The most important constant in my life has only been around for two years. His name is Travis, and I love him with all of my heart.
Yes, he's my significant other. Very significant.
Travis and I met at a party at Denny's in 2006. I was going through the tail end of a grieving process, helped along by my good friend anti-depressants; he was at the end of a bad friends-with-benefits scenario which had followed years of singleness after his first and only real relationship, which had ended badly. Needless to say we're both wounded people.
We soon became friends, and very soon started dating. I had just decided to move back to Canada from Maui, ticket bought and everything --- when I fell in love with him. I figured I just wouldn't say it, and then I wouldn't have to worry about getting attached, because so long as I didn't say it it wouldn't be "true" -- but I also knew that if he said it to me first, I was doomed. I couldn't not say it back. That would be the same as lying about it. And I've had that lie told to me before. It was unbearable.
So. Packing is going well, planning for the trip and all -- then one morning after a night spent cuddling on the floor of my empty living room, he says it.
Dammit.
I wanted to keep things simple. The reason I asked him out was because I felt little attraction to him, meaning I wouldn't get attached. I wanted a fling, nothing more, something with which to end my time in Maui on a good note....
...and my stupid heart had to get involved. Haven't you learned? I scream at it. Don't you know where this road leads? To destruction! I cry, trying to remind it.
Oh, it knows. It recognizes the pattern -- I fall in love and get hurt -- but it can't help itself. Neither can I.
I go to Canada for two months, work all that time on my house and adopt a dog, creating a string of attachment for me there. The two months is enjoyable in a bittersweet fashion, because I'm apart from Travis for so long...but know I'll see him again in August (unfortunately after our birthdays, because we couldn't arrange to spend them together -- we're both Leos).
I come back under pretense of going to school -- but everyone knows it's for him. I stagger through my classes that fall, and in winter Travis and I both go to Canada, so his Hawaiian butt can see snow and meet my family (aside from Mom).
Dad loves him. This is big. Dad hates all his daugthers' boyfriends as a matter of course. Well, not hates. Is very harsh on though. And he's easier on Travis than he is on me. True story.
Great. My family loves him, I love him, he loves me, we're coming up on a year and what the hell happened to not being attached? I thought I'd gotten used to the single life! Accepted it even. And now I'm in so deep with this relationship business I don't know if I can survive without him.
Health reasons force me to stay in Canada and Travis to go back. We're apart for 9 months. We talk everyday. I rack up thousands of dollars in long distance. Go through many moments of very-nearly-breaking-up just because it would be easier than staying together through long distance. Because I'm afraid of working at it. I'm so used to just walking away that I can't imagine any other solution.
But I force myself to stay. He forces me to stay. And we work through things, and are better for it.
Towards the end of the nine months I am going crazy and know that if I don't go back to him I'll go off the deep end, so I quit my job and book a flight...to certain doom.
I'm still here. I got a job here in November and got fired in January. LIfe in Maui is worse, and I can't wait to get back to Powell River. But the one constant that has kept me upright, kept me going, even when I wanted to strangle him, is Travis.
He's healed so many of my wounds. Helped me to see my own beauty (which I didn't even know I had). Helped me to love myself, to see myself as a sexual being, to allow myself to be smart. He encourages my creativity, my interests, my passions -- he tells me to go for it when everyone else says I'll never make it.
And he, too, has been healed, though that is for him to articulate. Suffice it to say that I know we heal each other, and support each other, and love each other, more than I ever thought possible.
Travis is my most important constant. He's replaced drugs, alcohol, cutting, anti-depressants. This April will be a full two years since my last suicide attempt, my last anti-depressant, my last drug use, my last cutting. (I drink socially still, but not that often.)
I hate mathematics, but I will say my favorite ratio is 1:1 -- where one is he and one is me.
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