The Christmas tree is the heart of the season, and when I was a child it filled me with reason, to hope and to play those holiday games; sledding down hills and chasing toy trains… But at night I would creep with my family asleep, out to the tree and I’d wish on that star… And I never knew, that my wish would come true, but I knew when I met your son outside that bar… And then I met you and I couldn’t have known, the way that you’d change me with the love that you’ve shown, and I give you this symbol of the gifts that you’ve given, with it’s sweet Christmas spirit and it’s packages hidden by the wrappings you love, that bright coded vestige, But let me explain this Christmas themed message.
Red is for love… Blue means forever… Green and Gold for our times spent together, With a star overhead to show us the way, and to always remind you come each Christmas day, of the lives that you’ve changed with gifts that are tasteful, the time that you give which has never been wasteful, the presents you share while remaining so graceful… May this Christmas gift serve to show you I’m grateful, for all that you’ve done and all that you do… And may all of your wishes wished upon it come true.
Five years ago tonight, just after midnight, in the early morning hours of October 22, 2011, I met Aaron Sanko and my life was changed forever. I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t feel the world change all at once. I didn’t have any idea of what I was in for. I just saw this guy give me a look while we were outside of a bar. But later that night, on October 22, 2011 we had what we later decided was our first date. Euchre at my place in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with my friends Charles and Ilyssa (Mente Infetti)…and then later a visit by Aaron’s friend Jesse. Aaron and I flirted all night, and when he and his friend left, Charles turned to me and said: “So…was that a date?”
At the time, my life was crumbling around me. I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. I wasn’t even looking for a lover or a one night stand. Really, I was just looking for a way to survive. Even if I had been searching, most people would have taken one look at my life and then run the other way! But Aaron (thankfully) didn’t do that. He stayed. He helped. He inspired. I’m sure some of you reading this will understand because Aaron does this for many people. He’s truly amazing. His knowledge and experience are used to better the lives of countless others. In the beginning, it was unclear if that’s all that this was.
On the 4th day I wrote him a poem: “Four Days Enchanted”. 🙂 October 2011.
Not long after meeting Aaron he told me he was moving to New York City within a year. I told myself that this was perfect, because although I cared about him it took all the romantic pressure off of us. We couldn’t be anything too serious because Aaron was moving in less than a year and I certainly wasn’t moving to New York City! I guess you can probably see how that turned out…
Taken in the subway in Manhattan, October 2, 2012.
Even when I moved to Manhattan with Aaron in September 2012, I wasn’t in love with him. Or if I was, I didn’t know it yet. I mean, I definitely cared about him very deeply and I was excited to be with him and part of me wanted to go with him so he wouldn’t be alone, despite the city seeming too big for me to handle. My formerly crumbling life was more secure now but I’d been wounded. And even though I was afraid, I couldn’t help falling for this amazing man who stumbled into my life because he needed to take a call from his mother when he was at the bar! I remember the night I told him I was falling for him so clearly, and how much that scared me. I knew then that he loved me and we were a team of sorts, but I was terrified of being hurt again and I was honest about this terror. That’s a staple of ours. Honesty in the face of emotional fear. It’s something I’m very proud of. It’s great, really. Unspoken feelings have destroyed several of my previous relationships and I’m sure many people can relate, and appreciate how rare our level of communication can be. It’s not perfect, but it’s as close as I’ve ever gotten to that ideal in my life.
October 2013.
So that was in 2012. In 2013 we moved into a condo. I was working at Starbucks. Aaron was working. We were good, I think. We didn’t have a lot of time. But we were good. It all seems good in retrospect. Though, I suppose a failing of mine was that it took me a long, long time to adjust to living in such a different culture. I’m not someone who dreamed of the bright lights of Broadway. I mean, actually, I did have some actual recurring dreams in 2006 about meeting a friend in Manhattan, but it wasn’t something that I ever planned or prepared for – and moving here, as wonderful as it’s been, was quite a shock. I’m still getting used to all kinds of things but I’ve learned a lot too and I’m so glad that I came to live here.
October 22, 2014.
In September 2014 I had a breakdown. It wasn’t caused by Aaron. I’m sort of surprised that it didn’t happen sooner. People that know me or follow me on Facebook are usually aware that while I look healthy I’m actually very sick. MY stomach is partially paralyzed and because of this I’m ill on a daily basis. On one of my good days, most people would call into work. I’m usually pretty good about it. I mean, I have to be. The alternative is pretty dire and generally I just kind of wing it, but this becomes problematic when there are 3 or more days when I can’t keep much of anything down. At that point I stop caring. I’m just too exhausted to do much of anything and I definitely can’t think very clearly – which is understandable. And one day, in September 2014, my condition just finally broke me. I stopped eating. I contacted relatives to let them know what was happening. I was very calm. It was very hard for Aaron but he made sure I was cared for and seen by the right people. I eventually recovered most of what I’d lost but it meant leaving my job. I’ve been on a waiting list for disability ever since. I have lawyers that fight for me and a team of doctors that they interact with, but I’ve basically been in limbo for two years and it has not been easy at all. This has caused significant strain on my relationship with Aaron despite his understanding and support of the path that I’m on. I’m sure it would hurt anyone’s relationship to some degree; it’s very stressful. But I’m not going to dwell on that; it’s just that leaving it out felt dishonest. So there you go.
October 22, 2015.
I do want to point out that in these two years, Aaron has been nothing but supportive…which is maybe part of the problem. He has supported me and I have let him. I thought I was being brave by accepting help when it made me feel weak, but looking back, I think it was just easier than facing a lot of my other, more long term fears. My fears were legitimate; I couldn’t have survived them then. I think I can now. I’m trying now at least and I’m proud of myself for that effort. But I also may be too late. And if that’s the case, well, that’s something that I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.
February 2016.
Tonight is 5 years since the night that I first remember meeting Aaron. He’s told me that we met in passing once before that, but I have no memory of it and so this is the night that I look back and think about all that has happened since I met this love of my life. And though we aren’t in the very best place in our relationship, we’re far from the worst place that I’ve been in others, and that’s a good thing. We still love. We still care. We don’t argue beyond a moment here or there. We definitely don’t fight. We still cuddle and talk and have sex. We go to therapy. We struggle to make our lives and ourselves better. We strive for improvement. Maybe we will improve enough that I can look back again on our sixth anniversary. It’s so hard to say right now. I don’t know. He doesn’t know. But, in the end, nobody ever really knows, do they?
February 2016.
There’s a musical titled “The Last Five Years”; Aaron introduced me to it not long after we met. I’ve never seen the show or the movie, but we would listen to music from it in the car. I like it a lot, but it’s sad. I don’t want to look back on our last 5 years and be sad. I want to be okay and I want to look back on our last 5 years and smile. I want the last 5 years to teach us where to go next and what we can achieve together, and what we can accomplish on our own as well.
The pained expression as he wrapped his arms around his head, as if to hide from the words he knew he must say; the risk he must take.
The tears that fell from his beautiful eyes as he confessed that the heart of us had been lost.
The strength that I had never possessed in the past, unfamiliar as it surged to the fore…
Was it possible that I had built a temple out of my shattered childhood only to have him ripped away from me?
The way we barely breathed as we collapsed in random bursts of suffering, exquisite, aching pain of love gone wrong, gone sour, gone ignored too long and now barely recognizable.
We lay together that night, together, yet cleaved in two.
Yet we never degraded, never cursed, never accused, never, never, never completely surrendered to shame or fear.
This hardship, this torment was honest and brave, and long overdue; I know that now and I thank him even as I yearn for my other half.
For 10 days and 11 nights I have fought for the mere hope, the slightest chance that a lost romance might be resurrected.
I don’t want to be crushed by the loss of him or bereft of his touch.
I fight for my own survival with lessons that may save me, yet beyond myself I yearn for the forgotten look in his eyes, the curve of his lips, the taste of his joy, satisfaction, surprise and that virginal lust for passions met in kind.
I want to give him what in ignorance I have so long denied him, he that I treasure most, he that I cherish above all others.
His need, his confession, his longing has inspired a sea change within me.
And if he might only look there in my culpable remorseful eyes, perhaps he will find what it is that he can no longer find on his own.
With every glance I seek to say:
I am here. And I love you. And I am in love with you. And I curse the day that I ever made you feel you weren’t worthy of my best.
I will extend myself to the best of my ability, beyond what I have done for any other love, any other lover, any other man, woman, parent or friend.
This I swear with a glad heart.
For you have made me a better man, and a greater man than you would be an impossible quest that I would never dream of or wish to accept.
Find me Aaron. Find me.
I am waiting in the dark to lead us into the light.
He touches himself and as I watch, I understand that he’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and more.
He’s so innocently sexy. He’s always new. He’s still surprising me as our discourse… as our intercourse evolves.
He’s let me in at last and I no longer have to watch from the window or listen at the door.
He knows now that I revel in his pleasure, that I long to see it repeatedly, never stopping, always loving this journey to his gratification exhibition, be it from across the room, or deep down inside of me.
I can devour him now with a glance, with a look, with my mouth drinking deep, knowing he is satified and will return satisfaction if that’s what I’m craving.
I watch now. I have an open invitation. I am a solicited guest.
And now that I’ve been welcomed, I never want this performance to end.
For nearly four years I’ve shared my bed with my boyfriend / partner / lover: Aaron L. Sanko.
We don’t always go to bed at the same time, yet there are almost always a few hours of crossover, usually in the early morning hours.
In that blissful time when sunlight begins to penetrate our darkened sanctuary, and the alarm insists that it is time we disengage from our nightly maneuvers, we refuse to be separated… sometimes to our peril; we find ourselves caught in what Aaron first christened:
The Trap
This entrapment occurs as we drift in and out of slumber, desperately enmeshed in one another, when the world tries to call us away, and we realize we want only to be together this way: naked, entwined, united, protected and completed.
“It took me hours to get out of The Trap this morning.”
But while “the trap” is a nice little wink and a nod, an in-joke, a reference between lovers… which certainly describes those moments that we cherish… I find it amusingly ironic that this seemingly sinister state we find ourselves in is truly an honest contradiction…
For it’s when I find myself entrapped by Aaron’s loving arms that I feel we are the most free.
The rain on the leaves and the wet sidewalk were like one of my favorite paintings.
The fragmented message coming through was a surprise and a new opportunity – new experiences and new destinations – all that I wanted this day to be about, only brought to perfection by sharing it with you.
Your voice was distracted… maybe the slightest bit annoyed.
Maybe that’s not quite right, but there was something going on beneath the surface.
Maybe you dreaded hearing from me now. Maybe you didn’t want to have this conversation. Or maybe you were just distracted by your students. I don’t know.
The show I’d read about was at 7:30; you thought I couldn’t be there in time but I was only 6 blocks away.
You thought I wouldn’t want to go, so why the offer? I find so much of it confusing.
You said the ticket was mine until 6pm, but at 6:02 (when I finally got through) you were taking someone else instead.
Should I ask you to ask them to relinquish their ticket. The ticket that was mine…except that it never was.
You ask if I should ask them to relinquish the ticket.
Relinquish is a verb that means to voluntarily cease to keep or claim; to give up.
So the ticket was given but not to me; it was not mine to keep or claim despite the promise of 6pm.
And now I would have to beg someone to relinquish what should never have been theirs so that what never was mine could fulfill the promise of last night’s imaginings.
Standing there, in the rain, cold and wet in that beautiful painting I wept when you said you’d call me back.
I wasn’t sure where I should go. Maybe there was still a chance? Coffee shop on the corner. Hot food and cold peppermint. And the return call letting me know that you couldn’t reach her.
She was on her way with the ticket that I’d been promised on a rare day when I wasn’t vomiting too much and had travelled through tunnels to reach the famous Central Park.
Did I want to meet her? You asked me. No. I didn’t want to meet the woman who would sit with you 6 blocks from where I sat in the coffee shop. No. That would hurt too much. I didn’t want to cry in this crowded little beverage store.
I walked back to the park. I called friends but almost nobody answered. I spoke to my mother… trying to get back in the painting but I’d been locked out.
I left voicemails and texts but there was nobody there to console me.
I took the train home. I walked to work and got my money. I smiled and I tried to get back in the painting but it was so far away that it was all but faded now.
I came home. I found some amount of solace here. I found peace in Facebook posts that I wouldn’t tag you in. But when I went to text you that I loved you and that I hoped you’d had a good time I read the rest of the texts you’d sent me on the train home… and then I was angry and hurt again.
I don’t have a ticket to give you. I can’t even offer it to the bitch you went with because she had every right to go; far more right than me. Because she had a ticket, you see.
I’m angry. I’m hurting. I’m angry that I’m hurting and hurting because I’m angry.
The lie of 6pm hurts me. And the thought (before the truth) that my being there so close to the opera house meant something; that light hearted faith hurt me too.
I don’t have a ticket. But I have something more valuable. I have forgiveness.
Forgiveness for the lie of 6pm can be yours if you tell me you’ll never again put me in a position to beg for someone else to voluntarily cease to keep something you offered me first.
I need forgiveness too. Forgiveness from you for being so caught off guard again that I refused to answer.
I should have demanded that fucking ticket, as you’ll likely tell me.
Forgiveness for myself for allowing my belief to hurt me. I can do that. I’m in a strange painting of my life after all.
I’m self aware on a level I’ve never been before. And I can forgive myself for thinking there was something waiting for me at the opera house door.
The painting of my life is wild and vivid and it clashes with the world around me, and it illuminates my every flaw and finds them beautiful.
Tell me you love me I say to you and the reflection before me. Tell me you respect me. And tell me there will be no more broken 6pm promises.
Tell me that and I will relinquish whatever you like.
