an odd mixture of fear and resignation

I’m feeling an odd mixture of fear and resignation tonight. I know you saw me today, and I know I looked crazy. Maybe I am. I don’t think I’m prepared to try to defend my actions, though. As crazy as I may sound, I am in love with you, and I don’t want to defend that. I am afraid of this being unhealthy, taking what we have into an uncomfortable place where we dance around one another until we can be free. I do not want that. I don’t want you to pull away. I am so afraid that you will see this as desperately ill. I am so afraid that this positive energy that is making me so happy will turn out to be negative and oppressive, and illegitimate. I know I do not sound completely logical. I am afraid that that will frighten you away. Is it possible to go from some sort of insanity to a healthy, fulfilling relationship? I am tempted to defend this as just one of those things that happens when you love someone, that you lose your mind a little. But that feels like a weak defense. So where do we go from here? I know that I want you to continue to smile when you see me. I want you to treat me tenderly, but not delicately, to express your acceptance of me just as I am. I want to be reassured of your acceptance of me. My defiance is connected to this desire for acceptance, and I crave it from you. But in wanting this from you, am I denying you the acceptance that I crave so deeply? Can I accept you, just as you are, even if you are unwilling to accept me like this? I am imperfect, fragile, even broken. But so are you. I can’t come to love those cracks and dents until you let me see them. And so, in the spirit of reciprocity, honesty and reality, I want to show you my fault-lines with no apology. I want to learn to be a better person, not just for you, though loving you increases my motivation, but for me, too. But I can only repair the breaks when I recognize the value of this growing soul, despite them. It is when the cracked and split exterior of an old blue-gum tree pulls away, that the pure white, smoothly beautiful trunk is revealed. But you have to see the cracks to see how to remove that gnarled bark. Perhaps I fear your rejection this much, because it threatens the image of us that I have constructed. But beneath that image lies a real relationship. Beneath the visions, the fantasies and constructed dreams, lies a love I am only now beginning to glimpse. God, give me the courage to face the reality of that relationship. Until I see it, I can’t possibly recognize its potential.