Wearing His Things
This morning I did something sneaky. Putting on one of my two remaining pairs of pants, I found his favorite ring in the pocket. He wore these jeans last, so he must have forgotten that he'd taken it off. I decided to wear it; it's not the first time, but it's not something he would encourage.
He can be a little protective of his belongings, the yours/mine dichotomy, such and like. This doesn't bother me too much, though it can be a pain. We're about the same size; he's got slightly bigger hips, I have a bigger stomach. We're about the same height. We are roughly the same build, the sort that makes shopping for clothes a hassle at best. We can wear the same things, more or less, but we each tend to gravitate to certain items in our wardrobe. Some clothes are definitely more his than mine, and the reverse is true. I respect that. Somewhere in there, we both still require some sort of boundary, some stop-gap between our personalities.
Yet...
Sometimes, when he's not paying attention, I wear his things, specifically because they are his. A favorite shirt, a pair of pants, a ring; it annoys him, at times. I don't mind. He doesn't know (or didn't until right this moment) why. What is his is and extention of himself. To wear such a thing, to keep it on my person, is to be reminded of him, all day. It's to get into his skin, to love him from the inside. I smell him, feel him as I go about my day. It may seem surprising that, though we have slept in the same bed for a year and a half (with only one night apart in that whole time), we don't get to see each other as much as we'd like. He's much more apt than I am to point this out; I'm less hurt by the distance, but then again, I have ways of getting around it... like wearing his clothes.
I'm sure it says something about the nature of our relationship, that I am comforted by his closeness to me, his similarities. He is the perfect balance of things I am, and things I am not. I love him for that. I love him for the way he makes me feel like there is a future in which I am not merely adrift; the way he anchors me, prevents me from floating away. I love him for his silly pretentions, and wish he would pursue them more. I love him for the things he wants to be as much as the things he already is. I love his idea of himself, the person he'd like to become.
I have visions of him, have since the beginning. He is the city streets, the cyborg lover, demon, knight, champion and victim, ambitious and domestic. He's his own person, and strong enough to withstand my grudge match against complacency, my night terrors. He is my blanket; I'd like to think I'm his. We share values, even if we don't pursue them in the same way. We share philosophies, even if it doesn't seem so to outsiders. Outsiders, in this case, refers to everyone who isn't the two of us. We have language, too. We are a nationality, all our own. Sometimes, it's easy to forget these things. Sometimes it's hard to see humanity for being human; so I wear his things, and I remember.
We've lived in this current space for over a year, now. I have lived with him for nearly two. Can you imagine this? Two years, as of February. Half as long as I lived in Virginia, and three years since I left there. Less than a month, and we begin a new decade, the first truly new decade of the Millenium. In a hundred years, we at our current age will be as distant as the industrial revolution is to us now. Our great grandchildren will have trouble comprehending the vast gulf between us; we, too, will be relegated to the quaint, irrelevant past. I wish terribly that I could believe I'll live long enough to see the next Turn of the next Century, to be able to compare and contrast, to amuse my great grandchildren with stories of this strange city in the midst of this strange revolution. I think I would be lonely, but not too lonely. All humanity would be there, even if my own kith and kin were not.
I content myself with knowing that I am alive, in this place, with these people, with him, in these moments; moments no one else will even know. I cherish the fact of my own material existence, and cannot fathom any truth in which such immediacy is dismissed, a thought equally abhorrent as any which fails to see itself in the context of other times and other places. In the face of all the flawed possibility and infinite uncertainty, the world is as we decide it is, as I decide it is, for me at least, and I can't bring myself to see the relevance of any other state to this life than the life itself. Heaven and Hell are irrelevant; they are distant possibilities at best, a guessing game that actually detracts from this immediate state of living. What a waste of time to worry about the hereafter, when there is only so much "here" to go around before the "after" comes along.
I think all these things in the course of my day, but I also think of him, my love, whose presence comforts me, with whom I feel less terrified of time and inevitability. I dream of cityscapes and future days and play my game of the Year Before with less infinite terror than I used to, because now he's here to share it with.
He can be a little protective of his belongings, the yours/mine dichotomy, such and like. This doesn't bother me too much, though it can be a pain. We're about the same size; he's got slightly bigger hips, I have a bigger stomach. We're about the same height. We are roughly the same build, the sort that makes shopping for clothes a hassle at best. We can wear the same things, more or less, but we each tend to gravitate to certain items in our wardrobe. Some clothes are definitely more his than mine, and the reverse is true. I respect that. Somewhere in there, we both still require some sort of boundary, some stop-gap between our personalities.
Yet...
Sometimes, when he's not paying attention, I wear his things, specifically because they are his. A favorite shirt, a pair of pants, a ring; it annoys him, at times. I don't mind. He doesn't know (or didn't until right this moment) why. What is his is and extention of himself. To wear such a thing, to keep it on my person, is to be reminded of him, all day. It's to get into his skin, to love him from the inside. I smell him, feel him as I go about my day. It may seem surprising that, though we have slept in the same bed for a year and a half (with only one night apart in that whole time), we don't get to see each other as much as we'd like. He's much more apt than I am to point this out; I'm less hurt by the distance, but then again, I have ways of getting around it... like wearing his clothes.
I'm sure it says something about the nature of our relationship, that I am comforted by his closeness to me, his similarities. He is the perfect balance of things I am, and things I am not. I love him for that. I love him for the way he makes me feel like there is a future in which I am not merely adrift; the way he anchors me, prevents me from floating away. I love him for his silly pretentions, and wish he would pursue them more. I love him for the things he wants to be as much as the things he already is. I love his idea of himself, the person he'd like to become.
I have visions of him, have since the beginning. He is the city streets, the cyborg lover, demon, knight, champion and victim, ambitious and domestic. He's his own person, and strong enough to withstand my grudge match against complacency, my night terrors. He is my blanket; I'd like to think I'm his. We share values, even if we don't pursue them in the same way. We share philosophies, even if it doesn't seem so to outsiders. Outsiders, in this case, refers to everyone who isn't the two of us. We have language, too. We are a nationality, all our own. Sometimes, it's easy to forget these things. Sometimes it's hard to see humanity for being human; so I wear his things, and I remember.
We've lived in this current space for over a year, now. I have lived with him for nearly two. Can you imagine this? Two years, as of February. Half as long as I lived in Virginia, and three years since I left there. Less than a month, and we begin a new decade, the first truly new decade of the Millenium. In a hundred years, we at our current age will be as distant as the industrial revolution is to us now. Our great grandchildren will have trouble comprehending the vast gulf between us; we, too, will be relegated to the quaint, irrelevant past. I wish terribly that I could believe I'll live long enough to see the next Turn of the next Century, to be able to compare and contrast, to amuse my great grandchildren with stories of this strange city in the midst of this strange revolution. I think I would be lonely, but not too lonely. All humanity would be there, even if my own kith and kin were not.
I content myself with knowing that I am alive, in this place, with these people, with him, in these moments; moments no one else will even know. I cherish the fact of my own material existence, and cannot fathom any truth in which such immediacy is dismissed, a thought equally abhorrent as any which fails to see itself in the context of other times and other places. In the face of all the flawed possibility and infinite uncertainty, the world is as we decide it is, as I decide it is, for me at least, and I can't bring myself to see the relevance of any other state to this life than the life itself. Heaven and Hell are irrelevant; they are distant possibilities at best, a guessing game that actually detracts from this immediate state of living. What a waste of time to worry about the hereafter, when there is only so much "here" to go around before the "after" comes along.
I think all these things in the course of my day, but I also think of him, my love, whose presence comforts me, with whom I feel less terrified of time and inevitability. I dream of cityscapes and future days and play my game of the Year Before with less infinite terror than I used to, because now he's here to share it with.