With my man, and my Sisterlocks...
I know! I need to post pics. Y'all forgot what I look like, right?
I misplaced my camera about 4 months ago and have yet to find it and I refuse to buy a new one. I'm really upset about it because I wanted to post about my weight loss and my locking progress with pictures!
But the important thing is the changes, not so much the pictorial record of how it all came to pass - to me anyway. Y'all know pictures are not important to me, so I've been slack on that part of this whole blogging project from the get-go, so none of you are really surprised.
I am actually a little frustrated with myself this time though, because I have experienced such positive changes, I want everyone to know!
Ah well, I'll get around to it. I have been a little disctracted...
As I mentioned, I am in love. Really, truly in love with a very wonderful man. I absolutely adore him. He is everything I ever wanted.Really. And I have been hesitant to say so because I have not wanted to come on here and gush about him...
Not just yet.
He knows I journal and have done so since I was a teenager and I told him I have a blog.
I asked him not to read it, but this is the Internet. There is nothing secret about it. I knew he could find it if he looked. I asked him not to and so he didn't. And I appreciated that very much.
There's actually nothing on here that I haven't told him about (that he'd be interested in). I'm pretty sure he doesn't care about what shampoo I decided to start using a year and a half ago, so, yeah, I've left out some of the irrelevant details.
But he knows all of my opinions, everything about my career and past relationships, goals, the terrible stuggles with my weight and how and why it came to pass as well as what I decided to do about it and how recent all of that was.
I was not at my top weight when our relationship started and we both know he would not have been physically attracted to me if I had been. I do not fault him for that. I was ready to crawl into a hole when I was 15 lbs overweight. So when I was almost 200 lbs, I was ready to die! I had genuine feelings of self-loathing at the time.
I know, intellectually in the grand scheme of life and death it was not that serious that I should have fixated on it to that degree and I'm sure that kind of negative thinking made it harder for me to make positive changes. It was not the best time in my life - physically or emotionally.*
But like I said in my previous post: I started making changes for self-improvement in every area of my life before I met him. And I got back on track to becoming the person I know I am supposed to be and living the life I am supposed to live.
And he saw that. He responded to that.
I love that he sees the best in me. I need that. I am very hard on myself. I have high expectations, all the time, sometimes to a discouraging degree. He helps me remember that I am very special just the way I am and I love him for it.
*We've talked about it. We've talked about it all...
He knows that's not who I am now, nor is it who I was for most of my life, nor do I ever intend to find myself there again. And he is enough into fitness and overall good health that I have no fears that it will not be easy to continue with the good habits I always had before and have recently re-established.
I do not foresee that the weight issues will ever be a problem again...
But back to the point about him reading my blog: he respected my request not to read it. He apparently did not even look for it as a result of my request.
I have nothing to hide, but it is one of those things....Some of what I've talked about (like my weight loss struggles) has been much easier to share with strangers than people I know intimately. And the rest would just not be that interesting to him.
He loves me, but I doubt he cares that my hair grew an inch last month and I started 8 new locks. I don't care as much about the details as when I started! I know I have comical stories and experiences intertwined, but I just never figured he'd feel like wading through it all.
And, well, even though I've told him how I feel, I just wasn't ready for him to read the posts where I talk about him. You've read them. They are not unflattering in the least. He even knows the details about how I was feeling about life and love just before we became an item.
We've really talked about it all, but something about seeing things in writing.... I don't know... I just wasn't ready for him to see it all yet, but I had in mind to share it with him soon. Very soon. Within the next month or so.
So he could choose for himself to read or not read. Any or all of it that is out there for the world to see. Why not him as well?
I don't have a readership of millions... never will, my little life is not that interesting. But amazingly enough, over the last 3 years, I have attracted a readership of thousands.
Is there anyone who reads it religiously? No. I don't post often enough to have a true following, but I track who reads and how often and I am available to people who want to contact me.
Readers often e-mail me with questions and comments. Some even call, and I've met quite a few up close and in-person.
It's been a fun experience.
But back to my guy: I have told him everything about myself that might be remotely relevant to our present and future. I have told him things that no one else knows. Not my best friends, not other exes, not family.
Why? Because I knew early, early on that I wanted to marry this man and I wanted there to be no secrets between us.
He did the same.
Did he tell his family and friends the details?* Did I?
*None of which were especially sordid, I might add. I have managed to live a fairly decent life - no skeletons.
He did not tell my secrets. I did not tell his. They are my secrets. And his secrets.
There is nothing I believe he will ever tell me about himself or his past that can ever make me love him less than I do right now. And I know he feels the same. Some things aren't as I would have wished them to be. For both of us.
But we are in our thirties.... Who has made it to this age and not made mistakes of some type?
People who haven't lived....
Am I intensely proud of every single thing I've done from birth until now? Um... that would be a, 'No.'
It's like my girl Jill Scott sang famously:
Your background it ain't squeaky clean
Sometimes we all got to swim upstream
You ain't no saint, we all are sinners
But you put your good foot down and make your soul a winner
I respect that, man you're so phat
And you're all that
Plus supreme
Then you're humble
Man I'm numb Yo
With feeling
I can feel everything that you bring
Let's take a long walk
Around the park after dark
Find a spot for us to spark
Conversation, verbal elation, stimulation
Share our situations, temptations, education, relaxations....
Y'all know I love me some Jill...
But not as much as I love my man. He really is all that and then some.
Anyway...
If there's one thing I do have low tolerance for, it's people who are judgmental and unforgiving. People who pretend that they've never mispoken or stretched or bent the truth or plotted revenge (I said plotted, not carried out...:-), or done something/anything untoward at some point in their lives are low on my list of favorites.You just know it isn't true. I'm all for righteousness. I try to do the right thing at all times. I really do. Self-righteousness, however, sucks!
Everybody does or says or thinks something they shouldn't at some point. It's just a matter of frequency, motive and degree. Everyone has lied at some point in life. Everyone has taken advantage of someone else at some point. Everyone has hurt someone that they cared about.
And try as any of us might, most of us are going to do it all again at some other point between tomorrow and the day we die. That's life. That's being human.
...So I'm not looking for perfection. Never was. Neither is he.
And yet. And still. I feel like he is so very perfect for me.
I know... if that doesn't sound ultra-sappy, what does? But I refuse to apologize for it now. Or ever. I want it always to be true. And I honestly think it will be.
I am not so unrealistic in my expectations as to believe we will never disagree or disappoint each other, but you know all the stuff I've said in the past about seeing one's flaws and faults and loving and forgiving them anyway? All the things I've said about how I love...?
He loves the same way.
Really. Actually. Demonstratively. Consistently.
Who hasn't had bad things happen to them? Who hasn't been hurt or lied to or betrayed? No one.
And without putting his business in the streets... he has had to deal with a lot of crap over the years from people who should have cared for him and looked out for him. People who were supposed to love him and have his best interests at heart.
I have too. It's something we have in common.
And yet, he is amazingly resilient and open and loving. Like I cannot believe sometimes.
He amazes me. Every day. Really and truly.
He knows. I've told him. I love him so much!
I save most of my declarations of adoration for my journal entries so that my friends and family won't tire of listening to me singing his praises. Just yesterday I was musing on how different he is. From everyone who came before.
And how I want to spend my life with him because he is just that uniquely amazing.
I do know that if and when he asks me to, I will most certainly say, 'Yes', without any doubts or reservations.
Sigh....
Ok, OK!
Really, I've got to find my camera so I can take pictures and post about my hair again!
Because the same way I know he doesn't care about Sergei and Svetlana... I know that most of you did not come here for this...so I will try my best to make my next post about my hair! It's been a very long while since I've updated everyone.
Toodles!
