We just spent the most glorious fifteen days together!

Waiting for him to arrive on that day, the day he was to come and stay with me, was different. After I came home from work I bustled around the house and thoughts went back in time and wondered how it could or would have been. I often think how excited I would have been waiting for him to come home from work! As I tinkered around doing last minute things waiting for him the excitement grew and I watched out the door every couple of minutes to see if his truck was pulling in the lot yet!
Oh! When it did I felt like that young twenty one year old waiting here for him to come over every night. Yes it was the same house he had spent so much time with me as young adults. My parents, my sister and brother and my baby, he spent many nights here with all of us watching TV and just "hanging out." We should have known then it was love but we were young and did not understand, or maybe both of us were just too shy to say anything.
Looking back now, how I wished I had told him how much I cared about him, how important he was to me, and how much I liked being with him. Shy and insecure I was afraid he would laugh at me and leave me alone, funny how we drifted apart anyway!
Just drifted apart! Never an argument, never a fight and we rarely ever disagreed on anything.
As I think back now, maybe, neither one of us was ready for that all encompassing love. We needed to experience life before we could ever realize what we have now and understand what we had then is not for the faint of heart. It is so intense it fills the heart and soul up to the point of almost being painful.
How, when we were young could we have ever understood that? Only now after the heartaches, and the pains suffered could we get it! Get it! that what we have is so very special!
A love so deep it reaches to the core of my being. A love that has transcended time and distance! A love which has endured the tests of time apart and picked up right were we left off so many years ago!
We just spent the most glorious fifteen days together! He stayed with me because of the commitments I have at work and home. I need to get packing while still working full time. It was difficult leaving for work every day while he was here but, it was so much better knowing he was here when I came home after a long day. Sure we still talked, and text during the day, seems like we never run out of things to say to each other.
During those fifteen days we learned we could live together! I know he was bored while I worked. I know he wished he was at his house! What a sacrifice he made to be here and how I appreciate that! We are so alike in the feeling we both like to be home, so I know how difficult it was for him.
I also am so grateful I did not have to wait three weeks to spend time with him.
We did simple things like any old married couple would do, eat dinner, watch TV at night and fall asleep on the couch. Some nights I would doze off and when I woke up I would catch him looking at me!
Looking at me like he could not believe it was me napping on his leg while we were 'watching' TV. What a joy for me to see the love in his eyes as he watched me sleep. Pure, simply, undying love flowed out of his eyes. I would turn and he would just smile at me, knowing I had caught him looking at me, again!
I have never felt so loved and secure in the knowledge he would forever hold and cherish my heart and not break it. Just as I will with his! I will cherish his heart until the end of time!
I will be forever thankful for the love and time we have now, however long that may be! I have him, HIM, back in my life and I realize how very special a man he is!  Still, every time I think to myself, it is him, my eyes fill up and I cry, tears of overwhelming emotion run down my face for the love I have, and the joy of being able to spend the rest of my life with him. Each and every day, morning and night I thank God for the gift I have been given, the privilege of him loving me!
Of course we went out to dinner a couple of times and it felt a little odd going out together, we did not go out while we were seeing each other so many years ago. We were always just happy being together! It never mattered what we did at all, only that we did it together. Dummy us we did not realize that was love. It was not the lustful love of the movies, it was not a fleeting feeling where once we were away it was forgotten. It was and still is a deep heart and soul kind of love.
This was wonderful and I despised the idea he had to leave. He had commitments at home and needed to be there. I counted the days when I was to drive up there.
Five! Five long days apart!
Five days before I could touch his face! Sit next to him! See him!
How would I make it? After waiting thirty five years could I survive five days?
I was not sure if my heart could take it again, this separation, of our lives.

The meeting of a lifetime

And the story continues:

I waited the full twenty-four hours to call, hard as that was. I could not wait to hear his voice. I wanted to call all day and was so afraid to call early, not wanting to push things. It was to be, in fact only the second time I would talk to him in thirty-five years. I was cautious! Oh so cautious! I was afraid! Excited!
We laughed and talked, talked and laughed for hours. Mostly small talk.  Through some of the conversation we did filled each other in on our lives while we had been apart.
We both had heartache and happiness. We shared it all, no secrets between us, never had been.  While we talked we tried to figure out what had happen all those years ago. Neither of us had a clue. We looked back and  both remembered with fondness at how close we were.
While we were on the phone through the conversations we both admitted we would never get married again, neither wanting any type of relationship for fear of being hurt again. I was afraid of making a mistake again and had closed off any and all feelings which enabled me to create any relationship.  I did not want to get hurt again and if I did not get involved I could not get hurt.
I was moving forward!
Amazingly after the second phone call I realized I still loved this man, I had loved him since I was eighteen years old. I remembered the night I fell in love with him, I remembered the exact minute he captured my heart and has held it all these years. No, I did not tell him this fact, it was not the time. That was for a later date, maybe, unsure of how he felt.
Did he want to continue our friendship or was he just being nice to me. This is his personality, he never wanted to hurt someones feelings. Was he being like this to me, being nice as not to hurt my feelings? I was afraid. In actuality it took another two calls before I began to think there was a chance for us. Two long calls later where I finally started to realize he did care for me too. Could it be possible he wanted to talk to me as much as I wanted to talk to him. Did he wait to call me with the same anticipation in which I waited for him to call?
Every time the phone rang and it had the town on it I would be thrilled. My heart filled up and then it did not matter anymore it was only us in the world. Was this love? Is this what love felt like?
Then he spilled the beans and said " I think we were in love back then and were to dumb to realize it"
I was dumbfounded! Was it really possible he cared for me as much as I cared for him?
One day early in the morning I decided to text him. Since we had shared cell phone numbers I threw caution to the wind and text him. I am still not sure what made me text him, but I sure wish we had had texting so many years ago.
We 'said' more in those texts than we did on the phone. There was not the fear of hearing the tone of the voice and the ability to be honest and open was much easier.
It was then I decided to go visit him and see if the sparks were still there.  Still very cautious I only told one person at work, the one person who would be rooting for me. I did tell my sister I was going there and she was thrilled. She told me of all the people I had dated in the past he was her favorite.
I needed to go see if we still had it and it was not just the romantic hopes of a young twenty-one year old.
Did we have the spark?   I made my plans and told him I was going to visit. The sound of his voice I was not sure if he was happy or afraid. I did not know if I was excited or afraid. I only knew I had to take this totally uncharacteristic chance of a lifetime.
Could we possibly go back or better yet would we be able to continue on this journey through life together? Would we be able to move forward into the future this time?
I started with going from Tuesday to Thursday, I needed to know I was only going to be there for a few days. What if it was awful? What if we actually had nothing to say to each other? What would happen if I was not the same person he remembered.
We had told each other, or tried to tell each other how we had changed. We both had aged and lacking confidence we both were afraid the other would not like how we looked now. I knew in my heart looks did not matter, it was the connection, was it still there?
 The longer we talked the more we laughed and shared our dreams I knew in my heart that I needed to stay longer. I decided to go up on Monday instead and had to hold myself back from going on Sunday. I knew he was spending time with his son on Monday and did not want to go there yet. He said I could go with him but I was not ready for that yet. I needed to know about us. This was our time to figure it all out, our time to either reconnect or put closure to the past.
We shared how excited we were, how cautious we felt. We spent hours on the phone nightly, so long some nights it killed the battery in my phone.
Finally the day before I was ready to leave and while packing I texted him and told him not to play with my feelings. If he was just being the nice guy and not wanting to say no, not to make me drive up there. His answer was 'no he was not playing.' It was at that minute I realized he was as nervous as I was.
The day was here! I got ready to leave!
Not knowing where I was going I wanted to leave plenty of time to get there. Who was I kidding I wanted to get there. The ride was long and I did a lot of thinking and soul searching, just as I had since I knew he was in fact alive. I tried to understand the pull of him. The reason I HAD to go there.  Who drives five and half hours on a whim.
What or who was the force which drove me to something so out of the normal for me.  I did not like to stay anywhere away from home specially some one's house I have not seen or talked to for thirty some years. I did not know what to expect. The barrage of emotions I felt on the way there was overwhelming at times, and I would catch myself start to cry. My mind wandered at times looking back over the years and everyone I had been involved with. Each of them had some of the characteristics this man had.  The tears just poured down my face and I felt like my heart was going to burst. I was OK while I was not thinking about who I was going to visit, but as soon as I remembered it was him, it was almost too much for me to feel.
After the long drive up then down the mountains I arrived.
He was not there and I was glad. I knew the timing would be close since he had been out for the afternoon.  I was happy I got there before he did. Gave me time to unkink myself from the car and take in the area. I was in awe, I had in fact driven there on blind faith. The amount of emotions I felt was from fear to elation.
I could hardly wait for him to get there. Did we have a chance? Could we move forward?
I waited on the porch and it was only about ten minutes. Felt like hours. Felt like seconds.
Then I heard it! The truck pulling into the driveway, slowly up the stones. Seemed like it took hours but in reality only seconds. I stood up and he got out of the truck.
Not even taking the time to close the truck door we met halfway between the porch and the truck.
I grabbed his face and he hugged me. We melted and it was if all the years disappeared.
I knew at that very minute, in that second which he grabbed me and hugged me like he had so many years ago, I was finally home.
I had found the love I had been looking for all my life.
I knew in that minute we would never be separated again. We would  be on this leg of the journey together, forever. I knew then why I had driven there on faith and an inner feeling of safety.  After what seemed like forever we moved.  He closed the truck door and we went inside.
Sure we had changed, we had aged, but at that second in eternity we were those two young people who had loved each other so many years ago.
Beyond belief the love was still there! I know I was comforted beyond belief! I was so very happy.
My heart and soul finally had their home. I, at that minute knew, he was who I had been searching for my entire adult life. A little sad, we had had it and allowed it to slip away.
I secretly thanked God for the gift of us.
Incredibly grateful for this third chance at this incredible amount of love I felt. For the first time in my life I felt full. My heart felt complete. The emotion made me want to cry.
Even as I write this now a little over a month since that first reconnection I cry thinking how incredible lucky I am to have my best friend from so long ago back.
The only person I felt comfortable and safe enough to tell my darkest secrets to and have him still love me. The only person in this world I wanted to share my life with unconditionally forever. Then miracle upon miracles he felt the same way.
I watched him look at me with such love it made my heart warm. In those first few hours we learned so much about each other and how intense the feelings were.  We talked and laughed the days away. There were plenty of times I reached over and touched his hand to physically know he was there. Looking over at him I could not believe how lucky I was, how very blessed, to be in the same room after all those years. I can honestly say I was and am the happiest I have ever been in my life.  The idea that he could possibly, maybe be just as happy is indescribable.
How can I ever thank God enough for this incredible gift?  If there ever was a miracle it occurred right there on that driveway, way up in the mountains.  I felt as if I was on top of the world. There was no way I was letting this slip out of my life again.  Would third time be the charm?  Could we let down the walls around our emotions slip down and say what we needed to, to be able to allow our hearts and souls feel what they were telling us?
While there I knew this was not the last time for us, it was the beginning of an entire new life, not just for me but for both of us. Putting the past to rest and finally being able to spend the rest of my life with my best friend, with my soul mate and the person I had loved for more than half my life.
Every night I thank God for the gift he has given to me, the gift of this man!