Saying "I love you" for the first time in a relationship is usually a big deal, right?  Perhaps more so for women, as we are so emotionally tied to words, their meanings, their timing - we constantly look for the bigger or hidden meanings in what our partners say.  For men, they just say what they mean when they mean to say it, don't they?  It has taken me many years to turn down that "interpretation dial" and learn to ask for clarification when my ego jumps to conclusions.  The ego is a little monster sometimes.  Mine is equal parts insecurity and fantasy, which can lead to some wild interpretations.

As my mother will readily tell you, I have a big heart.  A big ol' achy breaky heart.  I recall once as a child, when my dog got hit by a car, begging god to take my life instead of hers.  I've cared for sickly orphaned kittens and rescued insects from watery deathbeds.  I once stayed with a dragonfly as it died of natural causes on the bank of a river.  It was very likely unaware that I was there, it seemed to just be holding onto anything stable for dear life, but I thought my presence was a comfort as it passed from this world. I am a lover and a fighter - I fight for love and have been known to love to fight, but that's a story for another day.

So for the first time in my life, a man beat me to the magic "I love you" moment.  That moment is one I usually take weeks (okay, who am I kidding?  days) to plan: the look on my face, how I will look him in the eye, what I will be wearing, how my hair will be, what scent to wear, etc. Well, I didn't even get to pick a scent to wear (I am firm believer that scent holds memory, so the perfect scent is ESSENTIAL to this moment) before he just let "it" go.  "It" went like this.  We had been video chatting, as we normally do a few times a week, and were winding down our conversation, talking of our plans for tomorrow and preparations for bed.  He was talking with a sideways glance at whatever he was fiddling with on his desk, a little bouncy as he sat (he's always moving), and then he looked right into my eyes, said "Well, Nichole, I love you, sleep well, and we'll talk again tomorrow, okay?"  I was both elated and awestruck.  I said nothing.  The rest of his words were drowned out by my inner dialogue, reeling with debates about "did he say that?", "I can't believe he did it so casually!", "should I say it now?", "he said it first?!".  I managed to pull it together, smugly (or so I thought) and signed off without specifically regarding his statement, as though a major mile-marker had not just been established in our relationship.  It occurred at 10:23 on 3/23/2012.

I slept the sleep of a queen that night.

I woke up and sighed the sigh of sighs.  Skype has this sound effect when you sign off - a very content yet slightly sad-to-be-going sigh:  wh-Aaaaaaaaah.  It was perfect when we signed off that night, perfect when I fell asleep, perfect when I woke up alone but loved.  I felt the same way after the first time Edy and I Skyped.  wh-Aaaaaaaah.  I still feel that way about him - very content yet slightly sad-to-be-so-far-away.  Having heard him say "well, I love you, Nichole" made me feel closer...and in control.  My bleeding heart isn't going to make such a mess this time. 

I have no idea when I am going to tell him in person that I love him too. I want to say it in his native Spanish, as I know the different effects the sounds of the words have in my English or his Spanish.  In the middle of a text session yesterday, I did stop him, caught him a little off guard, texted "sabes que/you know what?" He responded: "manda/send it" and "dime/tell me" - so I told him "te quiero tambien/I love you too".  Without missing a beat he wrote: "I know, I've taken notice, chula, and that is why you are more beautiful than ever." 

I think I may have met my match.

I used to say that I wouldn't sleep with a man unless I loved him.  This really just meant that I had to fall in love with every man after sleeping with him.  And sometimes we didn't even sleep.  Sometimes I would crawl out of the disheveled bed, slip his socks on, pull my boots on, and go home to sleep.  My boyfriend was probably wondering where I was anyway.

I was a cheater.  And a liar.  A thief of hearts and a banker for bad reputations.  Yes, they could cash them in with me, I would redeem them for full support.  I loved the bad ones for the good I knew they were.  The rest of society would not say they were good.  They were drug-dealers and doers, without college educations, with junky cars, smoke on their breath, and wide grins.  They all shared something in common, other than me - they had a secret look in their eyes that said they new something about the world that maybe I didn't.  Years with them taught me street smarts while I stayed secretly married to academia, filling up on anthropology, literature, philosophy and Spanish.  All along I've been writing an anthropology of men.

In retrospect, I have been writing my own ethnography of my maturation and relationships.  Friends, foes, fucks.  I like to play this game in my mind when I am feeling low: I imagine all the men I've really loved (not just slept with) standing in a row, looking at me.  I look each one in the face and decide who I want to go to.  If my current man is trumped by an old one, I know the search isn't over yet.

Well, with Edy in the line up now, I see his face and RUN and JUMP and WRAP myself around him.  Our smiles match - ear to ear and leaking laughter.  Of course I have not actually physically stood next to Edy in more than 4 years.  But in my mind, we are perfect.

I cried yesterday for the first time in many months.  It felt great when I stopped, so I did it again in the evening.  It felt like I squeezed my brain clean like a sponge - now I am refreshed to soak up new emotions and am being much more selective about which feelings get to stay.  Love stays, longing gets a one hour limit, lust is pretty much carte blanche, but there is another I evicted which I am having trouble naming.

I once dated a man who said he hadn't cried since he was 19.  He said that at age 36.  That is 17 years with out a good ol' ringing out of the emotional brain sponge.  At the time, I shrugged it off as part of his tough-guy act.  But as the days of our relationship carried on, I realized he was telling the truth.  Anytime I became emotionally down and out, he responded militantly.  I still recall the face of defiance he would make at me - as though it was completely irrational for me to feel sadness, grief, loss, or mourning.  "Nope, no way, not here, not ever."  Looking back now, he was an internal mess.  Off-kilter in every way: incapable of making decisions, reneging any forward motion, speaking untruths, making unfair and unfounded judgements at every turn.

I cried for him in October.  I cried again in December.  And now again I cry in March.  Each time for men.

This time I cry because I am happy, absolutely brimming over with joy and contentment.  I am loved and I know it.  I have found an amazing man and he feels the same about me exactly.  Our relationship is full of longing and adventure.  He is 2000 miles away in Mexico but we have surpassed the usual roadblocks by the use of technology.  Technology is our friend.  A toast to technology at our wedding!  Oh, well, I suppose I should see him in person again before I start writing my toast speech.  I digress...I cried because I felt like the nightmares of my previous relationships are dying.  Bad memories, emotional scars, times I hated my choices but felt trapped in them, they all are fading. I cried at their funeral.  And then cried at the birth of a new beginning.  Then I cried for fear I was making it all up: that I would go down there and it would just be a week of regular dates with a regular guy who happens to speak Spanish.  That it would not be my dream come true: a latin lover, a man with tattoos and a motorcycle, a man with an advanced degree, a man who plays music, a man who owns a house and new car, a man who thinks I am the greatest gal in the world.

I cried just a little bit more after that because I realized it is true; my dreams are coming true.

I am completing a Master's degree in Anthropology - my specialty is West Mexican archaeology and museums.  Edy lives in West Mexico where he is finishing his law degree.  My work is in in Guadalajara; he is in Hermosillo where he owns property and a new VW Jetta .  He's already applied to transfer to Guadalajara because it is a better school - he was, of course, accepted.  Edy used to play bass in a punk rock band.  I played in gypsy punk band.  I have studied Spanish since Middle School and after traveling to Spain, I realized my soul speaks Spanish.  Edy lived in France but wants to go back to live in Spain.  His arms are covered in tasteful tattoos: peacocks, sparrows, stars, cards, and pin-up girls (I love pin-ups).  We both own Specialized mountain bikes and love riding bikes at night.  He hates Mariachi music; who doesn't?  He wants to name his children after his mother, Victoria, who is named after her father, Victor.  Nichole means "victory of the people." He has never been married and doesn't have children, student loans, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol, or herpes.  What is he, the last decent man on Earth?  And he's gorgeous?  With an accent?  Boo-hoo-hoo I am SO LUCKY.

So lucky, so scared, so happy, so nervous, so so so...alive. BeHereNow, NowBeHere.  Don't screw this up, Nichole.