try not to breathe

ok, so the blog comments added to the email and phone call feedback has prompted me to believe that you, dear readers, really DO want to hear about the silly boy stories. thank you for wanting to hear them, because i really do want to tell them.

this time, at least, i'm going to try to weave it back into the long-languishing optimism experiment and themes of happy, fear, and BELIEVE.

what does it mean that i start to feel actually a little light headed and swoony when i read his emails? why do i plod along in a tongue tied daydream (seriously, have any of you ever known me to be tongue tied?) when i'm spending the day with him? and why, oh Lord, WHY does it feel so unterrifyingly natural for me to talk to him about ideas of going to san francisco or DC together, or for him to come on the portugal build, or to have started using "we" and "us" so casually that i almost didn't realize it? that he is already thinking about what sort of delicious treat he will make for me to eat after the marathon. the marathon that is still 3 months away.

the old cynic me would have titled this post "trainwreck", as in sarah maclaughlan's ode to being a trainwreck waiting to happen. but something, somehow, is just not digging up any panic or red flags. despite the deeply rooted cocked-eyebrow skepticism that wonders WHY he likes me so much, since nobody else has lo these many years. despite the half-second panic of 'what happens when this all dissolves into a pile of nothing?'. despite an overwhelming impulse to drag him immediately to a banana republic or a macy's men's shoe department...i actually feel really calm. calm and happy. and slightly like the computer screen is blurry and too bright when i read his emails.

i suddenly don't care very much if other people think that he is cute. i know that he is cute. especially when he has a huge grin on his face after telling me the lamest joke EVER. especially when we realize for the first time that we just shared an inside joke. that we have already gotten to know each other well enough that there is an "inside", and we are on it. and we both smile.

so. someone recently asked me if i am now a converted optimist. i mulled over that question for a couple of seconds and decided that i must be, because i am working my way into a Very Scary Thing and the nausea i am feeling is markedly more like butterflies than a panic attack. i must be, because i look trepidatiously into the future and i see....nothing in particular. which may not sound like much, but really, it is a remarkably optimistic step for a person who would typically see the light at the end of the tunnel as a speeding freight train hellbent on splattering me.

maybe all the lightheadedness is the struggle of my brain to settle into happy and calm in such unfamiliar territory. i don't know. maybe. but for the first time i can remember, i don't feel in a panic about being myself with a boy. and that makes me actually feel hopeful, rather than just write about feeling hopeful. it's a great feeling! you should try it! i wonder why it took me so long to give it a shot.