I had an excellent talk with a good friend of mine last night. We stayed up until close to 1 a.m. and I mostly just rambled about my thoughts and such. The past couple of weeks I have been getting this feeling that I am not living up to my potential. It started with a small thought in a Sunday School lesson, the teacher said, "We're all made of the same stuff". We all have the same potential in this life, it's reaching that potential, actualizing it, where we differ.
That was like a seed and the last couple of weeks have been the fertilizer, sunlight, and water. People have randomly conversed with me about not reaching my potential in my career (I guess I have to call it that), I felt spiritually I was not reaching my potential, and now it seems to have seeped into every aspect of my life.
About two weeks ago I got a letter in the mail from a boy I have been writing to for two years. Yes, two years. I hate to say it but it wasn't the best letter that I have ever received from him and for a moment I felt my world tilted on the edge. In this letter I felt like we were closing a big chapter in both of our lives. He is preparing to come home from a two year mission in Africa and I was trying to figure out what I should be preparing for. As it turns out, nothing. More waiting really, waiting to see my best friend again but not meeting in the way we left off, the way I expected us to meet again. This is what we call, "earth shattering". The plan you made for yourself is crumpled up and tossed across the room like bad and disregarded blue prints. There was hurt, anger, and pain and then the strangest of all, a sense of relief.
I have been trying to analyze things. My feelings for one, but also - where I want to go from here. That sense of relief - what did it mean? I've been wondering if I've been lying to myself, telling myself that the relief is that I am not ready for us to take the next step so now we both have more time and we can work it out. But maybe I don't want or need him any longer. Maybe I needed him when I had him, I even needed him up to the day that I got the letter, maybe a little after I got the letter. He was good and bad for me in almost equal amounts. As my friend said, "He was a gift". She said that the boys I have dated over the last two years were learning experiences, but this boy was a gift. He showed me the good I can have in a relationship, and others taught me that I want more (no offense to them. And who knows, one day they will be more to someone - just not to me).
In my talk last night I started rambling about all the things I want. I want someone to take it slow with me, to build a good, healthy relationship. I want someone who enjoys that I am silly, but also enjoys that there is more to me than just a good time, than just kissing or laughing or being crazy. I feel starved in that respect, I need a guy who enjoys having a spiritual or emotionally deep conversation (maybe even intellectual if I can muster it).
But with this I have to realize that I can't be who I have been. I settle for a physical relationship because I feel like that means he likes me and wants to be with me. I lie to myself so many times. Yes, I like kissing, very much. I like the butterflies that come from knowing that a guy wants to hold my hand or to kiss me. I like the rush of blood all over; the quickened heartbeat; the adrenaline rush, like feeling that I am standing on the edge of a cliff with nothing to stop me from falling off. But...is that how it always is? How it always starts? Cause if so, there's no one I am interested in, not physiologically at least.
My friend asked if there is any possibility with this guy who comes to town sometimes to take me out and I told her 'no'. She asked me to say why and the fact that he is moving to Georgia doesn't count. So I told her that I enjoy his company and talking to him, I honestly feel as though we are friends, but I feel nothing romantically for him. I could tell on our last date that he wanted to hold my hand and I wasn't repulsed, but I just didn't want to hold his hand. There were no butterflies at the thought that I could hold his hand, no nervous feeling that he might try to kiss me...just a hope that he wouldn't because that would ruin what we had.
I think there is a median, a place of contentment and a fertile ground for true, everlasting love to grow. It lies somewhere between crazed teenage infatuation and this dull, dead spot of non-feeling. I want to find this place, I want to build something with someone.
So, I walked away last night with a realization that there is just one more area of my life where I aim low, dating. I need to not shy away from guys I consider smarter than myself. Just because I don't have a specialized degree in some science doesn't mean I don't have an interest in intellectual things. I read up on all sorts of sundry topics I find fascinating. I have varying interests and for too long I've understood this to mean that I'm not smart enough...but maybe I just like so much I can't choose and dedicate myself single-mindedly...which is fine, since in the end I am a writer and writers have varying interests and should because then they can write varying stories...and I do enjoy my stories (warning: I am biased).
So...realization about my choices in dating - check
I've learned a lot about myself and I have a lot more to think about. Jury is still out on Pen Pal; if I can be open to rebuilding a relationship with him (should the opporutnity arise) or if I have come to realize that I was in love with a memory, not a man. But I feel like I need to work through that before I see him again, because I don't want to let myself get in a rut and waste my time on someone who doesn't want to be with me and who I shouldn't even be with.
And so my life continues as it has before and yet I feel eons older in the maturity department, I know more of who I am and what I want. I don't have it all figured out, but I feel like I know a lot more than I did a week ago.
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