i wonder

I wrote this in response to a comment on my previous post: Why do some people want to hold on to something that has hurt them before?

He was hurt by X. So hurt, that even now, four years later, he still had to compare what he feels about me to how he felt about her, which led him to decide that it's not a good idea.

It's as though he heard something he didn't like in what I said about relationships and it stuck there. He has mentioned to me several times that she really messed him up. His view of dating relationships as finite (and in fact with the last two that he's been interested in, he figured things wouldn't last), before giving them a chance, tells me that he's scared.

So it seems that when he heard me say that I want someone who's not going to think "this is gonna end" he translated it to "she wants something that's going to last forever with me". Who wouldn't want to find something that lasts? But no one thinks right away that this is what's in front of them.

Sometimes I wonder whether he's convincing himself that I have high expectations so that he won't have to get involved and potentially hurt himself. He has expressed that he's not ready to get his heart broken.

But why, why hang on?

I certainly don't feel about him the way I felt about my ex. Why does he need to compare? Different people = different situations = different feelings. At least that's the way I see it.

The upside to this whole thing is that I'm sleeping more soundly. So soundly that I have lots of trouble getting up. I concentrate more on books I'm reading because thoughts of what I should do about him don't tease my brain away from the words.

I was riding in the car with my brother from the station today and he joked that I'm pining over...well, let's call him B. He has no idea what I've done. He didn't think I would deal well with rejection, so he didn't think I should ask him out. The truth is, I wasn't pining at all. I was thinking about the situation, but I was feeling calm, taking in the impossible brilliance and softness of the sunlit clouds, while feeling the undercurrent of the absence of anticipation.

I do miss the tension of the unknown with regard to B. I miss the mutual feeling.

Because despite what he said, I know what I know. I know that we both felt something at the same time for quite some time. I have to trust that I'm a smart woman. It takes me a while to believe it when a connection occurs. I put my emotions through a rigorous test to weed out falsity. But time has had its way.

I knew when he left for a year that I might never get my chance. I thought that if I got to him now, while we're both single, I could beat time as it races to fill empty spaces.

More and more, I'm learning how tricky time is. It'll have its way. When you think you're ahead, it's simply because you didn't see it pass. Or maybe you took the wrong route after all. Or maybe I just had a false start.