Somedays I don't really know what I'm doing here. I know what I want from life, but I don't really know if it's something that will happen. It's a strange and chaotic thing to try and build a stable life with two unstable people. You can work as hard as possible, and it still hinges upon other people doing the legwork, too. I mean, I guess that's the whole point of a partnership.

I think I've done a phenomenal job of completely suffocating Miller since I've been here. I feel like I'm finally coming into my own, and finding friends. Building relationships that matter. I need to get out more, see the city, explore nature. I need to find a hiking partner. Or not. Just get the fuck outside. It's where I feel best.

I started seeing a counselor. I have been getting so deep inside my own head. I am so consistently terrified of Miller leaving me. I am the biggest ball of insecurity. I don't think I've ever noticed how sick I really am. I have made myself this way. I typically date guys who are so into me that I don't really have to worry about feeling insecure. They tell me I'm beautiful, fawn over me, I don't know that it's necessarily healthy, but it made it so I didn't constantly fear being abandoned. I'm working through that with my counselor. I'm also trying to work through my anxiety. She's teaching me about breathing. I really felt like I had nailed a lot of this stuff down when I was back home. I didn't panic. I didn't feel the need for chaos. I was surrounding myself with people who are supportive and honest. I couldn't have asked for better friends. I spent years building them, and it just got easier with time. Now I'm trying to do it in my relationship, and mucking it all up.

I'm so worried about every little thing. About the texts I send, if he loves me more than the other women he's had in his life. But I have to stop and look at the facts. I'm here, in his house. He talks about building a future with me. He makes steps towards a future. His words aren't always pretty, he's not always affectionate, he doesn't always want to spend time with me, he's not always nice. He's also figuring out how to love, too. I'm sure it doesn't help to have me here, asking him if he loves me every three days. But I get so jammed up. It feels like everything is falling apart, and the only thing that can fix it, is asking for reassurance. Ugh.

I'm such a mess. I know I can't move forward if I keep carrying the past with me everywhere I go.

So how do I take action from here? Breathe more? Take a moment when I feel like everything will explode? I don't know how to do this part. I don't know how to squash this paralyzing insecurity.

I guess I can ask my counselor.

stuff.

I am too impatient. Too rash. I jump into things because I feel, because feeling feels amazing. Because people promise me shiny new things and never ending love.

I'm tired of being surrounded by belongings, by piles of stuff, and none of it matters. I've been buying myself nice things, splurging on nice meals, buying him things, and it does give me fleeting joy, especially giving gifts...but a year after this new splurge mentality, and what do I have to show for it? A crappy apartment filled with...stuff. $100 purses, dresses, designer scarves. Xboxes, games, crap. It hasn't done anything to get me to where I want to be.

I want a family. I want a solid marriage. A home to call my own. To get it right. Not to marry someone because they are in love with me, or are good for me, but because we are great for each other, because we love each other. Because I can't imagine living a day without that person. I don't think I've ever felt that. Yes, it's great that I gave love a chance, especially such a crazy in my face love, but I can't help but feel like I'm just an addiction for him. It is dreadfully nice to have someone pay so much attention to me, after years of being ignored...but he's not moving forward. His anchor is still firmly planted in all of the wrong he has done, no matter how much I tell him he's not a bad person.

And me, I'm chained down here, as well. I keep thinking that I can help him see his beauty, but even I'm starting to lose sight of it.

I spend my days laying here, letting life happen to me, when I should be living...but everything is one excuse after another. I know what I have to do, I just don't have the strength to crush another person. What a boner.

progeny.

5 years ago, I was resolved to never have children. 10 years ago, I said I'd wait until I was 25, but no later than 30.

A few months ago, I said it would take an amazing man to make me want to have a kid of my own. I got into the idea of dating someone with a kid. I've always had a phobia of babies. They seem so delicate, and they can't communicate. Nolan was the first baby I ever spent any amount of time around, and I didn't really enjoy myself until I could see him starting to figure out how to talk, how the outside world worked. I thought it would be kind of amazing to be with someone who had a toddler, or older. Young enough that I could still be a part of their formative years, and old enough that I can be respectful of their boundaries and they could let me know how they feel about me being in their life.

Last night, Blaine and I were watching Nolan. I'm not going to lie, it made me think about having kids. We've already had the kid talk, but it was only a couple of days into hanging out. He said he didn't want to have more kids because he came from a split family and he got treated poorly by the stepfather when they had more kids. He doesn't want his daughter to ever feel that way. I didn't really have a problem with that, because I assumed we could eventually get joint custody of his daughter. Last night, he asked again. I told him I felt the same. I told him completely honestly that having my own kid kind of scared me, that the world is full of children who need love, and I don't need my genetic material in the mix. I think he was amazed by the response, because he could pretty much read on my face how I felt when I watched him and Nolan. I asked him if his views had changed because of something that changed in his life. He just told me that he didn't think I'd be happy not having a kid. That it's not the same to love someone else's. I don't know that I necessarily think it is, but I don't see the harm in it. He told me that there should be little copies of me running around, that it would make the world a better place. That, for the first time since his daughter was born, he's okay with the idea of having another kid. I had to tell him that it's not something in the cards anytime soon.

For the first time, I'm thinking that if an accident happened, I wouldn't have it taken care of, or regret it. That having a kid with Blaine would be amazing. I'm not ready for it, but it's just insane to see how my whole life has changed because of love.

of love and death.

all human beings require love. so why is it so hard to simply love and be loved?

I can explain until my face is blue all the reasons why I fear giving over all of myself to a feeling that can so easily destroy my world. I never fully gave everything to my ex husband. I tried in all of the ways that I thought I should, but I didn't know what I was doing. I was always holding a piece back, because some part of me knew that I'd wind up hurt. I did everything I thought should happen. I married a guy that was nothing like my father. That made me less like my mother. I thought the farther I got from my parents, the more successful I could be. I married the guy that looked great on paper, and I loved him, but I was never tumbling out of control, couldn't feel my feet below my knees in love with him.

I feel so much around Blaine. And he pushes me. Demands that I love him in return, with all that I am. Intimacy is a language I have never been able to communicate in. Until now, I thought intimacy was telling someone everything about you. All of the fucked up things from the past, all of your fears of the future. It's how I thought I was letting my significant others in. I thought the more honest I was, the more I shared, the more they realized I was trying...but that's not intimacy. Blaine told me he didn't want to hear anymore about my ex. I didn't really know what to say. Or understand. It meant I was letting him in...but to him it meant I was pushing him away. I was projecting my fears on him. He told me he didn't want to hate some guy he'd never met for things he couldn't control. That he is a completely different person and would never do any of those things to me because he loves me. I didn't understand any of it, but I'm learning it. A new language. That letting him in means doing things I've never done with anyone else. It means being completely vulnerable, and unafraid. Letting go of all of the walls I've built up around myself. All of them. Accepting that he is going to be there regardless of how ugly it may be, how weak I may be, or how I have to fumble through stupid things that normal people do without thinking.

There are already things I have done that I never thought I'd do. I reach out for him. I hold his hand. I tell him he is beautiful and amazing. I don't get pissed when he blows up my phone on every break at work. I have stopped saying, "for future reference, when you date someone else", or alluding to us not working. I don't talk about my fears of the past repeating. I gave him a back rub for hours the other night, where I normally feel grossly uncomfortable touching someone else for that long. I tell him I miss him, even after a day, and I allow myself to feel that way. I'm moving out with him, and not allowing myself to freak out about how fast we're moving, or how much I feel. I am throwing away all creature comforts and trying to love like a child again...because I feel that way, because he deserves all of my love, and not only the parts I feel comfortable giving. Because if I don't give everything, it hurts. It hurts to think about him hurting, to think about not being with him. Because I feel like I'm starting life new. All of the things I've done in the past feel like they were all wrong. Like I need to do them all over again with this feeling in my heart. Because for the first time I don't hate cheesy love songs, I kind of understand them.

So that's it. I feel like all of the pain and hurt and terrible things in my life have died, and it's time to be free. To live life like it's supposed to be lived. I have been given an incredible gift, and I'm going to run with it.

that one thing.

So, I did it. I jumped in. I did it because I can't erase the way he looks at me from my brain. Because he smells good and because he makes me laugh. Because he says crap that you hear in movies. Because I think he really means them.

I tried to plan an adventure for us on our day off, Tuesday. I really couldn't figure out what to do that was free, and with poor weather, but as the morning went on, I just knew. I took him out to the ice caves in the Indian Heavens Wilderness on Mt. Adams. I didn't tell him where we were going, and he was patient through the whole two hour drive. Didn't ask questions, just kept talking to me about life and making me laugh. I'm not nervous around him. I feel like I can tell him anything, make any kind of ass out of myself, and it really wont matter. He's completely love drunk.

When we pulled into the parking lot for the ice caves he kind of freaked out. Told me not to tease him, because he loves crap like this. More points for him. He didn't care that he didn't have warm gloves, waterproof shoes, or a headlamp. He monkeyed his way around the caves, and smiled the whole time, even after he stepped in a half foot of ice water, soaking his whole shoe. I tried to take him to the land bridge, but I got my car stuck in the snow. I've never had problems driving in the snow before, and it only looked like a foot of snow...but it was more like three. Found that out as we spent three hours digging the car out of the snow with golf clubs and a crock pot lid. Where I'd normally be so pissed I'd be seeing red, or so frustrated I'd yell, I just laughed. We were both soaked through, and freezing. Laying on our sides, trying to dig out the snow from under the car so it wouldn't be high centered anymore. I started to get frustrated at hour two, and he looked at me from the other side of the car, smiled at me, and everything just went away. The lack of feeling in my hands, my soaking wet, covered in snow jeans, the tension in my shoulders, and the feeling that it was going to be hours before we got out of there. I just laughed. In that moment, I knew I made the right choice to give him a chance. That maybe, just maybe, it's not my impulsive drive getting me in trouble again.

We didn't wind up getting the car dug out. At hour three a ranger came and pulled us out. He drove the two hours home, even though he couldn't feel his feet. On the day that I planned an adventure for him, he wound up doing more for me. We argued about things on the way home...mostly who was going to be right more. He's not going to let me win. He's not going to let me give up or be stupid. Retreat into myself when I am afraid. This is the right kind of challenging.

I made dinner when we got back into town. We warmed up with soup in bread bowls, and then I said something about our relationship. He asked if that's what it was, a relationship. If I wanted to tell all my friends about it, and when we were actually first together, because we need to have an anniversary. He made fun of me for not liking titles. I told him to shut up, and then put us in a relationship on Facebook. He just laughed at me and told me he won, again. That was what he wanted all along, and he would have done it the first day he met me. What a boner.

Last night he met Roy, Alissa, Nolan and Mara. Nolan LOVES him. He is so great with Nolan. I am so in trouble now. I was kind of jealous. Nolan only reacted to me that way that fast before. After dinner, Nolan climbed into Blaine's lap and just wanted to be near him. Blaine is so patient with him, and so genuinely excited when Nolan gets excited. His face just lights up. There is NOTHING more attractive than a guy who is great with kids. Today, Nolan just asked if my friend could come back. I think part of it is that Nolan needs people to rough house with, and Blaine let him climb all over him like a spider monkey. I'll probably make him come over again on Friday so Alissa can get a break, and so we don't spend too much time cocooned up, blocking out the rest of the world.

I'm too impulsive. I'm lost in moments. Moments when someone tells you the most beautiful thing about you is what you consider one of your biggest flaws. Moments where you've spent the last three months wanting someone you've known for years to want you, and then someone spends twenty-four hours with you, and does nothing but tell you how much they want you. Moments where you want to be kissed, but you're postponing that first kiss for as long as you can. Moments where I said I wasn't going to date, and then all I want is to go on a date.

The pragmatist in me says it's just the beginning euphoria. That it will wear off, and it wont be so shiny and new. That it's not okay to go from waiting with baited breath on a guy who is just keeping you on the reel to someone who impulsively tells you you're amazing. That it's just fulfilling some sort of unfilled want. But what if it's not? It's so terribly rare for me to find someone so into the same music. So into being blatantly honest. Not into games. It doesn't help that I overloaded my senses by spending the last two days with him. So now I'm going to spend the next few without. Slow down. Go into the world the next time.

I've got to go to work. I still have things to process. Oh, life.

note to self:

write the post you've been thinking about for two weeks. the one about caging wild animals and not being the marrying kind...but don't do it tonight. you have to get up early for church.