The Perils of Patience

I often see the wives and girlfriends of inmates speak of the passionate, all encompassing love they feel for their partners. It is a love like one they have never felt before, intense yet gentle, amazing, pure and on fire, completely saturating. I wonder to myself how can so many women feel this exact same way? How can so many woman feel this way AND happen to all have a loved one in prison? At times it just seems so much like a coincidence. Is it conditioning? A defense mechanism to deflect against opposition and negative opinions? A reason for staying? Maybe it has to do with the idea that "distance makes the heart grow fonder" or the idea that separation brings more anticipation, more excitement for that moment of reunification, that deep longing eating at your insides that also brings a sweet pang of joy. Are we masochists for folly? For long nights alone in our beds, tables for one, and the burn of jealousy for others in our hearts?

These thoughts regarding this subject often flow through my head, not just because it baffles me, but because it INCLUDES me! My thoughts are their thoughts. I have never felt a love like this, so lascivious, a yearning for the untouchable literally. That ache so deep inside for the one that feels like he completes me. There have been times that the love I have for him and the love he professes for me scares me. Its intensity is off the charts and does not follow the path of any scale or measurement. When I read forums or blogs, writings by other women whose men are incarcerated, I read the same types of statements. They talk about how they have never met such a gentle, caring, compassionate, loving man as their boyfriend/husband. This sounds all too familiar to me. My boyfriend was one of the most caring, introverted, special men I had ever met and I knew that within a hour of laying eyes on him, but there can and have been very dark sides to these men, whether it be drugs, and anger problems, the heat of the moment that allowed them to commit their crimes, even premeditation or retaliation. How does one juxtapose this against the light that shines from these guy's halos? I am not poking fun, I am not scoffing at these women, because I AM these women. I love my man with a passion that is beyond words. Sometimes it brings me to tears. Sometimes my body aches for his touch and my ears ring at the thought of hearing his voice. My first contact visit brought electricity through my body as I stood next to him, my arms wrapped around him for our picture. He felt so safe and so familiar. It appears that incarcerated men and their loved ones do so much with purpose and with meaning. They love with meaning, they make every phone call, every letter, every visit the center of those few lasting moments, because those moments are all we have, and the yearning, the lusting for more than that is bittersweet, yet just enough to keep us going, keep us loving, keep us preparing for the day when this intense love can manifest itself on the outside.