Reaching the Sun for You

So after years, she’s an older woman. Not by much, but still, there it is.

And I had forgotten what that was like. I had forgotten what it was like to listen to the same songs. Not just the same kind of music, but the same songs, many from when we both were teenagers. It used to be that whenever I started to see a new woman, with her would come new music, new songs, often stuff I had never heard of before. A lot of it — particularly when the women were much younger — I didn’t really like, but sometimes, good stuff too. I cannot ever now hear a Skunk Anansie song without remembering Elle in ’96. But unfortunately, I also cannot hear a Britney Spears number without remembering ES from more recent times.

I love being with her. Every single moment. From the quickly grabbed coffee in the garden to the stolen moments in bed. I care for her in a way that I’d forgotten was possible for me to do. And I dare not tell her for fear of spooking her like a deer in the dawn. I don’t know if she feels the same, and I wonder sometimes if she doesn’t dare tell me either. I’d forgotten how delicious uncertainty can be.

I had also forgotten what it is like to be unsettled by a woman, to have my boat rocked in a way that a younger woman cannot do. It is scary at times, and disconcerting, but also very exciting, like swimming out beyond the reef. It forces me to work at things, but also to let other things go in a way that the control freak in me never allowed me to do with younger women.

For the first time in a long time, I realize that I’m with a woman who does not necessarily need me in her world. And that’s a relief.