Everything about him is warm and solid and easy. And I want it. But I can never tell if I want him, or just what he feels like. He holds my hand and plays with my hair and makes me laugh and it feels safe and I'm not afraid of it. When I'm with other people, my blood pressure goes so high that the room starts to spin. With him, my feet are on the ground and my soul is in my body and my heart is going the right speed. Maybe that's not the feeling to chase. Maybe that's just how I'm supposed to feel with everyone. But I don't. I don't feel safe with other people. I don't feel whole or warm or right. I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin. I feel like my soul is too big for my body and it's pushing against me, trying to escape. And then he puts his hand on my arm and my soul shrinks back down to the right size and I can take a full breath again. Is that love? Feeling like there's nothing wrong with what you are beside someone else? Or am I the only crazy person who feels like I might float away on the slightest breeze? Sometimes I think he feels the same way and we're both just clawing at the space between us to keep our feet on the ground. There's no reason for us to hold hands when we sit in the floor or to hug every five seconds or to poke and hit and touch but we do. We do it all the time and it's the only thing I have to hold onto sometimes. It's the only thing that connects me back to the moment.
I've spent a long time teaching myself how to reconnect with reality. I count in eights. I sign the alphabet. I dissect the world around me with all five senses. I pick a color and I find it everywhere that I can. I ration my breaths. But when he's around, I don't have to do that, I just have to reach out. Sometimes, it's like he knows and he reaches for me before I can do it myself. I don't now what that means for us. Maybe it means we're supposed to pull our heads out of the clouds and be together. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just learning what safe feels like and right now, he's the only safe thing I have. Maybe we're somewhere in between and we haven't found our landing spot yet. Not knowing makes it hard when he's not around and my mind wanders and my imagination takes over. Not knowing makes it hard when he's right there and we're constantly reaching for each other. Not knowing makes it hard in the moments when the world feels way too big for me to function in alone and in the moments when this town feels so small that I fear I'll use up all the oxygen it has. I don't think I want to be with him, it's more that being with him seems easy and I wish that it felt like that with a few more people. I don't think I want him, but I want it to be this easy with the people I do want. I don't know when the idea of breathing became synonymous with his name. I don't know when the idea of phone calls became normal or when the separate "he" and "I" became the together "us". I don't know when the tides shifted or when he became part of who I am. Maybe when we spilled our pain out in the middle of the night and realized that we were both choking on the same brand of poison. Maybe the next morning when we awkwardly and honestly talked about how rare that feeling was. Maybe that's when I felt safe for the first time. Regardless of when or how or why, the fact remains that he is my safe place. I think of him and my hands stop shaking. I think of him and my breathing slows down. I think of him and all the fear that swirls up into a tornado slows down and settles. I don't have that with anyone else and I don't know what it means, all I know is that it's one of the only things keeping me going these days and I don't want to lose it. Or him.
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