-I don't know, possibly me 

NOTE: This entry was created on 3/17/01 from a letter written to Heather.
Response 2021.06.28
I am not in a position to just be Kate's friend. I alternately feel like her ex-boyfriend (you do not know how much I hate that word!) who is still engulfed with divinely pleasant memories of her and her best friend who just happens to be very much in love with her. So long as I remember that I want to be the latter, she seems very pleased to be around me.
Today, when I saw her, she was giddy and glowing that I was with her, because I was acting like I was her loving best friend. Well, rather, I was being myself, when I am not insecure or worried. Logically, since she loves me it works best to be me.
I wish I had been able to see her for longer. I wish that she were not worried that she would lose resolve and fall into my arms (that is one of the big things she worries about when I am around. Talking to me is one thing, but when I am around in physical form, she is so happy and in love.)
One of the reasons I write here is I know I am not going to lie or deceive (not that I am likely to lie to anyone in general, but rather, I just know how to make word to my bidding when I do not wish people to know my whole truth) so I am curious as to what I am going to say. My writing is like a biological function. I'm not much sure what is happening, it just happens, and then I go back and realize I have said something beautiful or important. It's like psychology! Just repeat back to me what I've said to you and I'll go "Wow! How true! That's great advice." But I'm not enough (obviously).
Anyway, I am aware of my ulterior motives, namely winning the heart and lips of Miss Katherine. Frankly, I'm not sure how ulterior they can be if I know them and expect she does as well. But I would still like to treat her as a dear friend because that is the only relationship she can deal with right now. I would be a fool to ruin what I do have with her because it is not currently what I want.
I just need a tattoo on my arm which reads "You are her closest friend and darling companion, Paco, don't fuck it up." So I am not being all that selfless. But I am trying to be what she needs me to be in her life, and yes, this is so eventually I can be her romantic partner again. But it is also because she really is my best friend in the world, that is why I was able to be with her for so long (and dare to conceive of being with her even longer in the future), and deserves the best of me.
I think she can respect how I can feel (loving her, wanting to be with her) so long as I do not press her with it. Last night, I pressed quite a bit, because I had forgotten the role I possessed. This caused her pain, which caused me pain (must have a linked nervous system...). Today I think I managed to patch thing up nicely, especially when I gave her my treasured angel pendant so that she wouldn't have to miss me greatly, because she would have a piece of me and she would also have any of the protection that the angel bestowed upon me (this was a tender, but friendly, gesture).
I especially enjoyed this gesture because I fluidly linked the chain behind her neck and she hugged me. At first she tried to refuse the pendant, because she desperately wants me never to take it off (it is a physical manifestation of her love for me and how much she thinks of me, her words) and knows how much I love it. I told her that I wanted it to serve me by serving her. Then she accepted it. She told me that I could miss the angel rather than her. I told her I should miss and look forward to the return of both.
Later when I called Katie because I had slipped a library discard called Cat Country (Kate loves cats, you see) by Lao Shu (Kate loves Asian literature, you see) between her storm door and outside door and wanted to make sure she picked it up.
Okay... maybe I just wanted to talk to her once more before she left. She was happy to hear from me. Before getting off the phone I said "Katie, take care of the angel. Angel, take care of Katie." She said, "I will," then clicked the pendant against the phone and made a little voice (for the little angel) and said, "I will." Okay, maybe I am just made from very soft silly putty.
Now, I can feel like I am protecting her and loving her when she is well out of my reach.
Hopefully, I can deal for two weeks without any contact with her. I had a relapse and remembered the last time we made love, which nearly made me cry for wanting. So I started to writing until the feeling passed. I may be writing quite a bit for the next two weeks. After I left her house today, I drove away and began wailing. I did not cry when I was with her, because I knew she could not take it and I did not want to taint the precious few minutes I would have with her before she went away for so long. I know this is a pathetic thing to say, but two weeks has never seemed so long to me before. I do not know how I shall keep busy or how I shall keep these emotions in check. I worry about alienating and annoying those around me because I have been having trouble with the Kate issue since the break up (different issues. The loving her so much I cry is new, though some may find it hard to differentiate that from lamenting the loss of the relationship).
So I wailed alone in my car. I have been actually having a hard time crying about all of this. I know the crying will release pressure and I will be able to function, but I want to cry with someone. That's probably sociopathic, but crying is intimate to me (that's definitely sociopathic). The wailing allowed me to go from quietly crying to being a functional human being (which was good as I had to work after seeing Kate). Crying releases quite a few endorphins, which make you feel a lot better (thus why children cry when they get physically hurt, endorphins deaden physical pain so humans can be useful even when wounded).
So, she is let go. At least for two weeks, hopefully I can let her go (and visit her in the wild) for as long as she needs though.
Once I had a hamster. It escaped from its cage one night and we were worried we would never find it (the room was quite messy). So we left the cage door open and put the cage on the floor. When we woke up, the hamster was inside, happily drinking from its water bottle. The moral of this story: Hamsters need water. And I am evidently fond of hamsters {happily humming the hamsterdance song}. But the hamster never would have come back if we kept searching for it, that made it hide more. Perhaps a bad and inaccurate analogy, but it's a cute one for the moment.