tears are an offering – my first tears over J

when J and i first met, he was scheduled to leave back to london in two days.  and he did and it was the first of many times that he would leave me.  yet another topic for the extortionist, aka my therapist.

he told me about his wife and then he kissed me ( read  J & my first kiss ) and all those little alarm bells that were going off during the conversation about his wife and family just melted.  i melted.  it was not that it was the best kiss of my life … it was the most … earnest.  he poured all of himself into that kiss and i took it all.

now this is the part in the movies that the man would masterfully sweep the woman off to the bedroom for the best sex in the universe.  and i so wanted that … but reality … that bitch … did assist me in regaining our my senses.

“i don’t do one night stands, ” i whispered.  i think i shocked him a bit again and then he laughed and scooped me onto his lap and said, “good, because i don’t think one night would do it.”

over the next two days, we reached a tentative understanding.  tentative because who can say how any of this will ever work?  for all i knew, he would get home and take one look at his wife and family and forget i ever existed.  i even told him that – i would understand that.  he just shook his head and kissed me again and again.

we did not have sex those first few days.  it was too new, too fragile, too uncertain.  and the talking and kissing was more important.  and fun.  back to the anticipation is an aphrodisciac.  and we concocted enough aphrodisiac to intoxicate the world.

we were trying to figure out who “we” were going to be, if there was even a “we” and if that “we” could survive an ocean and a time difference.  and in my mind if the “we” would survive the inevitable guilt that i imagined he would feel looking at his wife.  she was just a specter to me … too unreal and amorphous for me to care in the beginning.  and he was too real and too present.

he asked me to take him to the airport and i refused.  i called a shuttle for him instead.  and watching him load his bags into that shuttle from my front step, i cried for the first time over J.

he looked a bit horrified and truth be told, i felt a bit horrifed.  i sat down hard on the steps and he leaned over – all that lovely height and he began to dab at my cheeks.

“tears are an offering,” i blurted out, “when i can’t say what i want so all i have to give you are tears.”  he paused mid-dab and just looked at me so seriously.  i fell a little bit more in love with him in that moment – the moment when he took my feelings and tears so seriously.

he carefully folded his handkerchief … which british men still carry and is so like an old hollywood movie …

he carefully folded his handkerchief and put it in his shirt pocket.

“if it is an offering from you then i will keep it near my heart until i see you again.”  one last quick kiss.  and then he was gone.

i sat on the steps for a long time wondering if i would ever see him again.

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