He tells me it's okay to need things, but I'm afraid to simply want him in All Out of Balance

-Tomorrow Cali comes back home. He definitely expressed his want to see me, almost as if he’d be upset if I wasn’t available. He asked if I wanted to pick him up from the airport or meet him at his apartment. I offered to pick him up. A part of me very much so wants to make him smile. He’s returning from a work trip and has a lot on his mind, so I know he’s not in the best head space.-

That was a post I began to write last week. Cali returned home before I could finish writing it. This man makes me smile from ear to ear. We spent almost every day together before he was off again on another trip. He had an evening flight and spent all morning and afternoon with me, and kissed me goodbye at the airport.

I’ve only known him for a few months but he has completely upset my plans, my intentions, and what I thought I wanted. I just wanted to be carefree, enjoy my time, and maybe meet some people along the way whose company I enjoyed as well. Cali is different. It started out as this cute guy who took me to a tea shop. My first real attraction to him was how smart he was, and that we could talk for hours.

I’m completely wrapped up in our mental and physical chemistry, and even on some levels our spiritual chemistry. When I say spiritual chemistry, I don’t mean some in depth faith based God sent him to me connection. I mean me feeling balanced and at peace, even though the point of me writing lately is because I’m not balanced nor at peace hence the name yin no yang. But we have conversations that start off with him saying,

“it’s okay to need things”
“i don’t need anything”
“we all need something”
“not me, i’m not supposed to need anything”

The truth is I don’t want to need him. It scares me to simply want him as much as I do. It’s only been a few months, but he keeps doing things that make me want him in my life even more than I did the day before. I’m worried because I think I’m falling in love.

I don’t want to be in love, I don’t want to fall in love, I don’t want to need someone, I don’t want to be this vulnerable. Love is a beautiful thing that I’m just not ready for. I’ve only been in love 3 times in my life, at 16, 20, and 29. At 16, I learned I could fall in love. In my 20s I learned that losing love can throw you into a depression. At 29, I learned that I could fall in love again.

At 16, a friendship grew into love (my first love) . At 20 (my second love), that love sustained for more than 7 years. I don’t think I’ll ever actually stop loving my southern charmer, but I can’t be with someone I don’t trust. Losing the love I thought I’d always have broke me when he didn’t choose me. He took two years to realize I needed him to apologize, choose us, and make things right. In that two years I went from depressed and not eating to finding the strength to love myself again. He came back to choose me, to win me, to get me to come back to him two years too late. I had moved on, and I was angry with the world that I could not get my love back. I felt like I was in love with a ghost. When I thought of my ex it filled my heart with joy and wrapped me in an indescribable warmth. When we were face to face, all I could see were the lies, the mistakes, the hard times, the moments he was so unfair to me, and all of my romantic longing was gone. To simultaneously miss him while standing right in front of him was a hard fact to swallow. Losing that love was like mourning the death of a part of me.

That kind of intense emotion is not something I can even think of handling in my life right now. At 29, I didn’t know what falling in love could look like again. There is no doubt that I loved him. Not the same way I loved my southern charmer, but definitely showed me I could fall in love again; it would just be different.

Cali scares me because the feelings I have are giving me deja vu. I admitted to him one night,

“I think I like you more than you like me, but that’s okay.” I laid my head back on his chest
“What makes you say something like that? Do you think I’m not vulnerable with you?” He lifted my chin so his gaze met mine.
“I didn’t say that, it’s just something I thought.”
“Have I not been honest with you? I don’t want you thinking something like that.”

The conversation faded and we both drifted to sleep. Fast forward to last week and he reveals how he’s been feeling about me.

“I wasn’t expecting to meet someone I could trust”
I jokingly tapped his hand and said, “Aww, you trust me.”
“I don’t have the need or want to keep looking for someone or something new.”

There was certainly more to this conversation, but he confirmed for me in that moment that he was feeling as strongly for me as I have been feeling for him. That night, when he touched me it felt electric, when he kissed me I felt wanted, when he held me as we fell asleep I had no question I was supposed to be exactly where I was in that moment.

I’m beginning to feel that joy and warmth I once felt with my southern charmer. Cali makes me want more, and I’m absolutely scared to death of that fact!

Last updated August 01, 2019