There are things about me you don’t know.
It seems crazy, I know, because we’ve been friends for years. We’ve laughed and talked and played silly games that pulled out our “deepest” secrets for more hours than anyone could count. And now we spend almost every day together, and have sat up long into the night just talking, about everything, but there are still things about me you don’t know.
You don’t know that there are times when I’m in my car alone (not very often anymore, but still), and I hear the corniest of love songs – some pop song from the ‘80’s, or ballad from the ‘90’s – and I have to smile and sing along. We’re talking about songs that by all rights some “indie guy” (I love when you call me that), should absolutely never be caught singing, but they come on the radio and I lose any control I might have had. Like Journey’s “Open Arms.” Come on. No one in their right mind should be singing that, and yet I find that I do, and I’m thinking about you, and I know why songs like that exist.
You don’t know that, before we got together, I wrote really horrible love songs to you, of exactly that cheesy nature. I’d strum my acoustic and try and work chord structures around the notebook full of awful lyrics I’d written down. I know if I ever told you this you’d tell me that you’re sure that they weren’t awful at all, but trust me, Beesly, they were bad. Mark would sometimes walk by my door and laugh, or call me “cute, with my puppy dog crush,” but he didn’t know that it was so beyond that. You’re the only woman – the only person, really - to ever make me want to try to compose a song, or write a poem, or to use all this “creativity” everyone claims I have to actually create. I don’t really write much now – I guess that’s why artists claim they can only write when life is depressing – but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, with you in my arms or stretched across my chest, and I hear some melody in my head that seems left over from a dream. And part of me thinks I should get up and get it down somehow, but I realize that you’re there, with me, and I don’t really feel like I need to anymore.
You don’t know that there are other times that I wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat because I’m sure that it’s two years ago, and your wedding is the next day, and I’m still so alone, and that I’ll always be that way because there is just no way that I will ever, ever get over you. I can’t catch my breath and lights are flashing behind my eyelids and I am so, so certain that I am still in Hell. And then through the noise of the pounding of my heart I hear you sigh, or making one of those little sleep noises – somewhere between a moan and a sigh – and you stroke my chest so gently, and suddenly I know where I am, and that you’re there with me, and the world comes into focus and I just smile and pull you closer. I always whisper a thank you – not just for that little gesture, but for all that you’ve done and that you do…for loving me more than by all rights a slacker like me should be loved.
You don’t know that on way too many boring afternoons in the office, before you were mine, I watched you doing busy work behind your counter and – I swear to God I tried not to – my mind started to conjure up these fantasies. I would come strolling behind your counter, walking in the way that all romantic movies show their heroes walking – that sense of purpose in every step, their eyes trained on one woman like she’s the only one on the planet worth looking at – and grab you. Not in a violent way, but purposefully, like with my arms alone I’d tell you what I was about to do. I’d press you up against that wall between your desk and accounting (I know there’s a table there but it’s a fantasy, you know?), and kiss you like I knew you had never been kissed before. And you would immediately kiss me back, no hesitation. Everyone would stand and watch, because they’d never seen love like that, so purely expressed. But suddenly they’d all disappear, because I’d imagine your hands in my hair, and dancing over my shoulders and neck – they’d somehow be everywhere at once – and mine would move across your back, then down your sides and around front, and I’d grip your blouse and pull – the threads holding your buttons would just give up immediately, because they’d know what they were up against – and my hands and my eyes would travel over you, over all the parts I’d never seen but could so vividly imagine…
Well, you don’t know that’s why I didn’t come to your counter, why we had to talk on instant messenger sometimes.
You don’t know that I’ve saved every instant messenger conversation we’ve ever had. I’m serious – every single one. Doesn’t matter if it’s five lines or fifty. I’ve got the one from my first week at the office, where you apologized on behalf of Dwight because he was flossing his teeth while I was trying to eat at my desk. I’ve got our marathon top ten chat – where we ranked our top ten of everything from movies (Love Actually, Beesly?), to monsters (and I still say that Harry Monster from Sesame Street is a totally acceptable answer for my number six). As we talked so much I had to make room on that tiny hard drive for everything, and I think I deleted some fairly important company information, but it was worth it. And I know you don’t know that the last thing I did, before my going-away party a few years ago, was quietly forward that folder to myself so I had it at my desk in Stamford too. Those first few weeks I reread so many of those talks, and it was almost like you were there and nothing had changed. Once I even looked up, after reading one of your “LOL’s” that I hate (but still sort of love too, because you don’t use them gratuitously), and expected to see you not fifteen feet away. But all I saw was the back of Andy’s head, and Hannah scowling as she worked on a spreadsheet. And I almost felt dizzy, like the ground had suddenly dropped out from under me. Like I was falling, and weightless, and so…empty. I never read them at work again after that.
You don’t know that I bought your engagement ring within the first week we were dating. I told the camera crew that it was a week after, but it was actually only five days. You were getting your hair cut and I had some time to kill before we met back up for dinner, so I ended up at the mall, and then somehow I found myself at a jewelry store. I swear I was only looking for a necklace for you – I’d always thought about the kind of thing I’d get you if we ever started dating – but I was like a man in a trance as I approached the counter. I was nowhere near the necklaces, but as I looked down into the display and saw that diamond – your diamond – twinkling back up at me, I just knew that I’d be buying your ring that day. And I did. I think the salesman was surprised I was such an easy sell, but when you know, you know. And I’m sure that’s why I seemed quiet at dinner (I know you noticed; you commented on it with that teasing smile I adore), but it wasn’t out of nerves or fear – every time I looked at you I just couldn’t stop thinking, this amazing, amazing woman is going to be my wife one day. How the hell did I get so lucky?
I know you know I love you – you should, because I tell you all the time. By post-it notes on any surface that’s nearby. When we’re at the grocery store and you’ve just finished ranting about how generic crackers are in every way inferior to Ritz (in your way that never sounds like a ranting but so is, and always makes me laugh). Cuddled on the couch while you tolerate another Phillies game or I tolerate Project Runway. Over dinner at any restaurant we find ourselves at. In bed, before, during and after…well, there are no shortages of times that I tell you. Maybe I say it too much, although that seems impossible. But you will never know just how much I really love you. Sometimes it even surprises me, and I’ve loved you for so long that that shouldn’t be the case. I love you effortlessly, like it’s as natural as breathing. I love you so deeply that it almost makes me hurt, but in a good way. I love you in amazement, baffled by all the things you see in me. It’s a cliché, but I truly love you with every fiber of my being – and I’m a pretty big guy, so that’s a lot of fibers (that’s what she said?). The rest of my life won’t be long enough to share with you, and maybe there will always be things you don’t know, but if you never know any of these secrets, know this: that everything I am, everything I was and everything I will be, is because of you, and belongs – now and forever - to you.
----
There are things about me you don’t know.
I don’t know how that could be true – I’ve never tried to keep secrets from you. I’ve talked with you more than I’ve ever talked with anyone, in my whole life. First just as my friend, now as…well, I guess as my boyfriend, although that word seems so lacking when it comes to you. But even after all the sharing, after all the years we’ve been together, romantically and as friends, there are still things about me you don’t know.
You don’t know that sometimes I’m driving around and I hear a song – some song I know you’d hate, and laugh at me for liking. That’s just your indie guy way, and I wouldn’t expect anything less. But I hear songs sometimes and I just can’t keep from crying. But I’m crying happily, like I just can’t believe my luck. And I know that they’re songs that millions of other people have heard and thought that they were written just for them, but there I am – smiling and crying and knowing that that song is ours. Like that song by Vanessa Williams – “Saved the Best for Last.” I must have heard it a hundred times, and a few of those I cried over it – while you were gone, while you were with Karen – but I heard it the other day and started to cry for a whole other reason. I cried because I knew that it was for people like you, for miracles like us, that songs like that are written.
You don’t know that I used to doodle pictures of you at work, long before we got together. I know you hate when I say my drawings are “doodles,” like I’m being self-depricating and putting myself down but really, Jim, I just mean that I drew them without thinking. Like my hand had a mind of its own and just tried to capture what was there, what it knew better than anything else. Before Roy would come upstairs and meet me I’d have to do a few other caricatures - of Phyllis, or Michael and Dwight – next to your picture, just so it wouldn’t look suspicious, but those pictures were never as good. Now that we’re together I don’t draw you much anymore – not because you’re less appealing, but because I know you so very well that anything I’d put on paper looks cheap in comparison. Still, there are sometimes in the middle of the night when I wake up with the strange urge to go find some paper and a pencil, just to capture you in that moment while you sleep. But then I realize – and I still smile every time I think this – that I have you, the real thing, and I don’t need to have a silly drawing on a piece of paper to appreciate that.
You don’t know that are other times that I wake up in the night and I realize you’re having a nightmare – I don’t have to look up at you to see it, I just know, by the way you’re shaking and breathing so shallowly. And I know exactly what you must be dreaming, because I had those nightmares too. All those long days you were away in Stamford, or dating Karen, and I was in my tiny apartment (even with “only one kitchen” it always seemed big and empty in those midnight hours), and I’d wake up with my chest hurting so badly that I just knew it was possible for someone to die of heartbreak and loneliness, and everything in me ached to go back to that night I’d just been dreaming about, where I’d be able to say something different to you in the dark parking lot – you wouldn’t have had to come up to the office and find me, because I would have gotten it right the first time. But when you have those nightmares I touch you gently and make just enough noise so that you know I’m there – in every sense I can be – and it makes me smile to hear you thank me in your sleep, because even in sleep you’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met.
You don’t know that there were days in the office – those long days when nothing was going on – when I’d watch you while you made your calls, smiling like the person on the other end could see you and being as charming as ever. Your sleeves were always rolled up and I’d see how lean and perfect your forearms were, and your hand cradled the phone so…I don’t know, gracefully, I guess? And more than once I wondered what it would be like to have you hold my hand and lead me somewhere. I’d picture you coming behind my counter and taking my hand, and we’d go off into the stairwell where you’d start telling me something funny, and all of a sudden another part of my mind took over because I’d picture me pushing you up against the wall and pulling your head to mine, kissing you with no hesitancy. You’d immediately kiss me back, lifting me so you wouldn’t have to bend down so far, and my hands would tangle in that floppy hair that I always imagined would be so soft (it is), and suddenly the stairwell would melt away and we’d be in your bedroom, and you’d set me down…
Well, you don’t know why there were some days I’d get a lot more work done.
You don’t know that I’ve saved every single email you’ve ever sent me. I’m not kidding – every one. I’ve got mundane messages (dwight’s cleaning under his nails – kill me.), teasing notes (seriously, beesly – that kid running through the airport makes you cry? you need to toughen up.), even sad emails that broke my heart to reread (can you make a copy of my fourth quarter numbers before i leave tomorrow? thanks.). I have them all. I keep them in a file labeled “smiles” (I told Roy that they were funny forwards, but I kept the name long after we broke up – it fit), and I’ve had to delete quite a few no-doubt-important emails to make room for all of them, with the limited storage space we get. You don’t know that I reread them all the time after you left and it almost felt like you were there. Back at your old desk, sending me a smile like you always did but always looking unassuming if I tried to catch your eye after I read them. Once I was so sure you must have been there that I looked up, but all I saw was Ryan, looking bored and pissy like always. For a minute I got so disoriented that I had to hold onto my desk for dear life. I felt hopeless, and guilty and so…empty. I stopped reading them after that. At least at work.
You don’t know that I realized I wanted to marry you the same week we started dating. I got a little tipsy at a family dinner and told my sister it was a week after our first date, but it was really only five days after that. I had a hair appointment that afternoon (split ends plus natural curl equal disaster), and as I waited at the salon I saw a bridal magazine on the tiny table next to me. I hadn’t looked at anything like that in months – over a year, really, and even then it was only out of necessity. But without a thought I picked up the magazine and started flipping through. One of the first pages was some ad that pictured a happy couple staring into each others’ eyes, and I couldn’t help but smile too, because I knew that would be us one day. I think that was why I was so overly chatty at dinner that night – because I couldn’t help but be so elated. Every time I looked at you across the table I thought, this is the man I’m meant to spend the rest of my life with. How did I get so damn lucky?
I know you know I love you. I can’t stop saying it – I never have to force it, nor do I repeat it out of obligation. Even when I’m angry at you I can’t help but think it, so I say it (maybe that’s why our fights never last that long). In little emails when you’re away from your desk. At the mall, when you take my hand as you poke fun at some lovey-dovey teenagers. While we’re curled up on the sofa – you reading some book you borrowed off my shelf or me reading some book I borrowed off yours (only to return it to my shelf later). Across my kitchen table while we eat cereal. In bed, during any stage of sleep or…um, activity…I don’t miss out on a chance to tell you. I’m sorry if I’ve overused the phrase; I don’t want it to lose meaning. But no matter how many times, in how many ways I say it, I don’t think you’ll ever know just how much I mean those words. I love you in awe, stunned by the way you encourage me to grow, to try, to fail and try again. I love you so easily, as if it’s always been second nature. I love you deeply with every part of me – not just the cliché of my mind, my heart, my soul and my body, but with every smile, every tear, every laugh and every look. I love you so much that I almost can’t stand it, can’t breathe, can’t believe that somehow life brought us together. Maybe you’ll never know my secrets, but I know I will spend every day for the rest of our lives showing you that you, and everything you are, mean everything to me.
Story Notes:
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Sorry to flood the annals with my nonsense, but I really wanted to share this. I don't usually do the fluff thing, but I wrote this like a chick under a trance. Thanks to Dundie All-Star, for getting me all sappy. Hope you enjoy.
Cross-posted at FF.net.
Sorry to flood the annals with my nonsense, but I really wanted to share this. I don't usually do the fluff thing, but I wrote this like a chick under a trance. Thanks to Dundie All-Star, for getting me all sappy. Hope you enjoy.
Cross-posted at FF.net.
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