Understanding

You were the first man I ever told my grandmother about. I was excited to tell her everything about you, she was happy for me even giving advice here and there. She was an amazing woman who never judged people in groups but as an individual. She treated them accordingly, based on his or her own strengths and weaknesses and never from hearsay. I wish she was able to meet you. The way she treated people as an individual was her greatest quality. A quality I admired and hope to emulate as time passes.

I went to her for everything I believed was important. Eliphal baby you were on the top of my list of what made me happy and angry and frustrated and embarrassed and any emotion you could possibly think of that I couldn’t control because I didn’t have the tools in me back then and I needed her to know everything about You. When we had our little quarrels she would tell me – it is alright just let it pass. It made her smile and extremely happy to see me become animated after years of quiet yes grams and no grams, and to take an interest in something other than books and staying out of the eyes of others that were not family.

Eli darling, you became an integral part of my life then, but I had a serious problem. I loved you, and at the same time I couldn’t give you every dark part of me. I was holding back in our relationship. Until the day it exploded in my face, we had our first obscene disagreement. So terrible, that we separated for a while… but we couldn’t quite escape each other, we kept calling each other and arguing. Why were we still quarreling, it was over. If that wasn’t bad enough, grandma passed away and I could not handle the loss of you and her at the same time. I was struggling in a major way. You were still calling and we talked each day but I never told you she was gone.

I didn’t want to live anymore. I had no more will and yes I was as far gone as deciding how to commit suicide. I was closed to everything and everyone around me including you, but you were still like a lifebuoy in a huge sea while I struggled to hold on. The turning point was the night you called and said that I didn’t love you… how I could possibly love when I was unable to truly trust you… that I was incapable of giving everything of myself. It took me a few more days of thinking to decide if I was willing to risk everything about myself and give you that much more of me that depth that would allow you such control to know me and who I am. To step with both eyes open into the unknown. I am happier now that I have made this decision. That I was able to realize you spoke the truth.

Being cautious, I came back to you with the promise that I would open more to you and give you all that I am and all that I have in me and learn to lean on you and depend on you. Love you the way I will never ever love anyone else.

Since then, these huge walls, that prevented me from truly bonding with you, walls that I didn’t notice much less know existed. Together we started working on breaking them down.

I never expected it to be easy.

But it was completely worth it.