I am told that I have a way with words. My mother told me I had a gift for using words to express what people think and feel. People who know my writing say I have talent for writing, for story telling. All my life I have wanted one thing; to be a writer.
When I was 16 I began dating the person that would become the father of my oldest child. We were together for nearly 3 years (1 month shy of it actually, so I round up) before he told me he didn't know what else to do, except to break up with me. It broke my 19 year old heart utterly, and it remained that way for a very long time. Sure, I grew up, had other loves, even got married, but I never let anyone as close to me as I had let my high school sweetheart. I went through my divorce, and was saddened that I had failed as a wife and a woman.
I met Ziggy. My husband is very many things, he wears very many hats, and I literally woke up one morning knowing I loved him. I haven't stopped loving him since that day. One night, and I don't recall how the conversation started, I wound up pouring out my hearts pain over losing what I had considered to be the love of my life, my high school sweetheart. And being the gracious man that he is, Ziggy very calmly held me in his lap and let me cry myself into exhaustion. I am not a public mourner, I do not show saddness publicly. I wasn't raised to show such things. I was raised to bury it, and I had buried that pain for a long time until that night.
A few days ago I was on yahoo talking to my 'twin brother from another mother', we'll call him Dutch. And Dutch and I are twins in the way we were raised about emotions. And Dutch says to me, "Why can't you tell Ziggy he's the love of your life?" And something in my head clicked when he said it, and I realized that never, in the course of my marriage and courtship with Ziggy, had I told him he was the love of my life. That after 9 years, I'd finally gotten to the point that I could let someone be to me what my son's father had been. Me, who has a alleged talent for words, a gift for expressing things, could not voice my deepest feelings for Ziggy, for the simple fact that if I did, somehow, I'd lose him as I'd lost the last one I'd felt that about. Dutch, by the way, is fabulous at pinpointing what I don't say and then nailing me with it. One of the reasons I value his friendship.
So the thing I think but do not say. I even bungled telling Ziggy he's the love of my life. Which means, of course, that my worse fears will soon be realized, Ziggy will discover I'm not really that interesting, and will leave me for a redhead that looks like Alyssa Milano, cooks like Rachel Ray and spouts off SportsCenter highlights in bed.
And I will learn to keep my damned mouth shut.
