an anniversary admission.

i wrote 'june' for the first time today, and it has me reminiscing about how i was feeling one whole year ago. something tells me the next few days will bring back lots of emotions and memories, leaving me full with nostalgia.

in the months before getting married, i used to find myself waking up in the dead of the night, panicked and sweaty, breathing hard and full of guilt, tears welling in my eyes with such confusion inside of me, that it was too much to stay asleep, my body would force me to wake up. and i would sit there, coax my mind into being as awake as my heart, and figure out what it was that tore me from my dream and pulled me back into the safety of my double bed. sparks and moments and flashes of my dream would unravel in my head, and i would get so mad at myself for allowing my subconscious to go to a place so terrible, too hard to fathom when awake, the only choice left was to go there in my sleep. i would dream about being unfaithful to the man beautifully sleeping beside me.

he never had a face, but he always had the same hands, he always had the same mouth, and he never spoke to me, never gave me good reason to do what i was doing, he was just there to tempt me, to seduce me, to succeed, and he would. night after night, he was there to snatch me away from my happy little life, have his way with me, body and mind, and then discard me right where he found me--

back into my personal space. our personal space.

i started having these dreams nightmares so frequently, that i dreaded those last moments when you feel yourself drift into sleep. i would silently beg for a dreamless night, and force myself to think of the happy weeks ahead, and the happier years beyond that. but before i knew it, there i was, awake and violated, processing my unfaithful thoughts and punishing myself for letting it happen again. at first i chalked it up to being stressed beyond capacity. unable to fall back asleep, i would get up and write lists. lists of things to be done, things to buy and things to do in preparation for our wedding day. it was like i was making up for all the wrong i had been doing in my sleep, mere moments before. paul would catch me awake, see the stress on my face and the worry in my eyes, and tell me everything would be ok, promising me we would get everything done and not to worry myself at outrageous times in the night. if he only knew the real reason why i couldn't be fast asleep in his arms. if he only knew what i had been so wrongly doing behind his back. and mine. 

this carried on until a week before we married. the constant tug and pull of being so happy to finally get to marry the most wonderful man, so flooded with the strongest, newest, emotions i was yet to feel, i finally gave into my nightly routine, and taught myself to deal with its abrupt awakenings. days would be so filled with things to do, that i didn't have time to tend to my nighttime busyness. it wasn't until days before "the day", while writing my speech to paul, that i came full circle. so simple and full of sense, i don't know why it took so long to understand what was happening to me night after night.

i had been preparing myself for the chance he might leave me.

in the first year of our relationship, i would ask him (more often than i should ) if he was going to leave me. he was too good to be true, he was too good for me and my young once broken heart, and he was too perfect to be with someone like me. in times of disagreement or during arguments (which were few and far between) i would find myself the 'poor me' and accuse him of considering leaving me. he would tell me not to feel that way, and asked me not to say "things like that". the last time i said it, he told me how unattractive i was when i let my insecurities get the best of me, and my confidence was what he was so attracted to in the first place. i never wanted him to find me unattractive again. i always wanted him to look at me in the same light i looked at him. my best light. 

from then on, i never let myself go to that place of vulnerability. i was the confident, positive, strong girl inside of me, that he loved and wanted me to be. until of course those last few months before we made big promises to each other. the emotions of everything going on around me, caused those feelings to come flooding back full force, like a final preparation that the life i planned and hoped for with him, could slip right through my fingers at any moment. it had never fully left me, it was just hibernating in the far reaches of my head and in the cracks and crevasses of my heart. i dreamt of doing something so wrong, and so unfair, that in real life he would have had no choice but to leave me. i would have forced him into it, pressuring him into something i had formed in my mind, not his.

the night i finished my speech, i crawled into bed and right into paul's heart. 100% of me, every part of me, and i slept perfectly dreamless. and in the nights leading up to our first anniversary, i look back on the nights leading up to our wedding day, and i see myself differently. 

i finally see myself the way my husband sees me.

*paul is fully aware that this happened.

when asked how he felt about it all, he replied, and i quote:

"it doesn't bother me any. 

for all we know, i could be dreaming about sleeping with lots of different people every night.

all i can tell you, is that i wake up with a boner every morning.

it can't always be you."