Reverting to boyhood

On reciprocal senses of safety in a relationship

I wrote previously about what I believe a man should do in order to find and protect love, and as far as I can tell, I am living it. I am in the most wonderful relationship, with a deeply loving and romantic dynamic, and I like to think I’m delivering on the intentions that I set out.

Naturally that takes constant self-awareness, and endless work, and naturally, I am only too happy to do it. Because if you met this woman, you would understand.

She is an angel on this earth.

She is delicate in the way that you would hold a priceless artwork. She is feminine in a self-assured way that only a woman who has lived intentionally in order to know herself can be. She is gorgeous. I need say no more. She is gorgeous.

She is playful, yapping inches away from my bleary eyes and sleepy hair at 6.30am, ambushing me with a flash of beautiful green venom in her eyes complementing a cherry red smile and shriek of laughter as we play fight. She is cutely possessive in a way I am told Turkish women excel at. She is incisive with her wit and intelligence, summarising and reflecting something I have been telling her in a worldly and wise way that gives me an entirely new perspective.

We spend our days together and no one else exists. I am lost in this woman, and I don’t want to be found.

Loving and leading her is so easy. To make the reservations, to whisk her away, to (literally) lift her up and carry in the direction I am heading. Creating a safe space for us both to express our thoughts and feelings, and retaining a calm and considered manner.

I live to maintain her halo. And she loves me for it in return.

But sometimes, the masculine identity needs a place to rest. And her love lets me relax too.

We recently travelled to a satellite town to manage some delicious German bureaucracy, and were giggling all the way there. On the way back, as the impulsive morning’s energy dissipated, we shared a headphone each. And slowly, slowly I sank into her shoulder and chest, whilst the soothing songs of our joint playlist and her fingers running through my hair became the only things I could sense. She is gentle, and that is one of the things I love most about her. I feel a deep gratitude for the physical and spiritual comfort that she provides as a mirror to the stability I provide.

And I have noticed that with her, my body releases it’s tension, in a way it never has before.

This realisation is one of the most transformative that I have made.

In some ways it’s heavenly. In others it’s deeply, deeply uncomfortable. Like everything before this moment, before this Deutsche Bahn into Berlin, before the 11^th of January when we first met, was too stressful for my nervous system to even truly comprehend.

I have been living with doubt, fear, anxiety and insomnia for more years than I can count. I just thought that was the way it was, the way I was, and the way I will always be.

Yet because of her, I have developed a soft sympathy for myself, and a strange realisation of just how on-edge I have always been. Yet now, because of her, I am melting.

All the stresses of my childhood, and teenage years, and twenties, are fading. I now know that I can lead her through this life, hand-in-hand, and do my utmost to provide everything she has ever wanted.

But I now know that I can also revert to boyhood, with my hair being stroked and the scent of her perfume playing delicately in front of my closed, sleepy eyes.

She is safe with me, and I will try to show her that every single day I breathe.

But the deeper realisation, is that I am safe with her.

And the understanding that for the first time in my life I can breathe, slowly slowly until I sleep, means more to me than she will ever know.