My Love

I know that I don't usually talk about anything personal in my blog and this is going to be as impersonal as possible. Today I would like to talk about the man I love. You see, he's on my brain a lot. It's going to be akward not referring to him by his name, but please bear with me.

When I first started writing 'Dragon's Moon' when I was 17 years old, the Van character (then named Brock) was hugely based off of this man that I love. I wanted to write a character that had brown eyes in order to pay homage to my new love, because I had never written a hero that had brown eyes before. It wasn't only that, but before I wrote Brock, my writing had been largely based on my reading rather than on actual experience. His influence is strong in 'Dragon's Moon' because Van is at least 65% the man that I love and only about 35% the Van from Escaflowne, which will quickly explain why he's sensible and romantic instead of 100% trigger happy.

You see, he was my first boyfriend who lasted more than two months. I liked him so much that I was positive we'd date for at least three months - at least until the end of the summer. That may make me seem fickle, but I had a lot of boyfriends that didn't last longer than a week - no fooling.

One of the hints I had that we were going to last forever was my eating habits. It seems ridiculous in hind-sight, but I always used to eat like a bird in front of my dates. In actuality, I was a growing teenager who had a stomach as large as an ocean. I probably could have eaten most boys under the table (since we didn't drink), but I never let my dates see that side of me. Well, when I started dating this guy, I had already known him for a couple years. Just after we got together we were sitting at a massive youth conference where they were serving sloppy joes (really messy sloppy joes) and I was holding this sandwich wondering what I was going to do. He was happily wolfing his down and I was almost on the verge of a panic attack. Finally, I decided that I couldn't spend my whole life counting calories in front of him as a pretense (especially since I had never seen the need to do so before) and I bit into that sandwich. It was delicious and I had sauce dribbling down my chin. Might as well go for the gusto, right? It might not seem like much, but it was an incredibly freeing moment. I remembered going on dates with boys that lasted from 4 p.m. to 2 p.m. and almost dying of hunger. Trust me - this was important.

Another pivital thing happened that summer (the one we were supposed to break up after). I sprained my ankle. I was out with my cousins and I fell down the stairs at a fast food restaurant. It's a miracle I didn't crack my head open as well. When they brought me home, my mom piggy-backed me into the house. I couldn't walk at all. But I had this problem - you see my brother and his wife were coming to stay with my family for a family reunion and they were going to stay in my room. My room was a mess and now I couldn't clean it because I couldn't move at all. I happened to be on the phone with my boyfriend and I told him what was wrong. You will never believe what he did, girls. He came over to my house and helped me clean my room. I am not the kind of whiny female who would be happy to put my feet up and let him do the work. I was horrified at the idea of him handling my laundry and putting my makeup away. Allowing him to do this for me was like allowing him into my world. Also, not only did he do this wonderful thing for me, but he carried me and lifted me more than his fair share - he was an angel.

The next story is more serious from my point of view. I had to get my wisdom teeth out before I turned 18 or else my mother's insurance wouldn't cover the costs, so I had to go when my wisdom teeth hadn't quite dropped down as far as they should have. So, I asked to be knocked out for the procedure since they were going to have to dig for them. It seemed like the sensible choice at the time and my boyfriend had been nominated as the man to take me to the dentist's that day. No one else was available. When I woke up afterwards, I was a HUGE MESS! I had no idea that the anesthesia was so powerful. I had a killer headache, my mouth hurt, and I basically had no idea where I was, but they were going to discharge me anyway. They wheeled me out to his car and he drove to the pharmacy to get my painkillers, and then out of the city to the town where I lived. He put my head on his knee and he didn't bump me once - his car was a standard. Then he held my head all afternoon while I bled into a bowl. I had never been so frightened, because I had never taken a drug or been in a situation where I was unconscious before - he was so reassuring.

But, all this stuff was years ago. Really, a really long time ago. Today he brought me hot chocolate in bed with both whipping cream and marshmellows in it. Sweet, eh?

He's probably the most patient person I have ever met. If I practiced forever, I don't know if I could be as patient as he is naturally. He's also got an unbelievably cool head. He doesn't fly off the handle over nothing. Actually, it takes a lot to piss him off or to get him excited. Yet, even with this quality, he's remarkably fast when something needs to be fixed. I think they must love him at work because he gets stuff done without being tempramental. And talk about a problem solver! I could sit here and talk about how talented, kind, intelligent and wonderful he is, but that wouldn't touch on how good looking he is, so I'll move onto that.

The first time I went to the movies with this boy, we sat down beside some girls that were close to our age. Partway through the movie, I got this feeling that someone was watching me. I turned to the girl who was sitting beside me, but she wasn't looking at me. She was looking over my head at the guy next to me. She would rather watch my date than the movie! I looked at her, and she sort of pursed her lips and looked the other way, but that didn't stop her from looking like she had her tongue hanging out of her head. No, seriously - this man is extremely lovely (since there are hardly any good words in the English language to describe beautiful men).

I know this has been one long 'gushy girl' moment, but I can't help being in love with him. And wanting to tell everyone about it. Thanks for listening.