Not sleeping

I had this plan for Saturday night: I was going to see Jake and we were going to end the evening at a semi-reasonable hour (2am was my hypothetical deadline). Then I was going to go out on two back-to-back 1.5-hour dates on Sunday. Am I stupid? Why did I think it would work? I had the whole thing thought out. I knew it would be hard. I'd even told Jake "no sleepovers." As it turns out saying, "no sleepovers" has just about the same effect as saying "we're not having sex." It guarantees a sleepover.

Saturday was a really good day. After spending most of the afternoon together, Jake picked up some Chinese food and came over around 9:00 pm. We watched a movie. Then the kissing started. It got late fast. Time with Jake seems to go quickly. We were in a time bubble. I didn't want him to leave. He wanted to stay, but he didn't insist. He never pushes. If I'd asked him to go, he would have gone. I kept running it around in my head. And I couldn't decide. It seemed wrong for him to go. I wanted him to stay. He didn't want me to do anything that would make me uncomfortable. He didn't want me to break any rules. I tried to explain that I didn't want to have the physical part of the relationship rush past the emotional part. I said I wanted to have a chance to get to know him. I didn't want to already be in something with someone who I didn't know. Did he get it? Maybe. I finally said, "You're invited to stay over." And he accepted. At that point I still had an idea that he would leave at a reasonable hour and I would go on those dates. Yeah. Right.

For those of you who don't know me or who make unfounded assumptions, sleeping over did not equal sex (of any kind). There was a lot of hugging and very little sleeping. I'm not going into more detail than that. It was really, really good to have him there. I actually think I would have slept worse without him.

When morning rolled around I knew that I had to make a couple of phone calls. I decided that I would say I was sick. I had a terrible headache and a bit of a sore throat. Not something that would have kept me home, but enough that it was not 100% a lie. Both guys were nice about it, but I felt terrible. I hated telling the lie and knew there was more to come--not more lying, just more explaining. I even ended up telling Jake that I'd made the dates and that I was canceling them. Actually, I told him after I'd cancelled the first one. He didn't ask me to cancel, which was important, I needed to make the decision myself.

We just hung out all morning and were lazy. We didn't step out of the room. Jake tried to get the kitty to play with him, but she wasn't interested. Eventually, though, we got hungry and decided to go to Eden Center for Vietnamese food. Then Heather called and I asked her if she wanted to go too. We picked her up and after "lunch" (at 4:00 pm) we wandered a little and then went to Target.

It was a good date. Jake and I decided that it counted as the sixth date because we made an actual separate plan to go somewhere.

I'm writing this and I know how much I like Jake. Yet there is some nagging doubt. I want the doubt gone, to be erased, to be as calm as he is. That is too much to ask of myself, for sure. I am also afraid to ignore my doubts, because that has led to trouble in the past. Still, the things I'm worried about are things that might happen, not things that have happened. What am I worried about? That our sometimes less than perfect communication might become a problem, that I may start getting annoyed at him about who knows what, that I might not continue to like him as much as I do now. Nothing bad has happened. Sometimes I don't always understand him, but I usually manage to figure it out. Maybe I'm just afraid to continue down the road we're on and I'm looking for problems. This is really a pretty terrifying thing. It's more scary because it is happening so easily, so quickly and so without trouble.

Remember: fun now, serious later. There is always time for serious. I need to keep my head in the fun part. Maybe the serious won't be so bad.

In terms of gratitude, I should be grateful for the kind of problems I'm having right now: great guy who likes me, etc. But I'm not. What am I grateful for? The Eden Center. Believe the name, it is like a little slice of heaven. I'm sure we'll be back.