I miss you.

Today, just before work ended. I

got an email from you, responding to something I sent. I saw your name and I got goosebumps. And then I cried.

I cried because:

• I miss you.
• I did not intend to hurt you.
• I believe you did not intend to hurt me.
• But I hurt you.
• And you hurt me.

My reaction to that situation was very likely overblown. And was ensconced in the soft shell of what I felt: that, in our conversation the night before, I felt like you said this: “I like you. We are attracted to each other. But I don’t see you as girlfriend material.”

Was I right? Was I wrong?

This is my limbo.

I was not asking you, that Sunday, to pledge some undying fealty to me. To commit to me your entire future.

I was simply asking: What am I to you? Do you see me as a friend? Or someone you are attracted and want to be physically intimate with when you want?

Do you consider me more than a friend?

Do I matter to you?

I was asking you: Would you miss me if I were gone?

And what I heard, felt, was: No.

Was I wrong? Did I let my past cloud my present?

Was. I. Wrong?

I hope I was wrong.

I hope, for a thousand different reasons, that I was wrong.

I hope that we can talk.

I hope that you are open to listening to me.

I hope that I can HEAR YOU.

I miss you: at the end of the day, my bottom line. I miss you.

I miss:

• hanging out with you in the screened cocoon and talking about politics and life (and these days, they are the same, inasmuch as I need to know what a person’s politics are, before proceeding);
• marveling over flowers and egrets and osprey;
• laughing at weeds between bricks and the possibility of a small place to lean back and bask in a sunset;
• looking at your books and knowing you have a lot to teach me;
• the sharing of my stories and feeling I have something to teach you;
• the details of your week and the
• learning about the things that touched you since we were last together. I want to know.
• Oh, how I miss the electric touch of your mind and the slightest touch of your body. I miss
• discovering something new, together. And liking it.