I figured out something REALLY important tonight.  True love is like finding the setting on the toaster that makes the perfect bagel.
Much like that toaster and bagel, my latest relationship has been playing out.  At first we just left the bagel in to burn. After we realized that we can’t keep eating burnt bagel and smiling at each other like it was still good, we decided to dial it way down.  That made for bagel flavored bread. Knowing that we didn’t want to give up on that bagel and there was no way either one of us could have toast or an english muffin, we kept fiddling until we found the perfect setting.

Trusting again, for both of us, has been rough. It’s not that we don’t trust each other, because we do. We don’t trust ourselves. That was one of the things, the biggest thing, that we were robbed of.  We keep questioning every single thing we say or do.  When we finally just said, ‘fuck it.’ and were honest then we had to figure out how to talk to each other without offending each other.  Talk about a comedy of errors that turned out to be.
It took me just shutting up and listening to what he was saying. Stepping away and then going to talk to a panel of judges to see what he REALLY meant.
Women are fantastic to talk to if you want to analyze every detail of the conversation not excluding the fluctuation in the tone to which he said it.   I found out quickly that If I need to get to the root then I need to talk to a man that has been single, has been married and loves his wife very much.   At the end of the line of questioning he was asking me I figured out where he was walking me to…the fact that I don’t have a set of balls and will never understand how a man thinks.  As smart as I think I am about the man I am madly in love with, he has penis and that means that 80% of the time I will be wrong about what he was thinking.  If I guess ‘boobies’ 9 out of 10 times I’m usually right, but not when it comes to the serious stuff.
I realize that his best friend is a woman and is pretty fantastic, but since it’s me, he can’t go to me and bitch about how I freaked out about something that meant nothing. He has to keep it bottled in and wait for me to come after him with a broken bottle before he can say anything.

The last issue we had prompted a new way of communication.  When he says something, I just hear myself telling the story to my friend and predicting the line of questions he’s going to ask me.  Usually it leads to, ‘well, what did he say when you asked him about it?’  and I stubbornly will say, ‘i didn’t.’ and then he looks at me and I say, “I know!”.
We worked through more things in a couple hours the other night than I did in the last two marriages and that includes all the useless counseling sessions we were in!
It’s been said a billion times, but communication is the key to any successful relationship.  Sometimes communicating with someone that wants to turn things around is a bit rough…but we figured out how to get past that and we have been tested a few times and each time it has turned out better.  He didn’t get offended and I didn’t say, ‘fuck you asshole’ one time! Baby steps!

I never thought I would get to this place. I never thought I would allow someone to love me again. This is going to sound crazy (and maybe it’s just rubbing off on me) but I learned by example from someone I thought was just a loon for falling in love again after getting hurt.  I learned to let myself love again with my whole heart because I learned it from Tabitha.  She loves with every single bit of herself and to me that is just nuts. That’s setting yourself up to get burned big time. For her, there is no other way to love someone.
When I was pretty low and not certain I could trust again is about the time she walked back into my life. She was bruised and broken, but willing to keep trying.  My attitude was much different. NEVER AGAIN would allow that to happen to me. The hardening of my heart had already began and she explained to me how she would someday say the words, ‘i do’ again.  NO WAY. NEVER. NEVER.  The certainty she had for love was powerful.  You could see she meant it too. Not because she couldn’t survive without a man in her life, because she has proven she can..but because she LOVED.

I don’t think I ever gave my whole heart away before. I have loved deeply and passionately, but I never handed someone all my heart with no expectation of return and with complete trust.  There are times when I think, “GOD THIS IS STUPID!” and think I am loving someone too much and the risk I am taking is getting hurt worse than I have ever been hurt before with zero chance of recovery if it ends.  Then I realize that I would rather walk away knowing I gave it my all and there is no way he could say, ‘she held back.’    The risk I am taking by allowing someone to see me for who I am and sticking with him even though I know the person he sees isn’t really worth sticking around for is scary as fuck. Give me an airplane ANY DAY and it’s 99% less scary than loving someone like this.
He saw it though. He knows the fear I have and he saw the love that I have for him and I can, for the first time in more years than I can think, can finally let out the breath I have been holding in and just let myself be truly loved because I am finally learning how to love again…and fight again…and make up again…and work through it so the fight next time is less bloody.  ( I still throw in a couple sucker punches though)

I’m finally setting down the butter knife and allowing the toaster to go the whole cycle instead of popping it up in the middle to make sure it’s still toasting.

By the way, the answer is 3. The perfect setting for a bagel is 3.