In all my years of dating, loving and wildly crashing through relationships like the chaotic, romantic tornado that I am… no man has ever given me something personal. Not truly. Not something chosen with intention, or tenderness, or the soft knowing of who I really am.
And then……..
Enter Mr. California.
A man who is shy and reserved and holy in that quiet altar-boy way, but also deeply romantic when he thinks no one is watching. A man who once loved me so boldly, so loudly, so unapologetically that the echo of it still rings through his present silences. A man who hides now, yes, but who once opened himself to me with all the vulnerability of a man who had waited his whole life to love like that.
And from him came the best, most personal gift I’ve ever received.
It’s impossible not to love him.
When we were together, before everything broke open, I was absolutely undone by him. Completely in awe. Floored that someone could love me with that much softness and hunger at once. It felt like God handed me a miracle and said, “Here. Try not to drop it.”
And then the bipolar episode came.
The mania.
The calls.
The texts.
The crushing loss of reality that cracked something inside both of us.
A year later, we’re still living with the aftershocks.
His distance.
His fear.
My shame.
My spirals.
The ghost of who we were, standing beside who we’re trying to be now.
But at Christmas… something changed.
He sent me a gift so intimate, so shockingly thoughtful, that the old him—my wildly romantic boyfriend—peeked through again like sunlight pushing past storm clouds.
A purple silk robe.
My favorite color in the world.
Soft and slippery against my skin.
And somehow, to my joyous surprise, in my exact size.
Do you know what that meant to me?
This man who has seen me cry over my weight, who has heard every self-loathing insult I hurl at my own body, who knows that I hide from mirrors like they’re armed and dangerous…he wrapped that very body in silk.
A bigger woman.
A woman ashamed of her curves.
A woman who calls herself fat and ugly on her worst days.
He said, without saying, “I see you. I know you. I want you beautiful in this.”
I wear that robe almost every day now. Not just because it feels decadent as hell, but because it’s proof; living, breathing proof, that the man I love is still in there. Behind all the guilt and fear and silence… he is still choosing me in small, sacred ways.
And here we are now, having more sex, more closeness, more tenderness than we expected to reclaim. No official label. No neat definition. Just two people finding their way back to something that once blew the doors off both our lives.
He’s afraid, yes. But he keeps coming back. And every night we spend together, every whispered confession, every shy “probably” when I tease him, every sleepy sigh when I call him my Sleepy Bear…I love him a little more.
For the first time in my life, I’m experiencing a love worth waiting for.
A love that survived madness, silence, thousands of miles, and the wreckage of who we used to be.
One day, I hope he loves me out loud again, the way that purple silk robe already does.
Stay tuned. 💜
