The Fear He Won't Fall

This past weekend was unbelievably difficult for me. Waldo and I have been getting closer and I like him...a tremendous amount. I feel like I'm 16 saying that, but honestly, I feel like I'm 16 anyway, getting a new chance at life and love. That sounds stupid, doesn't it? But it's how I feel, so it is what it is. As an aside, this blog seems to be exclusively about this kid. Sigh! Oh well. It's kind of about the lessons I'm learning, too, though! So that's good.

Anyway, I had a mild panic attack on Thursday night because I was suddenly overcome with this overwhelming fear that he would never care about me the way I care about him, that I was out on this limb all by myself that was about to crack, and there was nothing I could do to get off it but fall and fall and fall, hitting all the other branches on the way down until I finally landed on the rocks far below. It's scary, honestly, feeling this way about someone - the fear they won't fall, it can be overwhelming. It's a risk everyone takes whenever they love someone, but that doesn't make it any less scary.

And I started to retreat - the fear of him not falling for me the way I've fallen for him led me to try to pull away to protect my heart. Which isn't good. A wonderful friend of mine convinced me to talk to him about it - to be a grown up. As terrifying as it was, I was able to put my big girl pants on and talk to him about it. We had this wonderful talk, and it turns out that he is on the same page as I am. He is so patient, and so kind, and so willing to listen. Part of the reason it was so scary for me to even talk to him about what was going on was because in the past, opening up about my feelings has just led to fights. Mr. Texas wasn't equipped to support me emotionally, and so opening up and trusting always backfired on me, badly. I was terrified the same thing would happen here - and it didn't. It was a tremendous experience for me - it's hard, but he's helping me learn that there ARE people who are equipped to give me the emotional support I need, who are equipped to listen and who WANT to listen.

Last week he told me he feels fortunate that I decided to buy him, of all the guys in the bar, a drink. I don't think he realizes how fortunate I feel that something told me to buy him a drink. And that I feel even more fortunate that he came to talk to me after I disappeared into the ether.