I have not been able to shake this funk I’ve been in lately. [I am taking all kinds of risks with this.] However, I will admit it here instead of continuing to write it all over yellow legal pads … I am completely heartsick.

It is really a special kind of exquisite torture to be in love with your very best friend.

It’s got all the signs of a trauma … disaster and destruction everywhere. Can I help it? No. Is this reminiscent of other relationships I’ve had? A couple. But this time it’s 100 times worse. This time it’s a grown-up kind of love.

This time it’s a man who I respect, who I adore. A man who is not just brilliant, well read, articulate and sharp. He is a man who feel things. I mean, feels things, deeply. A man who feels love for strangers and weeps for the pain he sees in other people’s eyes. A man who strives to reach deep inside himself to eradicate anything there that hinders his relationship with God. A man completely and solely dependent on the Lord for everything.

This man gives every last piece of himself to others. He’d rather drop to his knees in exhaustion than pass up a cry for love from anyone in need. He cries for a nation living in its own excrement and loving it. He cries for our brothers and sisters in other nations being treated brutally for their beliefs.

Does this mean he’s perfect? Have I yet again blinded myself to a man’s faults in order to make him “perfect”? No. He is stubborn as ten mules. When he doesn’t want to hear you, he won’t. His ADD is off the charts and late at night his focus is gone. He allows himself to be pulled into the middle of situations that tug at his heartstrings enough to lose objectivity, until someone (like myself) reaches in and pulls him forcibly out. His views on relationships - romantic ones - are extremely skewed by his past, yet he can’t handle hearing this. He is willful and temperamental. He has a temper that can plaster me to the wall.

Would we be “perfect” together? I don’t know. My heart says yes. But we are an awful lot alike. We are prideful in the best of times. We are both stubborn and willful. We are both short on patience and quick to anger and melancholia. Many, many times one of the two of us has determined that, in a parallel universe, we would be twins. And, inside, deep down, we are both really fucked up.

But we both love the Lord. We both love people - even though we both have trouble loving well. We are both willing to walk through the hard times with others - especially each other. We have the strength and stamina to make it. We are there for each other - all the time. When the day becomes unbearable, we can look to each other for support, for reminders that God loves his wild animals too.

He is a beautiful human being. I’ve never been prouder of anyone, except my son. He is bold and willing to sacrifice whatever it takes for The Truth. He is human and he falls down, but that never keeps him down. He is both gentle and defiant, loving and undaunted. He is more honest than any human being I know - and yet still keeps secrets hidden deep within. He is utterly and completely talented beyond words.

His presence in my life has added a richness and depth to the colours I see all around me. I have surely been blessed.

And yet … I pray each day with all my heart that God would grant me his. And each day I watch as that prayer goes unanswered. It hurts. With each heartbeat that squeezes tightly, it aches. Self-doubt begins to surface. I work hard to stuff it down and continue to be his friend.

I will continue to try to hide the warmth I feel just by hearing his voice each day. I will try to hide my happiness just to see him. I will continue stifling the urge to be in his arms, just for a hug of comfort or anything else. I will continue to ignore the contented feeling I get just by being in the same room with him. I will stop pointing out that when he says, “No one understands me,” he is utterly mistaken.

I just wonder if this funk will hang around forever? “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Pr 13:12)

“…The space between

The bullets in our firefight

Is where I’ll be hiding, waiting for you

The rain that falls

Splash in your heart

Ran like sadness down the window into…

The space between

Our wicked lies

Is where we hope to keep safe from pain

Take my hand

‘Cause we’re walking out of here

Oh, right out of here

Love is all we need here

The space between

What’s wrong and right

Is where you’ll find me hiding, waiting for you

The space between

Your heart and mine

Is the space we’ll fill with time…”

Aching in perpetuity,

michelle