seoul, Paris.  He grins at me and whispers of his love at 2AM.  He won me with persistance but I love him the way I love Honey Nut Cheerios.  I never get tired of it.  It is worth the price.  It’s sweet.  It has been my favorite for most of my life.