compromise

I've begun to contemplate where the line draws itself, or where I've managed to draw it unconsciously, while sleepwalking or severely distracted.  I don't remember marking it in the dirt or qualifying either side of it.  Maybe it is my fault for not taking into account the boundaries that I set in place and didn't share or acknowledge.  

Compromise.  This is a thought bleeding through all of my others, every word I read, mile I devour, every breath and television show and goodnight kiss.  There is a line; on one side is mutual respect, sharing and necessity and on the other you become a traitor to self.

When does compromise become compromising?

I cannot deny who I am and how far removed it is from The Staff Sergeant.  Think of a personality trait, any one of them, any conviction or stance on the world and we appear at far ends of the pendulum's swing.  I've always appreciated that about us, how his perspective challenges mine, how he is a catalyst for me to think beyond myself and the ways that come easily to me.  Think of us as the Super Soldier and the Earth Child, though you may wonder how we ever managed to attract to one another I've always thought that we had roots in the same center, yet we spiraled outward in separate directions.  When you come from the same place, Home is easily recognized.  

Perhaps it's politics: the way I shape myself around his contours like a bead of mercury. because I'm a girl. because I want him to love me. because I can keep the surge of myself tamed for a time and I do. because I don't believe that I'm deserving. because the super soldier having room for the social-rights-fighting-world-saving-peace-love-and-Obama-supporting earth child would be a bright, strobing anomaly [with a mandated caution against seizures].

That is what scares the spirit out of me.

I don't believe that we have to agree on all points.  I don't even want him to be like me.  If he echoed my voice, every word, we would bore ourselves into a puddle of empty meaning.  But I am all of those opposing pieces and I fear that maybe they won't mix.  I have a hard time knowing when the jokes are laced with truth or when they are hollow shells of air spent for no real reason, or if that is even possible.  I've stopped entirely caging myself and have begun releasing small drips to float like oil to the surface.  I self-imposed the captivity, compromising constraints.  I dimmed the deep-hued dirt from whence I sprouted.  These are my own guilty endeavors, and as they recede I can only hope that the training has paid off, that our stitching really is war-strong.