51 Weeks in On loves.

“He and I were in Target with my girl friend,” I say to my therapist, “and I was trying to help her pick out a body pillow when I said to him, ‘Um. Why is my entire ear in your mouth?’”

Next week marks a year since our first date, and sometimes, it seems like I just met him. Our communication is still careful, sweet and tentative. All hand holding and cheek caressing and bright eyed. We said goodbye at the airport a few weeks ago, clung to each other, before realizing, with mutual sheepishness, that we’d only be apart for four days. “Ok, we’re ridiculous. Bye.”

Sometimes I think back to a year ago, how I lived in San Francisco, and he did too, and I was going through each day without him in my life, and I forget there were things before him. I feel a strange sadness for myself before we met. How much I was missing and I didn’t even know.

It’s goddamn healthy and fun and easy, but it’s not all blissful and carefree. He’s smarter, more rational and socially adept, but I’m nearly five years older than he is. Since high school, he’s had one other girlfriend and in some ways dating is still new and novel. For me, I’ve been playing this game for over ten years. There is always the thought in the back of my head, This is what I’ve been waiting for, and looming behind that, the thought that it’s too early for him, it will never last. And then what?

Last updated August 01, 2015