wispfox

I know, it was yesterday in your time zone, but I wish you a delightful birthday anyway.

Yes, I did just cut this to not drown my friends' list in schmoop. And now I wonder how many will click through anyway, either because I post rarely now, or because they are just as fond of schmoop as I am. :)

I am so glad that I pinged you after we met, even if I was horribly shy and awkward in that email (and apparently very charming). And even if I did only know at that point that I wanted to spend more time with you. (that certainly happened!) And I'm amazingly glad that you showed interest in a sufficiently obvious way, albeit entirely unintentionally and in a way that totally embarrassed you, such that I noticed _you_ in return. And that there was time enough after noticing you to spend time in your general vicinity and get enough of a sense of you to know that I did want to spend more time getting to know you. (and also? I have toes!)

I'm glad that your getting to know someone interactions are the same for friends as for potential lovers, and that you were patient with me and my difficulty with getting to know people without enough time spent in person with them. I'm glad that you were courting me, even if it did take me months to realize that was what you were doing (yeah, ok, I'm slow sometimes. ;). I blame never having been courted before for that slow realization!

I'm glad that you were brave enough to tell me that you were in love with me, months before I was able to say the same in return (even if I did have a pretty good sense that it would happen once there was time enough spent in person. And even if you did have a hard time with me telling you that). I'm glad that I went elsewhere in the middle of that first visit, so that I had enough space and distance to _realize_ that I had fallen in love with you. (poor

starandrea probably heard _way_ too much about someone that she knew nothing about, while I was visiting her!)

I'm glad that I decided that you are worth the difficulty of the distance, and that I got involved with you fully expecting that not to change. And I'm glad that I was able to adjust to the possibility that it could change (even if not in your city, it does seem likely that I'll be in your country). And that I've been able to adjust to the fact that, while _possible_, it is not certain and may not happen that I can live _with you_ in your city, but do still want to live in your city. Sucks, yes. Difficult, yes. But... there is too much good, too much joy, too much rightness, to _not_ do my damndest to figure out how to handle it, as necessary. _Especially_ when I remind myself that I went into this not expecting the distance to change.

I'm glad that you accepted and agreed with my request to keep me informed of things in your head, and that I would keep you informed of the things in mine, as they became noticed and as pertinent to each of us and our relationship. This has been immensely valuable to me, in terms of working through stupid things in my head, as well as figuring out practical aspects of relationships after having spent a year or so trying to figure out myself and what I wanted from relationships in a theoretical sense. And it's helped immensely to be able to ignore my 'oh, my god you're talking about this one thing _AGAIN_' in relation to such things as my seasonal affective disorder's effects on my brain. And it's helped me be more ok with poking at you when things you were saying or doing seemed to not be in tune with my sense of you. I'm glad you're being much more aware of your need for time to yourself.

I'm glad that your instinctive behaviors with people you love mesh so well with my own, at least when we are both reasonably good for interpersonal energy. And that being with you finally gave me confirmation of my belief - previously unfounded - that the way I thought relationships should work and interact and be was _possible_. I realize that thanking you for this will confuse you, but thank you anyway. It will probably never fail to cause me to be amazed and awed.

I'm glad that we have such a strong foundation in conversing about things that I've been much more able to talk about things on the phone (! Previous me would not have believed this!) and in person than I ever used to be. I'm glad generally and specifically, because of the havoc wrecked by my tendinitis (finally improving!), and because of the more recent difficulties we managed to work through.

I'm charmed how much you like cheekiness, and suspect that had a significant effect on reducing how much non-survival-related self-censoring I do. I _know_ that being with you has helped me be much more capable of being involved in both discussion and disagreement (largely in silly, lighthearted ways, which made the learning not scary).

In short, I'm glad to have met you. I'm glad I know you. I'm glad we're together, and I'm glad that I fell in love with you.

Happy birthday, sweetheart. (shame that the nurse didn't cooperate with you being born on Friday the 13th, though!)

Much, much love and sappiness.