Like Buttah

Our time apart became greater than our time together. And I now realize in his own way, Randy tried to explain where his head and heart were at by telling me his all-time favorite song was "Lullaby for Myself" from Babs' Superman Album. But no a copy of it in his CD collection, so I bought him one. That's it above.

As for the lyrics....

Self-contained and self-content
No promises to keep
I've got things so together
That I just can't fall asleep
Walked the night and drank the moon
Got home at half-past four,
And I knew that no-one marked my time
As I unlocked my door.

It's really lovely to discover
That you like to be alone
Not to owe your man an answer
When he gets you on the phone
Not to share a pair of porkchops
When you crave champagne and cheese
And your aim becomes to please yourself
And not to aim to please
Oh they sold me when they told me
Two can live as cheap as one
But I'm learning twice your earning
Doesn't mean it's twice the fun
If you spend each dime and all your time
On someone else's schemes
I'm not needy but I'm greedy
And I live my deepest dreams
Take an hour in the shower
Use the water while it's hot
In the tub a hand to scrub my back
Is all I haven't got.

Self-aware with self-esteem
Is selfishness a crime?
I take the day for quite a ride
And I take my own sweet time
Time to spare and time to share
And grateful I would be
If just one damn man would share the need
To be alone with me.

Now I pretty much had Randy figured out even before I'd heard the song and that was the night I gave it to him. Which also was the night that he informed me that he'd gone out and met someone who he thought he was falling in love with after an evening of conversation only. Someone, like in the song. Ouch.

I flat out told him, I have no problem with that as long as we can continue dating.

Thrust, and deflect - I wasn't giving up THAT easy.

To sum it up in a nutshell IMO, at this point in our relationship, Randy was doing everything he could to push me away so that he wouldn't fall in love (or deeper in love) with me since he was dying. What's the point? Why have two people get hurt? Or hurt worse than they already do? (Okay, so some of this I hadn't figured out quite at this time, but I had the gist of it.)

Dates were cancelled, phone calls missed or not returned until it finally got to the point that (ironically) the week after his February 11th birthday and Valentine's Day, I went over to his place on the 17th determined to have a resolution to this situation that day.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be me taking the biggest leap of faith in my life up to that point and walking out of the apartment after giving him what he wanted and calling the whole thing off. I'm not going to go into details because there even some things I won't wear on my sleeve. Suffice it to say that the walk to the elevator seemed to take twice as long as forever because I kept hoping for his door to open and hear my name called.

I wouldn't hear him speak my name again for seven months.

continued...