Dallas, the series, circa 1985-86

Apparently, that is how things should roll. It never happened. *waves Jedi hands* *not the droids*

I realized tonight (Ed. Note: this was last night) that I was always cautioning him on how he might feel and he was always cautioning me on how I might feel about him. Absolutely no one was paying attention to what might happen to each other. The more astute would realize that this was probably projection of some sort, or at least two smart people who knew that the whole "riding off into the sunset" had more than a few complications for both of our lives.

On an aside - and I know I have a small audience and I owe no explanations - here's the thing. I fell in love with a truly remarkable person at a remarkably bad time. If I told all the sordid details, you would be able to point out the red flags. I know, I saw them, too. I wouldn't have listened to you then, either, just as I didn't listen to myself while I freaking saluted those flags. It was something I had never, ever experienced and something I cannot bring myself to regret.

I am writing this post for purely selfish reasons. With time comes the inevitable self-rationalization and revision (if not wholesale rewriting) of history, and I have no doubt that in a few weeks, months, whatever -- I will be able to speak of the whole thing rationally. I will be able to understand and perhaps explain that this was all my fault and it wasn't what it seemed and it is quite explicable with hindsight and all that. It will be another mistake that I will acknowledge and own and vow to learn from. Perhaps a learned therapist will deconstruct the whole thing for me and show me how, despite what I knew and felt in my bones at the time, was really nothing more than a cliched story with invented meaning. I think that is how we are programmed to deal with emotional strife and bullshit. I don't claim to be above that, and, again, watch this space for personal growth.

But tonight (and this was started last night, so I am clearly posting from the past), I want to be honest with myself. No matter what vortex of time and space and introspection lies ahead, right now, I am going to call it as it was. I fell in love in every sense of the word. It felt like falling most of the time. I was scared to death of it and tried to stop it out of pure fear. The fear was knowing and loving a person that you could not believe existed - a Mr. Snuffleupagous, if you will. That sounds so hokey, as if he were the perfect man. Not the case. He could and did irritate me. Even that was endearing.

But who I knew him to be in his bones? Yeah. I definitely fell for that person. That was all real and honest and, quite frankly, the love of a lifetime. No matter how I will spin it later, trying to justify what was surely a mistake of nuclear proportions, it was utterly real. Tonight, it wasn't a mistake at all. It wasn't what, I am sure, I will later characterize as an infatuation, or an addiction, or a diversion, or whatever rationalization I eventually label it. I am certain that it will eventually be chalked up to "situational circumstances" and filed it away as a "important lesson learned." Huzzah to personal growth and acceptance - can't wait to get there.

But for tonight? I am a better person for having known and loved this person and although I know all of the labels to put on it later in order to move past it? Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. It was absolutely everything we both acknowledged and knew it to be, no matter how we now both manage to move past it. It was, in his words, one in a million. It was. As painful as it was to end it, I never, ever want to lose sight of that, even as I know I will probably make every effort to do just that.

At the end of the day, I would rather admit what I knew it to be and deal with the very real fallout from that than pretend it didn't happen. So fuck you, Dallas, and your convenient ruse of pretending it didn't exist. I don't live in the nighttime soap realm and I am never going to pretend it was all a dream. I was there and I was awake, and, in any event, I know how that hand works out - you lose.

I hate to say this fucking phrase, but I am back in my Thoreau days of living deliberately.