The Guts to Follow Your Heart

My internal navigation has always been very strong... that ability to act on my gut feelings, moment by moment and most especially in the biggest, scariest moments, has never, ever failed me. In fact, it has always been my saving grace.


My biggest success story is this: My marriage and the family that it created. There are many other stories I could tell you of times that my choices shocked, confused and frightened those around me... many other stories of times that I went on a gut feeling, rode out the fears of others, never questioned what I was doing, and came out way on top, but this one... this one is really something special.

As I think about all of the dreams that I have had, this is one that was so basic, so ingrained that I sort of missed that it was a dream at all. It's not the most exciting thing by today's standards. You see, I seem to have come into this world with one dream in mind: Love.
I had impossibly high expectations. Still do. But I never thought of it as a dream... a life goal... It was more like I simply believed this to be the point of living... a given.
But a dream is what it is and it is, in a way, my greatest achievement... not just in the overall success of what I was striving for, but in my commitment to listening to my heart... to the nearly silent whispers of the universe...

Oh, it's a bit of a scandal for sure. People quite often ask to hear the story of how Jeff and I met and it is a story that we tend to dodge with answers like, "Oh, we've known each other since we were teenagers..." that satisfy the curious with their own imaginings of high school sweetheart scenarios.
Yeah, the truth is, it wasn't like that at all.

The romance lies not in the general story, but in all of the things that would have to be outlined... the things which go unsaid, the things which most would miss completely. The romance lies not just in following your heart against all odds, but in the odds overcome as well. It comes in the fierce commitment that carried us through the bumbling, the stupidity, the failures, the trespasses, the immaturity and the utter lack of knowledge of what we were doing or where we would end up. The romance lies in the deep belief in our shared dream of love.

Because in the beginning that is all that it was. A dream.
A hope.
A belief.
A strong gut feeling that was making a promise.

When Jeff and I began our life together, sharing a one room furnished apartment in North Dallas, I was 19 years old, and Jeff was 22.

We barely knew each other.

On August 8th, 1999 I moved in with Jeff. On August 8th, 1999 I ended a marriage, my marriage, that lasted exactly one month. The marriage? It was a thing that I simply had to do. A thing for which I knew the ending before it began. A thing which I knew would be looked back on as a moment. Just a moment that led to true love.

I knew that true love to be Jeff. I don't know how I knew. There certainly weren't any outward signs saying "Lookee here! This is the one!" Heh. No, all outward signs, the ones horrifying those around me, said something more to the effect of "Are you freaking mad?".

I knew I wasn't though. I knew it. With my whole being and I couldn't have told anyone how. I knew that I would make no apologies and have no regrets for this leap of faith.

Last night as I sat folding diapers on the bed, in my ponytail and mismatched pajamas, Jeff said to me, "You're so beautiful. No really, I feel like the luckiest, freaking luckiest, man alive. Did I tell you I love you today?"

"Mmm," I replied, "you did" and I didn't blush, or look up from my folding.

It's funny how quickly we can take our dreams come true for granted. You see, he did tell me something like that already that day because each and every day, for so long I can't remember when it began, he has told me. And not in a passing, habitual way either. In a way that makes it understood that he's feeling it right now, as if it he hasn't been looking at me every single day for 11 years.

"No, Aim, really, thank you for seeing something in me when there was so little to see. I know I've been an ass, I want you to know that I know, and that I see you and all the forgiveness and love that you have been to me."

I looked up here. I probably blushed too. The words are wonderful, and the truth is that they are a daily occurrence in my life. It's an amazing, honest to god fairytale. Stuff so good it's what the greatest art of our species is about. It's a dream come true, a fantasy realized, and leap that succeeded.

And it's so messy. It's so messy it is poignantly beautiful. Like all other dreams worth having, we work really hard at it. We recommit every single day. Sometimes several times a day.
After 11 years, we are still busting ass to be our best, to forgive, to forget, to understand, to communicate, to admit failure, fuck ups and unconscious habits. And it's amazing. There is nothing that has ever been so worth it. It's perfect in all of it's disasters. Like everyone else, we still hurt each other. We still forget. We still get mad and misunderstand. We still blow it like first rate idiots. The elegance, the grace, lies in what we do about all of those messy moments. The astounding, rarely seen beauty comes in that utter inability to forget what we really are... to forget that Love that we believe in.

And so, at the end of every single day, I curl around one of our sleeping babies, and we touch hands and toes in the bed and we know, without saying, what we mean... and what we mean is too big for words. It can only be felt.
It's a dream come true... a feeling followed... a gut instinct so right.

Here's to following your dreams wherever and however they take you.