It is not always like this, but more than what seems usual lately we'll talk on the phone and there won't be a lot of talking. So I'll try to fill him in on what's been going on with me that day, and admittedly my life's not a fascinating series of constantly interesting adventures, but there's little if any comment. So it becomes me talking, and then moving to a stop and getting my feelings hurt when I ask if I'm boring him and he says "Yeah, a little."
I can't be mad at him for answering a question I posed; that's the risk you run when you ask questions. It does hurt that I'm boring, and that it feels like I have to sustain or drag conversations out for the both of us. This sort of thing killed us the first time, way back when. I love my boyfriend more and better than I've ever loved anyone, and I'm not sure if this recurring loneliness is primarily a long distance thing or if it's an indicator that something's seriously wrong, or that I want something exciting to happen and if something good can't happen then darn it I'm going to be sad instead.
If it's just the distance (and things are so good when we visit, it makes me really hopeful for our lives together in the future), then I guess I'm just gonna have to hold out another half a year and we'll be done with that part. If it's a sign that something's wrong then I want to work through it; if we both want to be together this is not something I can quit, and I don't want to imagine us not being together or wanting to be. He doesn't make me feel like teenage dream, but he does make me feel like a teenager, a bit: that things between us are so important and that life beyond them is pretty pale. I choose to feel that way, anyway. And on that note I have to acknowledge that I still yearn for something dramatic and moving, though I'm trying very, very hard to put that sort of thing permanently away.
This part of growing up, and realizing that sometimes the perfect person is not the dream person, and that certain expectations will have to be done away with, has made me feel awfully childish at times. When he told me he doesn't like the idea of buying jewelry I almost cried-- half out of sadness and half out of shame. It's an expectation of mine that if a man can a man does give jewelry to the woman he loves. And that he drives when they're together. Josh is highly unlikely to do either of those things and I love him anyway, but I think I'd prefer if it were a more certain never or sometime in both cases.
It's always uncertainty that gets to me. When we got back together I remember writing "I am as sure as a person can be, and I trust him as much as I can trust, when he says that he loves me he means it, and that he loves someone real." I don't ever doubt that Josh loves me when we're in the same place, even when my feelings get hurt, but when we're apart I sometimes do. And that's a shameful feeling, too, because I couldn't identify anything for you that feels momentous enough to have shaken that trust.
"I love you" is such an important thing to say, but is that all you have to say?
