Slow & Steady

Two years ago, it was a grey and bleak Monday in February.  The weekend had left me hungry for more sleep and weather had me craving the warmth of my own bed.

As the evening neared, my nerves started to twitch.  I had a date with a guy I’d been steadily chatting with for about a month.  Our chats had been enjoyable enough.  He was witty, and seemed genuinely interested in learning about me instead of sticking with banal surface conversation, or even worse, sending inappropriate photos.   But with each passing minute, I started to break out into a cold sweat.  What if he was totally different, in person?  What if *I* was totally different, in person?  I quickly began stalking my own social media pages, scrupulously reviewing all my photos, trying to gauge how much they really looked like me in real life.   I couldn’t tell.

I felt an overwhelm thinking about all the other dates I had recently been on.  The pregnant pauses, awkward silences, stale kisses, and often unrequited amorous feelings afterward.  What were the chances that this would work out?  He seemed cute and funny, but then I started listing all the things I didn’t see in him or potentially wouldn’t like.  Did I really want to let another guy down? It’s so painfully awkward.  The odds of me actually liking the guy were in inversely correlated to how high my emotional walls were- which is meant to say the odds were low.  The outlook was not good. Not with him, not with anyone, really.  All of this led to one final and obvious conclusion: cancel.  Cancel the night of inevitable awkwardness and go home to your over sized pjs, cup of tea and How I Met Your Mother reruns.

I was in the middle of concocting some plausible excuse, when the coworker who sits across from me asked what I was doing after work.  Before I could answer, another coworker emphatically answered for me: She has a date!”  I rolled my eyes and shrugged it off,  nonchalantly mumbling something about canceling.  My coworkers shot over to my cubicle and harangued me about following through.  One said I needed to go for the free meal. The other said it would be an asshole move to cancel this late.  I texted my best guy friend to consult, and he wrote back: maybe it’s time to put some doors in those walls- you can always shut them later if you don’t like it.

They had a point and so the next few hours found me wrestling with my closet for suitable outfit options while my best friend sat on my bed offering me wine and encouragement.

At 7 pm sharp, he arrived  and we went to dinner.  And as it turns out, I was totally right. It was terribly awkward and he was not quite as I had imagined him.  He was bigger than expected, bald, and had a slight stutter.  But at the same time, as I peeled off my black sweater dress later that night before slipping into bed, I realized that I had fun.  We had laughed.  A lot.  And something about his genuine demeanor and kind eyes made me decide to not write him off just yet.

This unsure feeling would live with me for another few months.  But so would the tiny voice in the back of my mind that whispered “Don’t let go yet.”  And so I didn’t, even though we continued to navigate a sea of awkwardness and communication obstacles.  Until, one day, it wasn’t so awkward anymore.  Instead, all of a sudden, I felt at ease in his presence and our conversation flowed freely.  We talked every single day and I never grew tired of it.  One Friday in the late spring, I realized that I had a little bounce in my step as the anticipation of spending another weekend together grew with each tick of the clock toward 5 pm.  And another day, some months later, I found myself saying the words “I Love You” while lounging in bed, shrouded in the lazy Sunday morning sunlight.  And meant it.  And he did too.

It’s been two years since I almost canceled that date, and those two years have changed me as a person. I thought I had myself and my life entirely figured out. I was happy and my life was lacking for nothing.  I knew my heart was closed off but I was OK with that darkness in my life because it was safe.

I was more wrong than I could have ever imagined.  This boy with the kind eyes and beautiful, caring, heart has made me want to be a better person so I can be half as compassionate of a human being as he is.  He has restored my faith in love, and made me feel more accepted, just as I am, than anyone ever has before.  He looks at me with the same overwhelming love and adoration first thing in the morning as he does when I’m dressed up for a night out.  He lets me cry and makes me laugh even when I am in my most rancid of moods.  He reminds me to be kind to myself. He reminds me of the good that is still in this world.  And he reminds me that keeping my heart open is well worth the risk.

Our story is not flowery and romantic or even out of the ordinary.  It was not love at first sight or a sure bet from the start.  No, ours has been a slow and steady kind of love.  But slow and steady, wins the race.

“It’s the heart in you
I know it in my bones
That made me change direction when I thought better off alone…”

You Know You Are *Really* Single When…

You know you are really, truly living the single life when:

1.  Your love life is pretty much vicariously lived through fictional characters.  You have more of a relationship with at least one of the following: Peeta Mellark, Christian Grey, Kellan Kyle, Derek Shepherd, Gideon Cross, or Noah Calhoun–than any guy with an actual pulse and social security number. And you kinda prefer it that way.

2.   You turn down the chance to hook up with your F.W.B (friend with benefits) because you genuinely rather get other things done.  Like brush the dog’s teeth.  Man, that’s been on the to-do list for a while…

3.  Since your love life is more D.O.A. than any given Friends episode, you actually have resorted to viewing porn.  Something you never did before and would never admit to out loud.

4.  75% of the contents of your fridge are liquid (mostly alcoholic).  The remaining 24% are items that have gone bad and you are just to lazy to throw them out. There may be a stray cheese stick and English muffin that are potentially still edible if you search hard enough.

5.  You haven’t cleaned your tub since January.  And you don’t care.  Cleaning in general can be relegated to the day before any company might be coming over and only areas seen by public are necessary to be cleaned.

6.  When one of your friends got engaged, you used to get green with envy.  Now your mind quickly turns to thoughts of the inevitable bickering and the general idea of putting someone else first and that sigh of longing quickly turns into a sigh of relief.

7. Your phone is filled with more pictures of your pets than actual people

8.   You used to complain about sleeping alone.  Now overnight guests in your bed are really just an annoyance.  No, seriously, I don’t want to cuddle, I want to stretch out my legs.  Get the hell out of my bed.

9.  You have full on conversations with your animals (this one is kind of a cheat because I did this long before I was single, but it’s definitely gone to a new level…)

10.  You find Wine and Potato Chips in bed are perfectly acceptable dinner plans.

11  .You used to get antsy around 3pm on those nights you had big plans.  Now you get antsy at 3pm with the prospect of being in bed in less than three hours with a glass of wine and How I Met Your Mother re-runs on Netflix.  And this is despite the fact that you are, really, an extrovert.

12.  You have reached a new level of comfort with nakedness.  You live alone, so no one is going to see you, so who cares?  Sleeping, lounging, eating- whatever.  You have found that none of it actually requires clothing when no one is there as a witness.

13. Bed at 9pm on a Friday night seems perfectly acceptable.  As does 3am.  Hell, you have no one to answer to so who cares?

14.  When you missed a friend’s call and go to call them back, you secretly hope it goes to voice mail.  I mean this convo is totally going to cut into your smutty novel reading time, which is way important…because ya know…see #1.