Just below...

I've been accused of being shallow before. I've been called insincere. It has been said that I fail to look beyond just what lays upon the outside. All of these have been true at one point in time or another in my life, but undoubtedly nobody is capable of saying they truly have never been. The problem is as a collective whole it is very easy to simply live on just what lays on the surface of people. We have become accustomed to giving the world a mask or a veneer that we think is either expected or accepted. This thin coating of the diluted form of us is predominantly what people see.  Perhaps it is because they choose not to look deeper, or maybe it is because we don't let them see any farther.


Am I a deep person? Perhaps. I have been accused of writing "bricks" at times, as my thinking tends to get a bit heavy. I prefer to think of it as being more introspective. I like to give things what they are due, which most of the time is simply time in which to fully understand them.


But depth is not just in a person, but can also be in relationships. I have been in committed relationships for years at a time and have thought of them as being "good" relationships. However, as of lately I have discovered that they were actually very simplistic things, not worthy of permanence. This is not to say that the feelings within them were not valid, but rather that it was not the stuff that solid foundations could ever truly be made of.


And yet today driving down the street I felt the need to say, "I love you" to the amazing woman sitting next to me. At the moment I wasn't thinking purposefully of anything except that we were headed home and I loved the feeling of her hand within mine. There was the subtle curve of her fingers in towards her palm as mine rested over her own. The skin on the back of her hand was dry and warm. She was talking to me, and though I was listening I can no longer recall what the subject was about. At that moment however, how I feel for Samantha became very clear. It was as if all things past were paper thin and my feelings for her suddenly swelled up, took the width of the road before me and rose above the trees. It was a very tangible embodiment of what I find in my heart for her.


It was solid.
It was real.
It was permanent.


There was no question as to what it was. As to what it is.


I never really thought of myself as a "surface" type person before, but I guess I was. Yet now I find myself going deeper, looking below, and being amazed by what I see.