i love you.

i want to make this work. i want you to be happy. i want you to feel loved. i want you to trust me. i want our relationship to be more smooth than rocky.

sometimes i feel our bond to each other is so fragile, at others i feel like it is carved into our firmament, as much a part of our lives as oxygen, something so strong and grounded that i marvel when the earth shakes beneath me.

i crave the stability of older times when, cross-legged, you and i had no intention but each other. i want to take care of our love. i want to feed it and keep it warm. i do not want to lose your gaze or have you sit and strum my telephone, like a magic wand you might rub enough times to make you forget the moments up to your hideaway. i do not want to be in each other's space more than we're in *our* space. i do not want to lose you to a void of our stubbornness that makes us believe that if we just hold our own ground we'll magically end up together.

sometimes, i sit, i stand, i walk, i sleep, i imagine you--and we are everything our potential begs us to become. and others, i feel destined to step on your toes, to clumsily slow dance out of tune until we grow tired of bruising our feet.

i am so ready for you. and i feel so unprepared for *us* sometimes--our strength, our challenges, our hope, the promise of the beauty that life has in store for us because i believe we are really good together and what seems to me to be our uncanny ability to make molehills into mountains--to step all over each other, when, for the most part, we're trying to get to the same place.

you have allowed me to be myself in a way that no one ever has. i feel accepted as much for my faults as for my strengths and it is with deep gratitude that i tell you this. it is a gift you've given me of immeasurable importance. you let me struggle and give me a safe space to claim the full spectrum of my feelings, even when i feel unsure or restless or afraid. i value you so much. i believe you have everything it takes to make me happy for a long, long time. i hope that you feel the same way about me. i hope you see how deeply and completely i love you and cherish you.

i am committed to making this work and to making it less work than fun, more laughter than tears, more sweet nothings and warm fuzzies than shouts and stomachs tied up in knots.

i love you, gina. i want you. i'm sure.

December 4, 2001