my careless contagion

  I'm going to start by apologizing. This post is going to be pretty scattershot. I know this because my thoughts are scattershot right now. I can barely keep things in their proper boxes, much less make sense of them. So, sorry.  A while ago I mentioned three things I wrote on a Post-It note — things I pray about daily that bother me. I won't name them all, but I do want to mention one. Let's just say there are only two things on that Post-It now.  I prayed before this week began that God would allow something very positive to happen in my life this week. And it did. Not only that, but I got to cross one of those dreadful things off my prayer list. My old apartment has been rented, so I no longer have to pay rent for two places. I wondered why God would give me the go-ahead to move into a new place and then have that hang over my head. As it was, I only paid about $150 to cover last month because my landlord used my security deposit to cover the rest. It's h...

Humble pie. I don't think I would have ever called myself humble in my previous life. This new life, however, has shown me my true value.  My ex-wife once said when we first met I was "so cocky," and you know what? She's right. I was a cocky son of a bitch. I had faced so many ridiculous challenges in my life and overcame them, beat them small; what on earth could get in my way? I had to be cocky. I grew up in a household where I didn't get any respect for any of my God-given talents or any of my hard work. I spit in the face of adversity, rampaged over obstacles, laughed at the devil, and rode hard into the night. I was unstoppable. There is pride in being young and capable and full of energy. Because of my inscrutable misadventures, I've had to jettison many things of little or no worth just to survive. My pride was one of those things. With 41 years under my belt, I've seen many changes. I've seen the world change, and I've seen myself ...

I've said it a thousand times in a thousand different ways. She has my heart. I'm pitifully in love with her. I'm broken before her. She could crush me if she wanted to.  Not only am I more in love with her than any woman I've ever known, but I'm also more attracted to her than any woman I've ever know. She blows all of my fantasy scenarios out the window. A woman like that, is she even real?  It's embarrassing how much I love her. Still. Now. At this moment. I pine for her. I crave her. My heart thumps loudly when I think of her. I feel blood flowing places I haven't felt it flow in a long time. I come alive. But she's nowhere. She's just in my head and heart.  She's touched me. In those secret places where I don't let anyone else go, she's there. I trusted her, and I let her right in. With arms open wide, I welcomed her.  The aching. Oh, the aching. It's like a sickness. I'm lovesick, I suppose. What else can it ...

How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a poem my mother would often recite to me when I was a boy. The line she would repeat was, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach when feeling out of sight." She may have been paraphrasing it because I remember it a little bit different than that. It could be that my childish mind remembered it differently, too.  I think of that first line today, only slightly different. When I think of the girl I love and the man she has had in her life for the last 22 years, I think of that line, "Let me count the ways." Let me count the ways I've been bested, one-upped, beaten, however you want to say it, by this man.  First, let me say I know what I am. I know who I am. I'm aware of myself. I'm not trying to cut myself down. I'm only being realistic.  So, let me count the ways.  The way they met. His confidence and aggres...