crazy late night post 3:10 AM

I can't sleep.

Usually when I can't sleep it's because there's something bugging me or there's some sort of problem. Tonight, I can't sleep because of the exact opposite.

Tonight, I can't fall asleep because life is perfect.

Tonight, I can't sleep because you are perfect.

You see, I sort of never thought that there was a perfect girl for me. I always thought that I would have to settle for a girl with some flaws but I would eventually learn to live them with and get over it. I assumed that it would take some work at first, but I could eventually be happy with just about any girl.

Way to turn that idea upside down. Now I'm sitting here, absolutely astonished at how awesome life is, and I can't fall asleep.

I see you every day. I can't say that I know everything about you, because you've lived on this earth for 22 years without me and I missed out on a lot, but I can say that I know a good deal of the important things about you. And from what I've seen, you are everything I dreamed of in a girl.

No, you're more than I dreamed of in a girl.

I know that you think you have some problems. I've heard about them. I don't care. The flaws that you think you have make me love you even more.

When I think about you and me and everything we have and everything we've planned I feel fulfilled and lucky and blessed and extremely fortunate all at the same time. You know I'm not exactly a religious person but I feel like I should thank someone for bringing us together. I need to thank someone for completing my puzzle. I need to thank someone for putting two pieces of clay from the same mold back together.

I also want to tell you that I'm sorry. I know that I'm not exactly perfect. I've done some things in my past that I'm not entirely proud of, some things I could take back if I could. I want to apologize for those things and thank you for never being judgmental. You accept me for who I am and you love me despite of all of it. I couldn't ask for anything more. I appreciate that soooo much.

I told you today that I want to make up for all of the garbage you've dealt with in the past. I want to make up for the time I acted like a jerk before we were together (pre-awesome, as you so fondly refer to it). I also want to make up for the telephone pole, and the hobbit, and the kid from Beth Cooper, and whatever other crappy people you've had to deal with. I know you said that you haven't put up with anything outside the realm of things that other girls deal with, but you're not some "other girl." You're MY girl. You're the PERFECT girl. You deserve better.

It might not be my place to try to make up for them, but I feel like I owe it to you. You've been dealing with crappy boys with juvenile agendas for the past, I don't know, seven years or so. You've weathered heartbreak, confusion, torment, anguish, longing, and pain and it's time for it all to stop. I'm pulling you from the games that boys play and showing you how a real man should treat you.

My plans for the future include you and me and a very big world that is just begging for us to visit it. We are going to check off every little item on your to-do list, one by one. And then one day, when we've traveled enough and we're weary from the road for a little bit, we'll start our beautiful little family which will inevitably include cute doe-eyed babies that know how to look at daddy to get their way.

All that matters to me is that I have you to share it all with.

I love you with all of my heart and my soul and I swear on my own life that I will never, ever let you go.

Validation 3:05 PM

When you really, really like someone, it really doesn't matter what everyone else thinks about your relationship. The mutual feelings between you should be enough to keep everything strong.

That said, it doesn't hurt when everyone and their brother tells you how cute you are together.

I have never, ever, once gotten a compliment about the way a girlfriend and myself look as a couple.

But in the past month and a half, we've had at least a half of a dozen people call us cute or adorable or a great couple. And it feels good.

It takes that feeling that I have, the one that tells me that she is the perfect girl for me, and it multiplies it. It takes that feeling and strengthens it and emboldens it and makes me love her even more.

It's really weird being in a relationship where everything seems to be pointed in the right direction. There have been times in the past where it was like "yeah, okay, things are going well but there's this that I don't like, or I have to worry about that." Blah blah blah.

But with my current girlfriend, there are no "little things." There are no little details about her that I have to ignore to be happy. She doesn't do anything that pisses me off or gets under my skin. She doesn't say dumb things that embarrass me in front of my friends.

It's quite the opposite. Almost every day I see her she amazes me just a little bit more. She'll drop some obscure reference or say something super cute or even use one of my little catchphrases and it just makes me fall that much more in love. And every time I look at her, every freaking time I look at her, all I can think about is how beautiful she is. I am so incredibly attracted to this girl that it's ridiculous.

If we both had a whole free day and it was rainy outside and we were stuck in my bedroom I would... well, I'm going to stop there.

But my god... I get that feeling deep in my chest every time I see her for the first time each day. And every night when she shuts the door and looks at me through the window I capture that image of her in my mind. I freeze it and look at it over and over for as long as I'm awake.

She is beautiful.

My goals... 9:30 AM

This is somewhat of a response post... it's a list of things I want to do in life.

Drive to Alaska
Learn to surf in Hawaii
Drive across the country in a van with a bunch of close friends
Make out on the beach as the sun sets
Ride a donkey down the Grand Canyon
Take a ride on a horse through the country
Learn to play piano
Ride in a hot air balloon
Join the mile high club
Purchase a tailored suit
Party until the sun comes up
Go to that tomato throwing thing in Barcelona or whatever
Drink fresh whiskey in Ireland
Purchase and learn to use a D-SLR camera
Get my own column in a newspaper
Drink freshly brewed coffee in South America
Go skinny dipping (not alone)
Visit Banff National Park in Canada
Learn to snowboard
Help rebuild a house in New Orleans
Volunteer in a soup kitchen on thanksgiving or Christmas
Read all the great literary classics
Learn French
Crash a grad party or wedding
Learn some epic dances before I get married
Eat stinky tofu in Thailand
Go to one of those epic water parks from the Travel Channel
Visit Dubai
Sneak into Tibet
Learn to eat and enjoy grits
Write a vegetarian cookbook
Own my own fruit tree
Start composting my old food
Camp near a waterfall
Get motorcycle license and drive one through the hills of some foreign country
Build a humongous sandcastle and snowman
Volunteer in an AIDS clinic in Africa for a couple weeks
Explore Giza and Egypt in general
Start a charity or non-profit
Eat fresh cheese and wine in Italy
Take train across Europe and backpack for a couple weeks
Pet a bear
Have a caricature made of me
Record my own songs and give them to friends
Build a tree fort with my children
See a tornado
Go to burning man
Go to a really high, dark place to look at the stars with my love

I will add more as I think of them.

...no crescendo? 8:50 AM

I honestly believe that this is a mountain without a peak.

I keep climbing, higher and higher, every day.

Just when I think I can't possibly love her any more than I already do...

...just when I think I have climbed high enough to push open the gates to heaven...

...I climb even higher, guided gently from behind by her calming winds.

Still, my legs are strong, my heart is pumping, and my dreams are set...

I could climb this mountain forever.

And I will.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Secret garden.. 8:52 AM

We went for a walk the other day and found the most amazing, pretty little patch of flowers nestled deep in a hillside on the Northern bank of the Erie Canal. The colors were a stunning mix of purple, white, and the most natural green I think I've ever seen.

What makes this patch of heaven even more special is the fact that probably nobody else has taken the time to notice it, and nobody else besides my girlfriend and I can understand just how perfect it is.

I think that our secret garden is a very fitting allegory for our relationship.

There have been, and there continue to be, problems with people who just don't get us.

I had to give a strong lecture to several of my cousins because they chided me for entering a new relationship so quickly after an old one ended, and for spending so much time with my new love.

Similarly, I faced some initial problems with friends due to the fact that I was single for only four days and now I spend a significant amount of time with my new girlfriend.

Now, it seems like cutie is facing the same problem.

People on the outside just don't get our relationship. We are remarkably close. It's almost like we complete each other. We are puzzle pieces designed to fit together.

At the same time, we're fine to spend some time apart, but people just assume that we can't be split up for a few hours so they don't even bother to ask.

The song "Such Great Heights" by the band Postal Service seems 100 percent suitable for life right now.

They will see us waving from such great heights,
"come down now", they'll say.
But everything looks perfect from far away,
"come down now", but we'll stay...

I think it was Dwayne in Little Miss Sunshine who said; "you do what you love and fuck the rest."

The beginning of the end.. 12:23 AM

I didn't wake up this morning and intend to have a perfect day.

Every day in the past three weeks has been fairly close to perfection. It just turned out that this one was particularly special.

I'll abbreviate, because what we did is much less important than how it felt.

We made pasta together. We ate cannolis. We took a little snuggle nap and then walked along the canal bank. We got ice cream. We had a little play time. Then I went to work.

Millions of people probably did many of those same things today. Hell, I've done most of those things in the past (except the cannolis... Mmmmm).

But how many of them would consider this the perfect day? How many of them had the best day of their life? How come it never meant this much to me in the past?

Love makes everything shiny. It makes everything new. It takes over your life and your mind and your soul.

You can feel it in your bones when you wake up in the morning and she's the first thing on your mind, and when you fall asleep at night and you can still taste the sweet touch of her lips.

I could have never imagined that such a random assortment of events would lead to a perfect day But that's another thing I've learned about love--it just isn't predictable.

For me, today marked the beginning of the end. Every tiny little lingering doubt in my mind was eliminated without mercy (not that there were many in there).

I'm hers forever.

Welcome to the rest of my life.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Everything is new again. 4:08 AM

Ren has come back to the world of blogging. And I can finally write what I feel.

I almost gave up on life.

Literally.

Just two months ago, I was at the point where simply jumping off of a very large bridge to meet my flattening demise sounded better than carrying on the way that I was. Not that I was ever suicidal or anything, but life just didn't seem worth living.

I was trying to make something fit that simply wasn't working. And I was doing it for a long time. And it hurt.

Flash forward to now. Life is just ridiculous.

I feel like I'm learning to ride a bike again. Except it's almost like I never knew how to ride a bike in the first place. Everything is new. I'm feeling emotions that I never even knew existed. I'm doing things that I've done a million times in the past and took for granted and enjoying every second of it. And it all feels new.

Kissing. Oh my god. Kissing has never been this good. Kissing and touching and holding hands and cuddling... I never knew it could all feel this amazing.

I'm pretty sure it's safe to say I'm in love. Completely. 100 percent. Hopelessly.

And I wasn't before.

There is still work to be done. I'm still exorcising demons from the past relationship. I'm still figuring out that I don't have to feel guilty for doing the things I love anymore. I don't have to feel like I'm doing something that will piss her off when I'm happy.

But the fact of the matter is; life is perfect, and I'm in love.

I will be blogging more about this soon.