I should most likely start what will undoubtedly be a lengthy and dramatic post by stating I never believed in fate; not in all my years of fascination and dabbling in the occult or less-than-reasonable arts. I never regarded destiny as anything more than a fairy tale, a proponent of myth and larger-than-life heroes of old. Love, as well, I thought I had the measure of. Love was compromise, love was finding someone.. a person you could tolerate and made you feel good. Perfection was a joke, and the standards set by my upbringing and my dreams as a girl were laughable. My ideal man did not - could not - exist, and anyone who came close would have no possible interest in the likes of me besides. I had given up on that man years before I would meet Nathan.
Gods, where do I even begin this tale.. how do I relate the strange, terrifying, magnificent events that see me now lounging here, looking over the stacks of well-loved books and tomes and out my bay window at the lights of Toronto against the black firmament of these hours following midnight, sipping my beloved vanilla coke, listening to the ecstatically galumphing brass of Balakirev's 'Islamey' with such quiet company - the slithering movement of the caged python at the corner of my eye and the lazy tread of Ra, one of his two spiders, climbing her tank wall... Do I start with the god who seems to have taken to me more than ever lately, or the man who brought me back to the faith? Do I try to explain the shedding of a lifetime's unfortunate assumptions and guilty thoughts suddenly shrived of guilt or the one who helped me see myself as someone worthy of those gifts? I suppose I should give at least some background, but when that background is one's entire life.. well. I'll tell what I can.
I have met the most incredible man. A true man. Everything I often longed to be, everything I ever wanted in a partner but was convinced was unrealistic. I'm not just speaking generally - he possesses even small little details of my dream suitor, tiny secret things I always wanted in a man but never told a soul: the grace and pride he carries himself with, that deadly grin - even his vocabulary, as wide and anachronistic as my own and then some. But I'm getting ahead of myself and flustered; I always do when I allow myself to dwell on him. I could easily - hell, have sung his praises for a week and still have barely scratched the surface. Perhaps I'll post that as a separate entry though.
So what dark corner of the earth's benighted underbelly did I have to scour to find such a man? What herculean labors did I manage, what Job-esque torments did I endure to discover such a prize? Absolutely none. He found me. Hell, he came to my defense in a quickly devolving discussion online. He and I happen to follow a particular god, you see, a god veritably designed for ones such as us. Slaanesh, is the god of beauty, pleasure, pain, excess, decadence, debauchery, and all around good times - in other words, exactly the god for a couple tasteful hedonists like ourselves. Sadly not all of our god's followers are so thoughtful or take our god in Her entirety. Many focus only on base pleasure to no end, which admittedly has its place in Her worship, but there is so much more they fail or don't care to grasp. I've belonged to a group devoted to this god for some years now, but I was rarely ever active. One day I happened to stumble across a fellow member asking others what music they considered the most Slaaneshi. Opera naturally sprang to mind for me - a powerful operatic piece can elicit emotion, express passion on an intoxicating level; as close as we've come to a Gesamtkunstwerk at this time, an excitement, an unrivaled fervor; ecstasy, in other words, all our god stands for.
My assertion and reasons were ignored or even jeered at. Others insisted on metal or industrial or noise that only borders on musical by the loosest of definitions. That I would think of something like opera was laughable to these cretins. I felt rather abashed and upset. I hadn't expected much understanding, but outright derision was definitely more than I thought I'd receive. Just as I was getting ready to leave, he stepped in and said he couldn't agree more. For a moment I feared another joke or some boy bidding for my attentions, but then he started on about his love of Die Götterdämmerung and I stopped dead. We spoke at length about our common delight in Wagner and I wound up messaging him - something I rarely ever did even with my friends let alone strangers, but something about him gave me a strange new courage.
Our friendship was fast and uncanny, as were our similarities. In him I saw so much of myself: intelligence, tastes, talent, skill, but all greater, more honed in his case. And more, he had his own life, something I'd never dreamt of. I saw him as myself if I were successful. At first I attributed our different situations to various external influences - perhaps he was from money, or had a better home, or an easy childhood. That wasn't the case. Hell, our childhoods were eerily similar in so many ways we've joked once or twice about being siblings! I realized it wasn't an external difference that marked him for accomplishment and me for failure - it was our approaches to life. Suddenly I became disgusted with myself, I mean utterly mortified, I had let myself waste so many years hiding away in my safe little hole, content to stagnate, to blame everything around me, to accept a life of weakness, decrepitude, and uselessness as another worthless burden. I had no goals, no aspirations - I thought someone like me didn't deserve them. Yet here he was, showing me all I could be. I'd never understood what a role model could be, and I rarely looked up to people - not for lack of respect, but rather due to an inability to relate. Our friendship saw me make staggering bounds towards improvement. No longer content to look a mess, to let myself go, to hide at home, I began going out working on my anxiety and other issues - dealing with them rather than making excuses or shirking them.
We spoke every night or damn near, occasionally with a playful bit of flirting, but overall it was entirely platonic, even respectful. We saw eachother as equals - something neither of us are used to encountering. Our conversations ranged seamlessly from history, arts, stories about our wilder days, to politics and religion - which we both agreed full heartedly on to our surprise. Even more surprising was how neither of us had to slow down and explain something, or talk down to the other. Our jokes were always caught, our points always clear, and our talks always riveting. Morality and motive were another pair of topics we regularly touched on, again with eerily similar views. He even got me to think in new ways I'd never considered, shaking foundations and knocking down walls I'd never even noticed were there. He was a mentor to me, advising me on everything from how to speak to people to what to wear to wine choices!
I started dreaming of him after a month or two of our talks, again only in a platonic sense; often we'd be going to some fair or having lunch and just talking. I'm not sure which came first: my feelings or the dreams, but it hardly matters at this point. I fought it tooth and nail at first - I was with my husband and another man at the time, and he'd cultivated his bachelor image incredibly well. Besides, I was sure a man like that would never be interested in me. Still the dreams persisted, and I found myself working with all my might to better myself, to perhaps be worthy of a person like that. I wanted him to be proud of me; I'd never wanted that before - not from a parent, not from my teachers - but him I wanted to make proud. I tried desperately to stay loyal to my two men, but in him I saw every shred of what attracted me to them initially and so, so much more.
Eventually I managed to work up the nerve to tell him how I felt. My clumsy confession was so nerve-racking I actually fainted! He seemed... less than reciprocative, but at least he didn't go running for the hills as I'd feared. Still I spent the next while in mortified shame, though he did his best to keep me from feeling too awful. We eventually wound up playing truth or dare at one point, learning loads about one another and having so much fun I utterly forgot about my embarrassment. One night I felt exceptionally bold and asked him how he felt about me. His answer saw me faint yet again - he felt the same for me, and had for a while in fact, but was struggling with that fact and our distance; he lived in Canada and I in Texas - not exactly an easy distance to manage. Still we started planning for him to visit for a week come Summer.
Again, though there were feelings between the two of us, I remained with my men, utterly torn by my adoration for this new man and my sense of obligation and loyalty, as well as a sense of security versus the unknown - I had never met him in real life and didn't know what he would want in a relationship, if he even wanted that. A squabble the night he came home from Lubbock saw me leave my husband, though in truth it had been a long time coming; while we were excellent friends, as a couple we just didn't cut it - too many differences and emotional incompatibilities. That left only my cicisbeo who grew moodier and more frighteningly possessive by the day, though in truth I can fault him neither. At the same time this new man and I's feelings grew stronger and stronger by the day. I felt trapped, utterly bound and helpless. I trembled at the thought of the unknown but longed for the change it would bring, weighing my options every day on the walks I would take.
On one such walk, uncanny fate deigned at last to break my stalemate. Laying face down in the sidewalk I noticed a card. I absent-mindedly stooped to pick it up, discovering it not to be a playing card as I thought, but the VIII of Swords. I knew I had to make a choice, that only I could break this impasse. And so I chose. It was terrifying; I'd never taken a risk like this before in my life, but I knew what I wanted, and I knew which route had a future. No sooner had I made up my mind than he sent me a message telling me that were I to visit, he would keep me. I began work renewing my passport the next day.
The following weeks were a blur of paperwork and medical necessities being seen to, goodbyes and good riddances, fund raising, packing, and near constant conversation with him. I'd never met the man, and here I was running to another country to be with him. It was madness, but at the same time I knew it was right. I had never known what love felt like - real, heartfelt, 'all-consuming passion' type love - before this; hell, I don't even know if I'd known real happiness. Gods know I never thought of myself like I did under his tutelage - it was new, daunting, guilt-ridden. It still is, a bit. I've never been so ecstatically joyous, though... so fulfilled. Every day between that invitation to my flight one sweltering August day was fraught with panics and disheartening despairs only he could dispel. But he never lost his patience, not once.
Gods... looking back now, laying in his- in our bed, tulle curtains fluttering in the night breeze, Prokofiev's 'Dance of the Knights' lilting in the background, it's damn near impossible to imagine those lonely bedtimes spent saying my goodnights to a picture on a phone. It's like another lifetime even if it was only mere weeks ago. Since landing, my time has been bliss; every day, every hour I learn, laugh, love... I've lost so much weight from our constant walks it's incredible, and my mind like my muscles has slowly been awakening from its long atrophy. My senses are all waking like that first day after a horrid headcold (only imagine aforementioned headcold lasted a third of your life) so that every little experience is a wondrous thing. Memory is also flooding back to me like he pulled me from the spoiling water of Lethe herself. Snippets of conversations that should be lost to me come back at the drop of a hat sometimes uncalled for, and suddenly I'm remembering to do things without being told fourteen times a day! It's like I've been reborn.
Where I was hiding behind a screen every day, afraid to leave the house months ago, I'm now in another country, happily going out pretty much every day. He and I stroll arm in arm everywhere, going to lunch and talking for hours, utterly lost in our stories or jokes or lectures, or to the beach to sit in the sun and read - and gods! It's so wonderful to have someone so well read. Where I'm used to turning and seeing video games and movies on almost every shelf, here it's books - beautiful, well read and loved books on every bit of surface there is. It's heavenly... I've yet to have a chance to cook for the man since we currently share a kitchen and besides - I left most of my lovely spices! Still, something to look forward to our new apartment for! That and the extra space.
Gods, and the city is just lovely. It feels barely different from Houston most days, only less murderously sweltering. The buildings remind me of my time in New England, all more vertical than anything in Houston. I love seeing the hodgepodge of mismatched shops as we walk down the way, all crammed into every inch of the city they can manage. For the first time I feel like I'm really living in a metropolis as opposed to the ghetto or 'burbs. Hell, even the animals here look cute and well fed and like they'll burst into song at any second, a lovely change from the mange-ridden things of indeterminate species that looked like they might give you rabies back in Texas. And the best part is how everything is in walking distance; I didn't even take the trolley till my third week here!
Well, I think I'm going to grab myself another drink and try and steal a bit of rest before he gets back from his work. I hope to get back to updating this thing more regularly now I'm in such a splendid situation, plus I finally have a quiet place to write without cats or roommates vying for my attention. It's been wonderful getting to put this all down, and I apologize if I've bored you to tears, but I figured I might as well get the whole story out of the way if I plan to get back to writing for you wonderful readers. Well, auf Wiedersehen my lovely Liebchens!
