Frailty

Everything a person has can be forever altered by the actions of another. I've learned that lesson in spades over the last 24 months. It's led me to appreciate what I have, because nothing is finite. Everything is frail. All it takes is a small misstep, and it all can come crumbling away.

I don't want to go through that again. I lost everything I had and everything I was in early 2011. I went rather crazy with it, and treated the woman I now want to make my wife like a disposable piece of trash. I wounded her deeply, and played games with her. I try very hard to make amends, but I do not deserve her. I never will after what I've done to her.

But I am no longer in my dark insanity. I treat her like the beautiful loving woman she is, and I treat her how I truly feel she deserves to be treated. I try to remind her often that I love her more than life itself, and that those days have been behind me for some time. But I was afraid that with the move stirring up ghosts of my own pain from last year, that it might also stir them up in her.

I'm happy to be moving in with her. I want to make her my wife, and I want to be a father to her kids. But I know it's all in her hands. I know I only have what I have today because of her. I'd still be in Marion without her. I wouldn't have a family of my own without her. I wouldn't be able to move to a new studio without her. I wouldn't have a best friend without her. I wouldn't be happy without her. I wouldn't be able to live without her.

But all that I have is in her hands. I need to never forget that fact. I was happy in my previous long term relationship, but she wasn't. I was selfish, and she took it all away. I was selfish and a major dickhead to Laura last year, and will never ever ever deserve to be with her. But she says she wants to marry me, and I'm thrilled by that to no end! Yet, there is this thought in the back of my head that says "you may have her, but you scarred her! You'll never be good enough for her!" And that voice is speaking the truth. I'll never deserve her. I always need to remember that at an moment what I have with her could come crashing down. My life is in her hands.

So while she suffers with the pain and anger of my past mistakes, I'll suffer with the endless regret and anger and pain of my past mistakes. I'll suffer knowing that I made it this way. I'll suffer knowing that I deserve nothing less. But I'll honor her until the day that I die.

Despite everything I've put you through, I'll always love you Laura. I get sick when I think about you hurting, knowing that I caused it. I feel selfish expecting you to love me back. But I need you to know that you mean everything to me.

Everything.