CDS: email exchange

I was surprised to find this in my Inbox. I didn't expect anything from Cliff for sometime.

Thinking of you and how you are doing. Transition back for me has been rough at first, but not as rough as I expected and got better with time. A lot of grief over losses. Was a hoot, though, if you could have seen me in the storage locker rummaging through my stored clothes and toiletries, changing my pants and shoes, repacking my suitcase, wondering if anyone would think I was nuts.

I think I spent the last night I will spend in my old apartment. My wife was away when I got back. From now on I am rootless or a guest.

Seriously... How are you?

Write back. I won't be on Skype till Friday morning, your time at the earliest. How is the WH report coming? Let me know if it is too much.

Ciao,

Cliff

My response:

Dear Cliff,

It's good to hear from you. I dind't really know if you wanted to receive anything from me at this point.

I still have to start on the WH report but I'll have it for you by the end of the week or sooner. I don't think I'll have to add a lot to it, anyway, just titles.

I've been thinking of you, too. Wondering what you'll come home to, how you'll manage. But I suppose we all have to learn and re-learn many things over and over again in a lifetime. That doesn't make things easier, I know, but the point is, others have gone through things just as bad or even worse and survived. I suppose that makes it easier for me as I keep worrying about you. I do so want to make things easier for you.

After my class last Saturday, as I was standing on the platform waiting for the train, a wave of emotion suddenly washed over me. I was missing you badly. The feeling was so strong and so unexpected. I didn't know what had hit me or where it came from. I've never had that feeling before in my entire life.

That was scary.

And just this morning as I was in the shower, my mind went back to our last night together. You held my face in your hands as I sat on you. It felt so good, I remember now. You were so gentle yet I could feel the strength in your hands. I felt like my face was so small in your hands.

I felt secure with you at that moment, Cliff.

But you know what? I buried that emotion. I got so scared of the feeling and the realization that I buried it and ignored it. So when you said that that was the best lovemaking we've had so far, I said we've had better. I didn't get the point. I focused on the phsyical and ignored the emotional.

So I did exactly what you've been doing all your life. I walled in my feelings because I was scared of them. I didn't want to fall in love with you because I'm scared that you'll just leave me sometime in the future.

How did I develop this fear? I think it was because of all the moving I did with my family. You moved a lot, too. But the difference here is that I moved with my entire family and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I preferred it over developing long lasting relationships with anyone outside my family. And this got replicated in my adult life. I kept hopping from one job to the next, from one career to the next. I was without fear, I told myself smugly.

In reality, though, it was because of fear. I wouldn't commit to a job and leave because mostly, I didn't like the people I was getting to know, the job was becoming too difficult and I saw no reason to invest time and effort into it, or I just got plain bored. It was so easy for me to just up and leave and so the fear was never addressed.

I am scared of getting close to someone and getting hurt.

How do you get over it?

Just like any fear, I'm thinking, you have to face it.

I don't know what that means for me. Your situation is more complicated, I know. But I don't think that you can't face anything if you close yourself from loving other people in the fear that you might hurt them. You know this. And I know that you know this. It's a chicken-and-egg question.

Just something to think about.

Anyway.

I miss you a lot.

I wanted to say that since he knew what I knew he knew, then he was simply just waiting for someone better to come along. But I thought better of it. There's no point in putting any more pressure on the guy. Not right now.