It's like I can never catch a breath.  The only time I can really breathe is when I am with you.  The rest of the time is just so much pain in my chest, so much waiting, so much of just trying to endure until next time.  

I know we are busy, with work and family and friends and obligations. But I long to just spend another week in your arms.  Or at least know that you are thinking of me sometimes in the endless interim between our meetings.  Is that so much to ask? just a note. something that shows the tiniest effort on your part would be wonderful.  Something that shows me that you still want to make me happy.. that when you said "I would do anything for you," you meant it.  But so far all I have gotten are a few "I love you, I really really do,"'s on your way out the door.  

When I asked you for something, you asked "well, I'd rather not but fine."  And that hurts.  It hurts to know that the knowledge that I will always be there for you causes you to forget me and my happiness in pursuit of your own leisures.  The moment that you need something, however, I am the first on your list.  Because I will always be there for you.  The begging puppy at your feet, kicked out of the way until you need something fetched, or some comfort to soothe your agitated psyche.

I'm trying my best to show you that I will not be taken for granted.  But it seems that you know its all a bluff.  That there is almost nothing I wouldn't do in order to see you, to be with you, to make you happy and contented.  I hate everything that keeps us apart.  I avoid people and events.  I watch my phone to see if you will call.  I sit on my hands so I won't attempt anymore stupid attempts at showing you how much I care about you so that you might return the favor.  

You cause me so much pain, yet you have given me the greatest happiness I have ever known.  I cannot hate you, however much I may want to.  However much I should turn my back and find something more reasonable, less painful, less intense, something where I won't fall from pure happiness into misery in a day, an hour, a minute.  Something that will give me a steady stream of comfort, with short punctuated periods of pain.  Not a steady stream of pain with brief interrupted bouts of happiness.

I can't. I can't.  The mere thought of losing you is enough to bring tears and misery.  I will endure.  I will hope for a better day, and when it comes I will look back and smile knowing I am the stronger for my weakness.  I will be able to endure more in the future, and not break.

I am ok.  I am fine.  I will survive, I am strong. 

I never knew it; I never knew a week such as this could exist.  I was "terrified that I will never feel like that and float along in a river of weak tea, passionless and cold."  And now... only 2 nights of sleep in a week.  Who knew that I could find the passion and someone to match it so quickly?    

I had almost no idea.  I had some vague notion that somewhere out there was someone who had liked me, who had moved on because I couldn't think of anything else without feeling shamed.  I would not be the girl to pine after someone after I had been turned away.  Strong and free, I marched my mind from the land of hazy daydreams into Brazil with my mouth set into a stern line, never looking back at those flights of fancy.  People are just people and have the right to be happy with whomever they should choose.  I shoved any ideas I may have had at the truth into a box labeled "Doubt and Fear" and left it there to slowly rot into nothingness.

Then. I came back.  A hint of gossip here, big news I pretended to not care about, it stared me in the face.  A small envelope.  Written words on a page of college-ruled paper.  I carried the letter with me in my car, the image of it in my heart.  Who was this?  I had no idea.  The truth rattled in its box, far more alive than I had accounted for.  How would he know anything of me?  The more I thought about it, the more indignant I became.  How dare this stranger presume to love me, to try and melt my heart?  At the same time, the seed had been planted.  The phone number exchanged.  

We started over.  

I am trying to come to grips with this feeling that I am not going to have to ever worry about being a spinster.  I don't have to worry about being thirty years old and single with series of failed relationships. It is truly extraordinary.  Something just tells me this, and I try and rationalize it but it just doesn't work.  The feeling that this is going to be a good long while persists. 

I loved it when the beer commercial was talking about giving the right girl a Budweiser and you just scoffed at it and told me you would never hand me a Budweiser -- unless I had asked for it, of course.  I love how putting my shirt back on me was one of the best experiences of your life.  Right now I love most how you don't leave.  I love how we start out with good intentions 'I can't stay too long, I have work tomorrow!" and yet... Somehow it seems that we can't spend less than 12 hours together.  I love getting to know you better, I revel in the feeling of knowing one more thing about you.  An anecdote about your life when you were a kid, your favorite color, plans, everything.  With each addition of knowledge I feel closer to you, one step closer to understanding how this bolt of lightening struck. I loved walking into your work and automatically pegging you as the most attractive guy in the room and thinking "hell yes, he is mine".  I love playing with your curls, I love the way our hair looks tangled together.  There is something about your dark curls and my blonde straight hair intertwined.  I love sharing memories with you.. "Remember that time when...?" "of course, I was feeling the same way! You jerk."

There is nothing I would want to write on here about that I can mention.  

Maybe about coming home.  Thats going to be weird enough.  Its funny, everyone at home is telling me to relax, really, it's not that huge a deal but that just cements my belief even more that it is. Because they don't get it.. that it is a huge deal, just a huge a deal as leaving was.  Because now I am home and I have to go back to my other home.  I have to learn how to reconcile these two with each other. I have to remember how to hang out again.  Relearn the relations between everyone, re-experience things that I have long since forgotten.  

What I realized I miss and am looking forward to are these two things, 1. friends and 2. food. Because no matter how much I spouted about going into hiding and never seeing anyone I met before August 6th, 2010 again, I will see them.  I think that reaction was caused by the fear that no one will understand me, will want to listen or will just expect me to be the same.  But I'm not giving them as much credit as I think they are due.  They too, have experienced a year, and will have changed.  

I'm going to miss being foreign, vou ficar com muitos saudades de minha lingua bellissima de portugues.  But as long as I don't stay stopped, and keep growing and learning and changing, I think I'll be ok.  I have so many plans.  I am afraid sometimes that I have too many and thus will be disappointed in anything I do.