`tHe NeVeReNdInG fAiRyTaLe~hApPiLy EvEr AfTeR iS nOt ThAt FaR iS iT?` RyAn & MiNdY

Monday, April 17, 2006
7:04 PM

~Getting the L word out by Jill Alphonso~

Growing up, i never knew that saying "I love you" to someone could become a deal-breaker in a relationship. I should have, though.
My family, while big on respect, does not toss the phrase around freely. Which is not to say that we never said it.
When we did, it was with tenderness and care. It's just that it wasn't bandied around a lot.
That seems to have carried over into my adult life to a large degree.
One boyfriend told me (rather meanly, I thought) that he had uttered those three little words simply because he thought I longed to hear them. I was offended - did he think I was so desperate for love?
It became the reason we broke up eventually. I said those words because I felt it. He, the Ex, seemed to feel it but wasn't ready to say it.
"I don't know if I love you," he wrote in a note to me. "But I'm sure havng fun finding out."
Perhaps if I'd respected that and waited, we would still be together, but I didn't because with him, it just wasn't enough at the time and I wanted to believe that he was that someone who would give generously when it comes to love. But, no blame or shame as I say this now, he just wasn't Mr Right.
When we broke up, he admitted he had been in love with me the whole time. We've talked since then, and each time, it's always about those "what if" scenarios or those "in another time, if I had been in a different space" kind of talk.
The Boyfriend now is an altogether different animal. With him, I feel completely loved. i feel this wierd, comforting warmth, as if I am being cocooned in some place safe.
I feel it when we are lying on the couch doing nothing, running errands, or when he touches my face or my hair.
And the funny thing is, we've never really said it. Well, not in the Hollywood "holding your hand while staring deep into your eyes" kind of way. but intangibly, undeniably, I feel it all the time, even when we are having arguments.
let me recount one drunken incident - mine, not his. We were at a party and I'd hit the bottle a little too hard.
i found myself dehydrated and woozy, barely able to stand straight. i requested that he call a cab for me and walk me down. Walking, apparently, was too much for my rubbery legs on my very high heels. My muscles had turned to Jell-o and i had to sit down three times before getting to the road for the cab. Then, inexplicably, I sat down and refused to move.
Imperiously, I demanded that he return to the party, and that I would be fine on my own.
He yelled at me and said how I should not have come at all. Still yelling, he concluded his charming speech peppered with swear words with: "Baby, i'm going to take care of you but I'm really annoyed at you." More swearing followed.
i sobered up at the tone in his voice, and something in me stirred. I should be angry, i thought. Livid even. I was being verbally abused simply for having a good time, but I heard the subtle tender nuances even under all the rage. He was taking care of me because it was the right thing thing to do, but also because he loved me.
We have since said the three words once or twice and it has been a comedy of errors.
I gave him a card saying "I love men" on the front, but on the inside, I wrote, "But don't worry, baby, I love you more." He sighed indulgently and proceeded to make the card the butt of several jokes among friends.
I then said it - caution be damned - on a night before I went to sleep. He told me that he didn't yet, but that he cared about me. He explained that it usually take him years to say it.
I sulked for a day before deciding that he had the right to take all the time he wanted to get the words out.
I wasn't afraid that he was going anywhere though I'm paranoid that the important men in my life will eventually leave me. It's a paranoia fed by ex-boyfriends who were besotted with me then dropped me when they got either bored, or scared, or were just being plain stupid.
The first time it came out of his mouth, it was several months later while he was on a business trip and we were talking on the phone.
"I love you," he said in a soft murmur, sounding unsure, hesitant.
Distracted by an episode of The O.C. where Ryan and Marissa were performing their break-up-but-still-together routine, I didn't pay atention.
"Uh-huh, okay, so talk to you soon," I chirped before hanging up. I only realised after I put down the phone. Drat.
the next time, he was still away and I said it over a gale of static and poor phone reception. Darn.
The next, he told me how drunk he was before carrying on a very lucid conversation and then saying it quickly before we hung up. I'm not sure how seriously I can take that one but you know what they say in Latin : in vino veritas (there's truth in wine).
But what matters, I know is not so much the saying of it, though it is nice to hear an emotional abstract articulated and defined in concrete words. but I also know that what counts is the faith I have in his feelings, and in my own.
I have a wierd philosophy that people are at their truest when asleep. Well, in relationships, anyway.
In a particularly bad, in-between-boyfriends period, I realised I was sleeping with my hand over my heart, as though to protect it.
The Ex used to wrap himself around me and a strange narcoleptic and drugged sleep would immediately come over me. I would rationalise later that it was kind of like taking a sleeping pill to numb out the heartaches.
With the Boyfriend, however, things are again different. i feel warmed and relaxed. Time stretches, and I usually drift off into a contented slumber.
For that moment, I can almost feel the L word in all its splendor. And I now recognise when that moment stretches on into the day, which is happening more and often these days.
That's why although it's nice to hear him say "I love you", I don't feel he always has to say it.
That's why, despite our mishaps with the phrase, I know that one day, we'll get it right. And when we do say it right, I'm confident that it won't be the last time.

imlost...
inafairytale