Monday, Aug. 16, 2004 - 3:35 a.m.
It's very late. I'm up and drowsy, but content.
A little over an hour ago my boyfriend left to drive home.
That's right. My boyfriend. It took me a while to feel right using that term. I don't know exactly why. I think it's because it makes things feel more permanent somehow. And we were just feeling things out, enjoying the moment. This is still true. I don't know what the future holds for me and Jairo, but in the meantime, I know that he's a part of my life. So I'll give him the label that defines his role easiest.
I realize now how much I pushed against my feelings for him. How hidden from me they were. I was so accustomed to being single, so certain that it was the way for me, that I'd actually temporarily lost touch with that emotional part of myself. And you can get so used to being single, so comfortable with the idea of taking care of yourself that it's terrifying to allow someone in again. To let someone want to watch out for you.
And it's still terrifying.
It scares me how much he understands me. How he remembers every little thing I've said. How similar we are in many ways.
It scared me how easily this all came to be after I let myself take a chance. How comfortable I feel in his arms and how his meer presence makes me feel good no matter what my mood was earlier.
It's been a month. It feels simultaneously longer and shorter than that. Time has flown, but at the same time, I feel so comfortable that it feels like we've been together forever.
This relationship is unlike any I've ever had.
I want to tell everyone all the details of him and how he makes me feel. I feel like a schoolgirl with a crush.
He's this total package. I've dated guys I loved mostly for their mind and their soul. I dated a guy I found incredibly attractive but found lacking in depth. Jairo is all of it.
He's quiet, but he's got depth. He's smart and ambitious. He makes me laugh. He says things and does things that are beyond sweet. And I find him irresistable.
So, I'm happy with him.
Describing him is hard though. He's a little under a year younger than me (in the sense that he just turned 25 a couple months ago and I turn 26 in a little over a month). He's still in college (an art college) majoring in visual arts, concentration graphic art (I think). He was born in Ecuador and raised there by his paternal grandmother (whom I can tell he loved a lot, and credits with his morality and affection) and father(whom he describes as hard to know), while his brother was raised by his mother and her family. But around the age of 8 he decided to come with his mother to America so that he wouldn't be seperated from his brother (who is 3 years younger than him). And I've seen few sibling relationships as close as theirs. And I think the absence of his father haunted his teenage years more than he'll admit. He speaks fluent Spanish but has no accent. (and he never speaks it in front of me without telling me what's going on because he feels that's rude)
He's honest saying that he doesn't know exactly what he wants to do when he gets out of school, but definately wants to do something in his field. He values his friendships.
He opens up to few people and is outwardly affectionate with fewer. I am one.
He has brown hair and skin and deep brown eyes. His smile is wide and genuine. He's about 5'8" or 5'9". He always has stubble (and I've never been attracted to guys with facial hair before) but it's perfectly even, except the day he shaves, then it's shadow.
He was raised Catholic and even went to Catholic school, but no longer practices. However, some of it must persist because he has a rosary hanging from his rearview mirror. He's quiet enough I have a hard time hearing him on the phone, but when he finds something funny he doubles over in laughter.
That's all I can think of right now.
So, everything else going on in my life is going to have to wait until later. Because I'm tired now and must work in the morning.
