Mirrors

I'm overwhelmed with how I'm feeling today.  I would never admit this to you, but today is the day I've completely fallen in love with you.

Our relationship is, out of necessity, fabricated from text messages.  Feeling like I'm believing in a work of fiction with a life of its own has become my reality. While you and I make a concerted effort to transcend the monotony of texts, it also has its benefits.  I can relive the moment you told me you love me whenever I want.

I was standing in Kerstie's living room.  She was in the bathroom doing her hair, and Aralynn and I were taking picture after picture, with me inspecting every outtake with the criticism that only someone in a long-distance relationship understands.  I got your text and a shock ran through my body.  I simultaneously felt ecstatic and nervous.  I immediately said, "OMGAralynnCodytoldmehelovedme!"  Her immediate response - "WHAT?! Let me see." We analyzed if you meant it, if it was THE "I love you," or if you were just fishing to see how I would react.  It took us two seconds to determine that you meant it, but took me hours to determine how to respond to you.

I tried to respond in a way that didn't involve the words "I love you, too!," but that also showed that I was in full support of where this conversation was going.  I told myself that it was too soon - can people really fall in love when they've only known each other 13 days? We'd spent 5 nights together before you'd gone off to Oceanside, and since you left me on March 17th, signing "I <3 You" from your truck, we'd been texting each other constantly - I was "your girl" and you were "my man."

Until now, my caution and disbelief in fantastic love stories prevented me from embracing that maybe I was beginning one, but you and I both know how seriously I took those words.  Not seeing you again before you left for Okinawa was not an option, not with this change in events. I am unwaveringly proud of my spontaneity.  By 8pm March 23rd, I was in my car driving to Oceanside to hear you say those words in person. I needed to affirm that this whirlwind love story was worth waiting for.

I can't wait to write that story - hearing you tell me you loved me for the first time, watching your lips shape the words and taking in the way your eyes grew softer as you looked at me.  The shape of your impulsive smile and barely repressed joy at our one day to be in love in person.

But this story is about today - the day that I unequivocally gave into being in love with you.

I started my morning with you on my FaceTime - it'd literally been exactly two weeks since I'd heard your voice, much less seen your face (ok, 5 hours shy of exactly two weeks).  You're such a dork....I'd been telling you to FaceTime me for days now.  It uses the WiFi and is a totally free way to video call me.  I'd been craving you voice, your smile, your laugh.  I told you, "Go to my contact." "Ok, going," you said.  "Now push FaceTime." "It's that easy? LOL," and next thing I knew, your FaceTime request was coming up on my screen.

OMG! I flipped on my overhead light, instantly flipping it off in favor of more flattering soft light from my beside lamp.  I frantically pawed at my bedhead - seriously?! I never get bedhead, and of all mornings for a wild curl on the side of my head...I looked around anxiously, making sure nothing stupid was laying around, and then I practiced a few head tilts in my screen before accepting your call.

Oh, your face!  Moving. In real time.  The littlest things - the way you look at me, the way your mouth moves before you speak, how unaffected you are by how YOU might look to me.  I was instantly overwhelmed.  We had the dorkiest conversation, talking mostly about nothing except that we couldn't believe we were actually looking at each other.  You said you'd do this all the time now that you knew it was so easy, and I told you that I would love even 30 seconds with your face everyday.  You were the first one to calm down and seriously say, looking at me as intimately as you could over 8,899 miles and a sketchy WiFi connection, I love you.  I had the presence of mind to screenshot your face, so I could relive how you look when you say those words to me.  Your face transforms - it's soft, warm, happy, and gentle.  Anyone who could see how you look when you tell me you love me would know that you mean it.  After two weeks of perfecting the art of daydreaming and reliving memories, I needed this more than I realized. 

We spoke about North Korea.  I don't want to relive this part, but I will tell you how I felt.  As you spoke in a careful way about how likely it is that you will be involved in some capacity with the pending North Korean war, I removed myself from the situation in a way that I've never done before.  You hear people talk about how they mentally check out of uncomfortable situations, how they throw up impermeable defensive walls against things they don't want to let in.  In that moment, my impassiveness and lack of fear at you telling me that you may be involved in "combat" with bombs crept up on me.  I didn't even want to give this reality form.  You knew I was scared - you told me: "Babe, I'm really good, no one is going to hurt me."  I couldn't help but respond, "It's not the people I'm afraid of, it's the bombs."  You laughed and said, "Yeah, I don't like bombs either.  NO BUENO!" And then you were laughing, "Being blown up is no fun...no bueno..."

I sat quietly, totally unsure and completely scared, knowing it's irrational to fear losing you when at present we're staring at each other through iPhone screens.  I mean, you're pretty safe, right? What are the chances of you actually dying from a North Korea bomb?  Besides, I committed to being strong for you - and to me, this intrinsically, necessarily, and permanently includes never giving form to a reality where you could die.  You face that fear bravely and honestly every single day.  I'm in your life to give definition, color, and reality to the other side - the side where you come home to a life after facing that fear everyday.   

You tell me that you are excited for combat, that "being in a time of peace is boring."  I'm lagging seconds behind the conversation, struggling to even make sense of what you're telling me.  You go on, "I'd be excited if we go to war, because I'd get to do what I'm trained to do.  Being at peace is awful - you have to do so much boring stuff."  You elaborate on the boring stuff, but my mind is in no place to remember the technical things you said.  I can't help it - I tell you, "Do you have any idea how what you're saying sounds? That you hope we go to war because peace is boring?"  You consider how it sounds and then start laughing.  Yup, you sound like a war maniac.  You rephrase - "I just mean that I'm excited to actually put to use all my training and defend my country like I've always wanted to."  I tell you, "Say THAT from now on," but my brain is still struggling to understand what the fuck you could possibly be thinking.

Is this really happening? Am I really living this life?  A life where I'm having 6:00am FaceTime conversations with my boyfriend of 30 days, who is living in Japan 15 hours into my future, where we discuss bombs, combat deployment, and death?  And are you really laughing about this?  What am I supposed to do, and how do I respond to this? 

It's in this moment that my two worlds collide. This sounds completely melodramatic, but this actually is pretty melodramatic, and I'm not really sorry about it.

I'm an idealistic young girl (should they be any other way?), wishing I was a hippie with long blonde hair and stovepipe pants. I dream of flowers and peace signs and growing up to be the president.  I'm 9 years old, and I remember laying on the couch and watching some political speech that I didn't understand.  I have this very vivid daydream that actually makes me cry - I imagine when I'm the (first woman) President of the United States, and I'm faced with a situation where any other person would declare war.  I address the camera, and with a serious resolve, say "I will NOT go to war.  We will make peace work."

I'm in high school, debating International Relations feminism with a depth that would put to shame college Women's Studies grads. I'm passionate about this in a way that I've never been passionate about anything, and it literally shapes the person I became.  I'm 17, at Wal-Mart, sporting a homemade t-shirt that says "War is Mass Murder."  This is right during the height of the Iraqi war, and everyone is sensitive to the first round of troops being deployed. I don't give a shit about being politically correct, because I'm so ardently insistent that war is never the best solution.  I'm surrounded my Wal-Mart employees and the police are called, and I'm so firmly rooted in my beliefs that I'm arguing even with the cops about how state-sanctioned murder is not going to solve the conflict.  I know I was insensitive, but I embraced it as a healthy part of grassroots change.

I'm in college, and I'm an Anthropology major.  I internalize cultural relativism in a deep way, and by now, my worldview is rigidly immobile.  I see the world a particularly fundamental way, I see geopolitical boundaries as cartoon actors on top of this world, and I see government military installations as re-entrenching dichotomous sociopolitical structures.  The military is fundamentally unnatural.

This is who I am.  You don't know this part of me.  You asked me last night, "Would you ever join the military?" I carefully told you that I had never considered the military as a career, and that literally, travelling with the circus and eating fire would be higher on my list of potential careers.  I (diplomatically) say that I would consider it if I knew I could use my anthropology degree and influence cultural diplomacy.  You seem to love this answer, and you tell me that I'm perfect.  I'm not sure what answer you were looking for.  It's because of instances like this (and a slew of others) that I'm not sure how you REALLY feel about the military.  So who is the boy on FaceTime telling me that he times of peace are boring?

Most of the time, I feel like you're my mirror.  You reflect truth, you reflect a reminder to believe in myself, and you reflect strength.  I don't even understand the level of trust that I have with you.  I feel like I have so much to learn about you, but what I do know resonates with me on an intimate level.

Last night, you tell me -

I love the way you speak to me - majestic.  Who uses that word? You make me feel so beautiful.

Today, as I reel from the duplicity of this new wartime Cody and my sweet Cody who uses words like majestic, I'm intensely reflective on what brings us together. I can't fathom why you think I'm so interesting.  I also don't understand this new side of you, and I don't know how to reconcile it with the Cody I know.  I don't know if I have to. I'm overwhelmed with the irony of the situation, with my lack of understanding.  My education works in the background, and I try to make sense of the culture clash.  Through the confusion, though, I find myself absolutely enchanted by you.  I'm overwhelmed with it.  I don't believe you're so different from me that I would be enchanted by your exoticness.  I know that I'm not attracted to you as a Marine - again, I've never known this Cody.  I am just absolutely fascinated by you, and I text you and ask you to remind me to explain this to you when you wake up.

"I reminding you!" is what you tell me around 2pm this afternoon. The important part of my answer:

It hits me - you ARE so complex.  I've never felt so in awe of a person before.  You are so intricate and special, and I don't feel like I've even begun to understand. You tell me that the above text is "intense," and I ask you, nervously, "In a bad way?"  You tell me "In a good way."   This moment.  I don't know why, but this moment is when I am completely, deeply in love with you.  I didn't know this until I thought it, but up until now, my love for you has been a growing potential. It's been intense and sincere, but it hasn't even approached this level.  I am completely overwhelmed by you - that's all I can think about.

This story is still in progress.  In that moment, I texted you and asked if you remembered when I was leaving CA, and told you over the phone that I loved you, but it was only as much as someone could love another person that they'd known for two weeks?  You replied, "yes dear I remember."  I wrote you back "Snaps, babe..." and proceeded to tell you in so many words the above.  You've been busy (as you put it, "When you don't hear from me, just know that your man is busy!"), and haven't replied yet.  I hope I don't negatively overwhelm you...so far, I haven't.

So, here we are, separated by many circumstances, and sharing complex worldviews that don't even have the capability of intermingling, and we're getting more serious by the day.  I've passionately believed in living my reality as your girlfriend, clinging to the idea that if I don't actively create this reality, it will fade away.  But I'm starting to see that this love story has a life of its own, and that I don't need to force it quite so much.  I believe in our future in a way that I couldn't two weeks ago, and trusting in that is bringing me peace.  I look forward to exploring what makes you you.  You may feel an awful lot like my mirror, and we may share some reflective surfaces, but our opacity is what makes this relationship so good.  I can't wait to get to know you.