Life Within the Gilded Cage

The heart that mirrors my soul

She called. Here it is 11 p.m. Christmas Eve, and here I am, all alone, reading in my bed, and the phone rings. It is Janet. Amazing how just the sound of her voice lights up my spirit brighter than the Xmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Janet can drive me to the depths of despair, and also send me soaring like an 747 through clouds. She has me on this emotional roller coaster that is love.

In a way it reminds me of the ups and downs I experienced with my first high school romance 20 years ago. Sometimes such love feels like a madness. I am totally obsessed by the one I love.

Which makes me wonder -- why? Why Janet? I've known and cared about her for 3 years. Over that time we went from being partners at work to best friends, and now to lovers. Why the sudden obsession suddenly? What's changed? Is it because she suddenly got laid off by the assholes at AARP and we don't see each other daiy? Is it because now that I don't see her everyday I've realized how much she means to me? Or is the insecurity of not knowing if I might lose her -- that her husband or a new job might take her far from me?

All my life I've said I would never marry. People change and you never really know what they'll be like 10 years from now. They could me a minister now, and a drug addict later. So I've always feared making a committment I might regret in the future.

So what is so different about Janet? Why did I freak out last Monday and tell her I needed to know if she would ever divorce her husband and move it with me? I practically asked her to marry me. I even admitted to my mom that if Janet were single I would walk away from New Hope, and gladly snatch her up in an instant. That kind of shocked and saddened my poor mom. She wants nothing more than to see me go back to being her son, and happily married to a woman.

Why Janet? Why now? Will these feelings be this strong 10 years from now, 10 months, 10 days?

Why has this woman been able to get so deeply inside me? Why have I completely and utterly opened my heart to her and handed it to her on a silver platter? What's so special about Janet?

Everything.

I love everything about her, from her nose to her toes (both of which I have kissed on occasion). Starting with her face, her eyes, those lips. And what about that tush? The sight of it makes me feel like any straight man. Her entire body is perfect -- small breasts, almost flat-chested, strong shoulders and muscular legs, smooth flawless skin, and that baby soft belly.

But these feelings go way beyond skin deep. As I've told Janet I wouldn't care if she were 200 pounds. What truly makes me crazy about the woman is what is going on inside of her. She is deeply emotional. Her capacity to give seems endless. She feels love and gives love unlike any other person I have ever met. Like me, she seems built for love.

She is extremely sensitive -- to her own feelings and others. I can be talking, telling her one of my wild stories, and the tears will start streaming down her face. Likewise, she can tell me of her own feelings, and I cannot help but feel identical pain. It's almost as if we share one heart.

She is an artist by trade, and has an artist's spirit. She is the master of many things, from nutrition to gardening. She loves to write poetry, is good at it, and reads more than I do. Her poems are not only lyrical, they are quite poigniant. She expresses her feelings openly and honestly.

Janet is the most generous and thoughtful person I know. If she bakes an apple pie, I am sure to get a slice. Many mornings at work I would find her offerings sitting on my desk. A pear. A plate of saran wrapped cookies. A bottle of herbs meant to improve my memory. A CD of music she'd burned. A book. She shares everything. That's probably the thing I admire about her most -- she is a sensitive, giving spirit, that never worries about protecting her own heart. She is out there, all the time, giving of herself, oft times hurting just the way I hurt -- but she is courageous and her spirit never wavers.

God, I love her dearly.