Laying snuggled tightly, my head resting in the soft place where his shoulder meets his chest, all my comfort rested in gratitude while being pulled in close and closer still.
Under a pile of blankets in a crisp cool upstairs room where the heat has not been turned on, he holds me in his childhood mountain home. Here everything seems right enough with the world and I could not be one iota happier.
Having been musing over our life together now and our lives spent apart so many years, an intense protective comfort pervades our rested embrace and he says to me, "You feel so incredibly feminine. Your energy is so deliciously feminine. It feels sooooo good." And in an instant, I know exactly what and why he is saying this to me. For I do feel such a pristine, uniquely peaceful, unworried confidence in his love for me and mine for him. Somehow it has rendered this voraciously independent and outspoken woman to utter words she had never conceived together before. "It's a strong independent woman completely surrendered."
Don't misunderstand my words.
All my life I have been unconsciously and consciously seeking a man who embodies the strongest of morals, the most cutting of ethics, all the while never wielding them unless absolutely necessary. All my life I've watched as the men I've engaged with eventually (and usually unconsciously) disclosed the limits of their compassion, the state of their understanding as less than what's needed and hoped for. For I wanted the world from them because the world is what I face. And I did not want to face it alone.
For so long I have battled my struggles with or without the understanding of those around me. Now, he's here. Now, he shows me in a million tiny and gigantic ways that he understands. Now, when life's inevitable struggles knock and pound at my door, he stands between it and me, and only if need be... because he also has complete faith in my ability (and desire) to fend for myself. But when the hammer needs to fall, he will slam it. I love this about him. It's incredibly satiating to know he's here experiencing it all with me, both of us at each other's sides, but also... it's dangerous is it not? If ever he were to decide to slam that metaphorical hatchet down between he and I, consciously or not, attempting to sever the bond between us... at this point, I would be irrevocably devastated.
And yet we are beyond the worrying about that.
And being beyond it, my raging lion's roar is a cute sleeping kitten in his arms. There is no fear being with him. There is no worry keeping me up at night. There are no doubts eating away through subconscious thought. Pure, alive, exposed little-girl-spun dreams lay open and nourished in his care. How can I not give him the best of me? How can I not find this open space, safe? The very nature of it begets a natural surrender of all the piss and vinegar of my spirit. It's not only not necessary here, it's treasured. He loves all my piss and vinegar. He tells me so, as I also know his keen judgment is for our benefit, not just his own, he knows my fire is for us both and not just my own. Not any more.
It's been a long, long effort, to walk our individual lives, wielding our individual swords of justice, walking our separate but parallel paths through this often harsh and beautifully wild world. Shared pleasures and nuances in seeking emotional and energetic shelter from all that wears us down in this world... we rest there together now. And it may seem like it tames my spirit, rendering me delicately feminine, but really what it does is allow me to rest feeling utterly protected, and that, to me, is incredibly masculine feeling from him.
We fit. In all our dichotomies, we sync up and it feels incredible. <3
