Today is one of those days that, although things have gone massively wrong, I have felt in control of the whole time. However, let us begin with the fact that two days in a row, Mike has called me. That is enough to make me smile all day long. And it has! He called just to hear my voice and tell me he loved me, and so I talked to him about ten minutes or so before I had to go. It was so nice to hear his voice and hear the laughter and happiness in it when he talked to me. Sometimes when he calls, he sounds so tired and it's a struggle to get him to talk, and then there are times, like last night, where two hours literally flew by. He had to take his truck in to repair the window seal and they gave him a Cavalier, but he likes it because it has power everything and air conditioning. (Even if it is a little cool there right now) But we got off the phone and I couldn't help but be in a good mood all day.

I had to go and take a drug test today, and it was a bit of a trial, I tell you! What is it about people, that they are just so stupid? It took me a little bit to find the damned place in the first place, as the road I was supposed to turn on wasn't really the name of the road, but I did find it. And then I got there at 12:40, where I signed in and they took my paperwork, where I promptly read a magazine for about ten minutes. They called my name (poorly, I might add), and I went in there, did the normal stuff and then couldn't pee to save my life!! I couldn't believe it because I had to go! But she knocked on the door rather rudely and sent me back out into the waiting room to drink some water and read the magazine some more. So there I sat, for about 20 minutes (she sent me back out about 12:55) and so I go up and ask if I can try again. Only the woman says "Hang on." and starts talking to some other woman. After a couple minutes, she comes back out again and I ask her if there's a problem. There is. The woman who was supposed to complete my test left for fucking lunch! So they try paging her. And paging her. And she never called back. The women couldn't do my sort of test, and so I sat there until 12:40, when my bladder felt full enough to burst. I finally got up and told them I had to be back at work, I didn't yell, but I know that I conveyed rather clearly that I wasn't happy and that this was extremely incovenient. They kept apologizing, but I was too irritated to give it more than a nod of my head.

I got back to work a little upset and worked up and having to pee so bad! It just wasn't natural to hit every single stoplight on the way back, and I think someone up there was laughing at me every time that yellow light popped back up.

The rest of the day actually sped by, but it had more to do with the fact that I got back at about 2 and so I only had three hours left. I got work done, I was productive, I sent Mike a particularly long email bitching about the drug test and told him why I looked forward to seeing him. I hope he smiles when he sees it.

The following I wrote to Beth back on September 11, of all times, and sent it to her and Mike. It killed Beth and my friendship for good, but then again, I don't sympathize with her any longer. But anyway, this is exactly how I feel about Mike and yet there was so much I didn't say, either.

That was something that was still a little new to say, I had been feeling it for some time and working it all out in my head, but I know that I was in love with him. There is only one other time that I can say that I was in love with someone and I lost him, and that was a long time ago when I was younger, but I still know now that I loved him. All of my few boyfriends after him, I can't say I loved them. I can't say that about my ex-husband and I certainly can't say that about Dave. However, there is no doubt in my head, in my heart, that I love him completely with everything I am. There are a million things about him that I love, from the way he talks about things, to his views, to how proud I am of him, from the way he makes me laugh and cheers me up after a bad day to the way he lets me tell him to go to sleep. I love how he laughs when he talks to Ana and hears her say "I love you!" and it makes me smile to hear that complete happiness in his voice and I love to hear him say that he can't wait to meet Ana and the boys. There are countless reasons that I love him, and they all make up this huge emotion that overwhelms anything I've ever known. He consumes my thoughts and there has not been one single day in the past two months that I have not thought about him all day. I think about our conversations, I think about his smile, I think about how he hugs me and holds me and I think about how much I miss him when he's not here. I think about how good it feels to lay down and go to sleep next to him and how perfectly I fit up against him and I think about what it's like to wake up and be able to watch him sleep. I think about the fact that I can sit there and close my eyes and just listen to him talk. I think about how he has me listen to music I hadn't listened to before and how he talks to me about music and the different types. And it's all of those things as well that I love about him.

I think about how far away he is from me every single minute of the day, there isn't a moment that passes that I don't feel this acute ache in my chest that he's 8 hours away from me. And it's because of that ache that I make every effort to see him as often as possible. I went up and saw him the weekend of Aug 9, I went up to see him over Labor Day weekend. I'm going up to see him on the 20th, making it a very short weekend by driving up directly after work because it's worth the 16 hours of travel in 48 hours to just spend that little time with him and make as much of it as I can, because I know that's all I'm going to get until Oct. 18 when he comes down to finally see me, Megan and the kids. And then I have to wait until my birthday, an unbearably long 3 weeks until he comes down on the 8th. And I know I'll make another trip or two up to see him even before his birthday after Christmas. Why? Because being away from him hurts quite a bit and because I go to sleep every single night thinking about him and how I remember falling asleep with his arm around me or my arm draped on him and my head on his shoulder. And it's because the phone calls to him are not enough every night and that I keep doing this and will keep doing it until something else is done. I think about him going away on his AT in January and how he'll be gone 19 days...19 days that I won't get to talk to him on a regular basis, 19 days where I'll have to go to sleep wondering if he's thinking about me the way I'm thinking about him and if he's missing me as badly as I miss him. I think about him telling me this weekend how much he missed me and hearing my voice and how much I wanted to be able to just drive up to give him a kiss. I think about how he told me the other night that if he lost me it would break his heart and when I promised him that he wouldn't lose me, I can still hear that bitterness in his tone when he said, "Yeah, I've heard that one before."

I think about how he sang a song for me in the car and how much it meant to me for him to do that. I think about what it was like going to the Tool concert with him and what an awesome time I had. I think about what incredible parents he has and how his grandparents are entirely lovable; how they all smiled at me and welcomed me in. How his father made me a plate of shrimp scampi with the rest of them when I got up there and how his brother played his guitar for me a little. How his grandmother laughed a joke I made at Mike's expense and his mom and I got to have a small inside joke at his expense. How Bryan and I got to talk a little without him and how we all laughed at Bryan's guinea pig because it is such a bizarre creature.

Please keep in mind that at any time in this email you can interchange "think about" with "love" and you'll still get my feelings in this matter. Because all of those things I think about I love as well.

I spend very little time with him and make every effort to get up to see him as often as possible because it is so much easier for me to just drive up after work than it is for him. And when I hear this completely happy tone to his voice when I made the decision to come up and see him on the 20th when he couldn't get the time off, it makes all of it worth it. I live for nothing more than to make him happy.

And now I consider moving up so that I can be near him the way I want to be. I make the consideration of moving because I've met his family and I've seen his town and I could never think of asking him to move away from it. He says he couldn't ask me to move because he knows how I feel about the kids and then the thing that Megan wrote that touched him. But the sole fact is that one of us would have to and I know that it will be me. And I will do it. Not would, will. That is the depth of my feelings for him. Yes it has been a short time since I've figured out my feelings, but the gist of it is this. I would do anything for him. Anything. If he told me, "Come here tonight." I would jump in my car right now and drive without thought. If he ever wanted me to let go, I would, because I love him and it's about wanting him happy, not me. If he asked me for forever, I'd give it to him. There is nothing in this world that I have cherished so much. There is nothing I've ever experienced that even compares to how I feel about him. There is no obligation in the words I speak to him, there is no fear behind my actions. I don't say I love him because he says it to me. I say it because my heart echoes it. I don't go to see him because it's expected of me. I go to see him because when I am with him everything around me disappears and it's just him and me. I look at him and see his smile and my heart stills. I hear him laugh and my heart races.

I get the feeling that in your mind you might have trivialized what I feel. Part of it is because I always skirted the issues about Mike with you. I never told you how much I miss him, nor did I tell you how often I go up to see him. I did it because I wanted to spare you that hurt, but you need to know this. You need to know that what I'm feeling isn't this passing infatuation with him. You need to realize that my feelings for him aren't superficial and I am going to hold on to him as long as possible. I won't ever give him up easily and in that I sympathize if your feelings for him have not diminished. But also know that I will do everything in my power to be with him for a long long time. I won't let distance come between us and I already begin to make the serious decision of moving up to Ohio so that I can be there and give him the hug and kiss he needs when he gets home. So that I can make him dinner at night and never have to say goodbye for longer than a day because I know he'll be home soon. I want to be able to work the knots out of his muscles after a particularly gruelling drill weekend and serve him breakfast in bed, surprising him, some mornings. I want to always make him happy and want to take care of him.

I love him, Beth. Absolutely, completely, without doubts. There is no room left for anyone else and it pains me that I'm this far away and grateful that it's not further. But I do love him, in a way that is entirely foreign to me and wonderful at the same time because it has so many facets to it besides just thinking he looks good or because he can say the sweetest things to me to make me smile when I'm having bad it. It's because he calls me up at work completely by surprise because he happened to save my work number when I called work on Labor Day weekend. There are so many sides to it all and there is no doubt in my mind that I love him with everything that I am. Does that make it pure and true? I don't know. Perhaps. I just know that there is nothing that makes me happier than hearing him laugh or seeing him smile. And for now, I think I'm going to hold on to him as long as he'll have me. I hope and dream it's forever, and if it's not, I'll at least know that he's made me happier than I've ever been. Ever.

Can you see that I'm completely in love? Yes, me too.