For quite some time now, it's been routine for me to leave Chan's apartment as soon as he's all tucked into bed for the night. I just figure he's gonna be sleeping about ten minutes after he hits the pillow, and I ABSOLUTELY HATE waking him up with the clicking sound that my chair makes when I start and/or stop moving. To avoid doing this, I made the desion a long time ago to leave as soon as I know he's safely in bed...or at least that's what I'd been telling until just recently...
While it is the case that I hate waking him up, it goes MUCH DEEPERthan that! As I said in the last sentence of the above paragraph, until just recently, I hadn't been able to find the words to tell him what the bigger reason for my abrupt urgency to leave once he was in bed was. To be completely and totally honest, I had no intention of telling him on this particular night either, but maybe that's why it came out so easily and so well.
On the night of the 20th, which was a Friday, I went to see him at about 5:30. Until about 9:30, we were just hanging out. At 9:30, he paged his staff to put him in his bike. When she came up, and was finished putting him in the bike, he says to her, "I'm tired, but if I go to sleep Danielle will leave."
I said, "Who said Danielle is gonna leave? I'm not in any hurry to go home!"
My question got no direct response, just a change of subject. I took this as a good thing! It meant that he was thinking about and processing what I'd said. Yay for me!
40 minutes later, after he had finished two cycles on the bike, he paged to come out. After he was out, he came and sat next to me. For about the first three minutes after he came over there, there was about six intches of space between our chairs. I could see he was getting more sleepy by the minute. Soon we were sitting chair to chair, and his head was on my chest...right where I wanted it! We sat this way, his head on my chest, sleeping until 1:45a.m., which is when my butt wouldn't let me sit any longer.
The following night I went over there, and I made the comment that my back was sore. He asked why. I told him I didn't really have a good reason. Then I said, "it could be a number of reasons. It could be that I was in my chair until two o'clock. Speaking of that, have you put any thought into why I stayed with you for so long this morning?"
Complete silence...
I pressed on. "It doesn't matter if you sleep when you're in your chair and I'm around, because at least when we're both in our chairs, I can hold you and cuddle you. When one of us is out of our chairs, that can't happen at this point. It hurts too badly to think about wanting to be able to do that, and yet being able to nothing when you're in bed. Truth be told, that's why I always leave right after you're tucked into bed!"
More silence...
I wrapped it up with, "I'm gonna assume that you've understood everything I've just said, because if you hadn't, I'm pretty sure you would've already stopped me by now for clarification."
Nothing has been said about it, or done with it since. I'm going to assume that's a good thing. However, as with lots of things in my life, only time will tell.
Chan man: Want me to stay even if you need to sleep? Stay in your chair for as long as you can, and I'll be right there holding you! I can't think of anything else I'd rather be spending my nights doing when I can!