Thank you, my Muse

Your recent inspiration came at a most welcome time.  I will never be able to express my gratitude for your confidence and support.

Stay tuned...

Happy Birthday, Muse.

O Muse,

I have vowed to stay out of your life because I cannot give you what you so richly deserve, although deep down inside I hope that, somehow, somewhay you will get it.

Today I am taking abrief exception to my self-imposed exile to congratulate you on achieving 40 years of a complete, fulfilled, meaningful life which I hope will continue for as long as you wish it to.

Now if you will indulge me, I will share with you (and I guess anyone else who happens to come along this page) a few things that I like about you, in no particular order:

1. Your enthusiasm for life
2. Your honesty
3. Your self-confidence
4. Your eyes
5. Your intellect.
6. Your intelligence
7. The fact that you recognize that intellect and intelligence should be two items.
8. Your love for your family
9. Your smile
10. Your sense of humor
11. Your risk-taking ability
12. Your loyalty
13. Your circle of friends and family
14. Your voice
15. Your lips :-)
16. Your curves
17. The nape of your neck
18. Your breasts
19. Your face
20. Your willingness to experiment
21. Your ability to bring out the best in me
22. Your acceptance of others
23. Your laugh
24. Your goals
25. Your lists
26. Your willingness to learn every day
27. Your knowledge of wine
28. Your knowledge of sex
29. Your memory (or is that my memory of you?)
30. Your fingers
31. Your kids (well done!)
32. The way you say "Yay!" and write "Grrr!"
33. Your anger (I think it's cute)
34. Your empathy for others
35. Your choice of career
36. Your willingness to forgive a fool like me
37. Your e-mails and messages (I will save them forever)
38. Your soft skin
39. My image of your frustration when you realize that this list stopped at 39....

I will love you forever.

Tu Rey

Are you thinking of me, O Muse?

...because you have been invading my dreams.

Birthday wishes

Happy Birthday, my amazing muse,

I am suspending my existing exile to wish you a felicitous and truly enjoyable birthday, birthweek, birthmonth.

Love,
Tu Rey de siempre

Promises made

I would like to recount a conversation which took place a couple of months ago.  This took place after my Muse and I had a rendezvous at an unnamed national capital, where we enjoyed each other's company in more ways than one.  We had decided that this would be a one and only meeting to fulfill what we felt for each other, but given our current circumstances we would each go back to our respective lives.  Naturally, as my Muse is such an honest and straightforward person, her husband found out that something took place.  In the interest of full disclosure, here is the message I received the week after that weekend, the names and places have been changed to protect the innocent:

I would like for you to provide me with a detailed description of what occurred this weekend between [Muse] and yourself from the moment I dropped her off at the airport in [big city] on Friday until the moment I picked her up in [big city] on Sunday. How honest you are and how descriptive you are will help me determine if I share any of my knowledge with your wife and how that may impact your children. I want to know all details such as where you went, what you did, what things you offered her, what type of physical and sexual contact you had, and where you ended the weekend with what the future holds for the two of you. I need to hear from you. [Muse] has said from day 1 you have always wanted to talk to me about your relationship so here is your chance to be a man. 

Naturally, I was taken aback by such a threat.  Although I have to admit that I wasn't as scared as I imagined I would be in this situation; part of me thought, "Good, let's get it over with and bring out the truth.  Then I can live the rest of my life with my Muse."  Of course the responsible father in me vetoed that thought and I responded thus:

First of all I would like you to know that I do not appreciate being threatened. 

Secondly, I don't know what you expect to accomplish by my answering your questions and providing details. If you are asking them you must have your suspicions or have been told what took place. If there is anything specific that you would like to know, please ask. But asking for "all details" doesn't accomplish much.

[My Muse] holds a very special place in my heart. I hate to see her suffer like she has recently and want to help her as much as I can. What we had between us in the last six months (or the last 13 years) is unexplainable and perhaps unfair that it has remained unfulfilled.

I can tell you this much, however, if you truly love [my Muse], which I am convinced that you do, you will not mention any of this to my family. The only thing keeping me from asking [my Muse] to come away with me is the commitment and loyalty to my wife and kids. If that bond were to be broken there would be no reason for me to stay away. You know that I have had some problems with my wife and that it will not take much to end my marriage.

I do want to apologize to you for any hurt that I may have caused. [My Muse] is an amazing woman and deserves to be given the world. You have in your power the ability to do that-she is the most honest person I know (to a fault, perhaps) and all you have to do is listen and give her what she asks for.

As for how things ended, we both decided that there will be no contact between us after this past weekend. I told her that she should work on her relationship with you just as she has told me to work on mine. You have my word that I will not try to contact [my Muse] as long as she is OK and we both remain married. I have asked her to call me if she needs support or help, but all that is up to you.

Finally, I told [My Muse] that if we were meant to be together fate would intervene. It now appears that you hold her fate in your fingertips. Funny how things work... 

Sadly, in an act of pure weakness, I left a message for her on Tuesday.  Of course, I knew that she wasn't there and I would leave a voicemail.  Still, I feel like I have gone back on my word.  I am fine with answering her calls, because she wouldn't call unless she needed me - but when I take the initiative it means that I'm going back on my word and, worse, maintaining a relationship with her in which I cannot give her what she needs.  Am I stringing her along for selfish reasons?  As you can see from previous posts, I can't get her out of my mind, my dreams, my thoughts, my fantasies.  I know she's hurting, too.  I know exactly what she needs, but right now the price seems too high...

O Fates, whither dost thou send me?

You make me smile

I just thought you'd like to know that you make me smile every time I see a picture of you.

Thanks.

Morning coffee

Here I am in my office, enjoying my morning java and trying to corral my thoughts in to a cohesive, comprehensive post.  It's been a whirlwind week with my travels, coming home, being severely missed by my younger son who won't let me out of his sight.  My wife and other son also missed me, I'm sure, but they are in their own world and too busy with their problems to really share of themselves.

And though I enjoy it and welcome it (after all it's nice to be missed), my thoughts continuously go to her.  It's interesting; it isn't quite as intense as it was a couple of months ago.  I'm not sure I could take it if it was.  It is now more of a memory, a nice memory, of a time to which I would like to return.  Whenever I have a moment to myself; like when I am looking at my reflection in the bathroom, I smile to myself and think of my muse.

Sometimes I scare myself and wonder if it was just a nice dream.  Whether I imagined it all.  Of course, if I had imagined it I would have certainly given it a much happier ending.  I constantly remember her looking at me at the airport and mouthing out the words "silly boy."  That memory breaks my heart and will be with me always...

I am a silly boy and I made my choice.  But I'm still not sure that I made the right one- and that kills me.  How many people are given the chance to see what their life would have been like if they had taken the other path?  What if Clarence had shown George Bailey what life would have been like if he didn't choose to stay in Bedford Falls and found out that he would have met a beautiful brunette during a build in Chicago and they traveled the world enjoying life and making love in Venice, Paris, Bombay and Sydney?  That would have made for a very different story.

In a way I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to see what my other life would have been like.  On the other hand, I think it's kind of cruel for the fates to hold my muse up in front of me and say, "here she is, the love of your life, everything you ever wanted.  And the only thing you have to do is give up your children's happiness."  What a choice, what a world.

It isn't that I'm not satisfied with my life.  It's pretty decent as far as lives go.  I have a wife who puts up with my crap and who is appreciative of me being there, children who still laugh at my jokes and with who I can share my knowledge, a scrappy little dog that seems to love me despite everything and a job that lets me do a lot of the things I like.  I think that if I had not met my muse I may have been happy in my ignorance - and yet - I would have always wondered if there was more.  I know that I've always had the potential for more.

Is it the sex?  No, not really.  Yes, my muse is an extremely sexual being, just like me, who likes to play and enjoy all the pleasures of the body.  That's one thing that ties us together.  But there was more over the past few months that we shared outside of sex or sexual conversations.  There are so many topics which we discussed and never really fully covered.  I want to finish our conversations on politics, religion, history, baseball.  I want to hear more of her thoughts on current events, on music, on why John Mayer should be considered a musician (j/k).  I want her to beat me at Scrabble, eventually.  I want to play strip Monopoly with her...Ok, that's back to the sex part, but one can never really get away from it, right?

I love her body, her soul, her spirit, her energy and I really admire her ability to make the best of it as I've seen her do on Facebook these past few weeks.

Funny.  I thought that putting these thoughts together would help me to feel better about my decision.  It turns out that typing this is actually making me feel like crap.  My heart is breaking all over again.  I miss her...