In love - again.

Lately, my relationship with Matthew has been foremost on my mind. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's China. Maybe it's that we're becoming anxious to be together. It's just become harder and harder to ignore that ticking clock in the background. Things are becoming more and more concrete as time passes. I've always been a dreamer, but Matthew loves to plan logistics. Concrete details. We're constantly talking about possible routes and dates and getting excited over tentative plans.

From the very beginning I've had little reason to ever doubt that this is what I want, yet I strangely find myself finding out more and more that this really is what I've been looking for all my life.

But then there comes this incredible pressure to be sure. I need to know, yet it really should be too early to tell. I remember I felt similar pressure to decide as soon as I met him. It's different in person than it is over the phone. Having already met him in person, I have less worries on my mind about how it will be different, but it still ranks high on the importance scale for me to be with him to be able to decide.

Right now, I'm hyper-analyzing every single emotion I experience in relation to him. I want to be absolutely unshakable in my knowledge that this is the direction I want to take. I know what I feel - and that is that I want to be with him, and him only, for the rest of my life. But I need to know where those feelings and emotions come from to be able to trust them.

In trying to express my confusion and reluctance to trust my feelings, I tried to explain to Matthew how I am trying to separate this relationship from others, especially since I've been in love many times before and have considered and desired marriage in my other relationships as well. It caught him off guard I guess, since I am the first one he's ever felt this strongly about. To him, that's a sign that I am what he is looking for. Imagine how difficult it must be for him that I cannot say the same.

This is what he wrote on his blog:

I've been wondering all morning what it means to be jealous, wondering if I am, and wanting not to be. To be more specific, I guess more than worrying about the jealousy aspect--I'm wondering if there's enough magic there, or enough whatever else, where I'm told that I matchup to a checklist best of all, but the level of feelings has been as great with others. Comparisons--I always heard they could have this effect. I'm more than confident in where things are. I just want, understandably I think, Faye to have that 'you make me feel something I've never felt before'. Which makes me sound like a teenage girl magazine, or a romantic, or something. And I just hope it's not jealousy. I don't think it is. And I hope it's not insecurity--to be realistic, I don't see how she or I should feel anything that definitive based on the unlikely and long distance unfolding of our relationship.

Since he admitted how he felt about what I said, I've been desperately searching for ways to reassure him. He says that it's ok, and not to worry about it. I know he doesn't want me to tell him what he wants to hear just because I feel he needs to hear it. When I try to share whatever honest feelings I have about this relationship now, it just sounds like a feeble attempt to quell his concerns.

It frustrates me that I feel this constant need to compare. I guess that's how I make sense of my world. Hands down, this has been the most intellectually and spiritually fulfilling relationship I've ever had. It is also, potentially the most physically fulfilling. *grin* But I can say that it is the best only because I contrast it against past relationships.

As far as emotions go, I've invested so much into all of my other relationships. Matthew started to read some of my old posts yesterday. A large number of which were about my break up(s) with Mark. I also talked about Jared and Matt(the other) a good deal because I was looking back on past relationships a lot at that time, being newly single again.

He asked me, what is it like to have your heart broken? He'd never experienced it before and wants to understand.

That caught me somewhat off guard. I haven't had to think about heartache in a long while. I'm past the hurt and the shock and the bitterness and confusion. I wouldn't be here today in this relationship if everyone of those hadn't ended. It was ugly then, but it had to be done. And I'm amazed that I survived. I remember being so fearful of the hurt that I clung on to my relationship with Mark for dear life. We weren't the most compatible of couples, but I had fallen in love with him and didn't want to go through a breakup. I couldn't imagine our future as clearly as the one I see now, but I felt confident that I could make it work. I think I changed what I was looking for so that our relationship would fit in that mould.

The relationship, however, was incredibly stagnant. Then, there was drama. He had decided to transfer schools. Of course I was hurt: I was willing to give up everything for that relationship, but he couldn't commit to us. It scared him. I wanted to know if our relationship was going anywhere. He felt that it meant that he had to decide then and there whether or not he was going to marry me. I just wanted to know if he wanted to. Ah. My largest exposure to inscurity.

We could have done the long distance thing. We'd tried it before. But there wasn't enough there to tie us together that far apart. Maybe it was me reacting out of anger. It was an ultimatum to me. Fine, leave me; go ahead and throw away what we have and I hope you regret it forever.

In every relationship I've been in, I've always been the first to recover. I go through this intense phase of restructuring my world, looking desperately around to replace that emotional dependency, crying, comiserating with sad songs. But I move on. While I don't think that they "regret it forever", sometimes I feel like I cursed them in my spite. Maybe it's just my ego and I'm delusional, but it seems that they hold on much longer than I do.

So I have this tendency to want to fall in love in every relationship that I'm in. Remember back when this was named "Faye's Boyfriend Replacement"? That was addressing my emotional need for a relationship. Many people search for a relationship to validate their self worth. Sometimes, people seek for someone to love them and give them the attention that they need. While I need that as well, most of the time, when I'm single, I am looking for someone I to love. It is extremely difficult for me to find someone who I can love because I cross people off my "list" really fast. My need is to completely devote myself to someone. To dote. To be head over heels. To daydream about my future with him. To build my world around my love for a person. And I have done that, except that when you build your world on a foundation of a single, flawed person, your building will eventually crumble and come tumbling down.

And then there was heartache.

Now I am in a relationship where both heart and mind (and body!) tell me that this is what I want. I just need that spiritual confirmation. Since my last break up, I'd been working on my emotional dependency. I no longer feel like I need a relationship to function. That's a good thing. But I am also sensing my increasing attachment to Matthew and our relationship. And more than needing him, which I do, I want to need him. And I am afraid of that.

There is so much inner conflict with my emotions now because I am trying to put them on a leash. I want to make sure that I'm not making the same mistakes again. I followed the advice of "listen to your heart" before. Maybe it wasn't my heart that I was listening to, but I don't think that was sound advice. Now, I wonder what I am listening for.

So forgive me if I can't say this is the first time I've ever been in love or felt like I could do this forever. But I don't think that it's completely fair to claim that the level of feelings has been as great with others. It really is too long ago to remember.

What I can say though, is that I've looked at every aspect of our relationship and it just feels right. It would go against reason to not be in love this time. I am doubting only because I feel that doubting is healthy. I would be far more afraid if I went into this without any hesitation at all. It is not you that I doubt, but my own interpretations of my feelings.

Please be patient with me as I spend time working things out on my knees. This is important to me and I want to do it right this time.

Matthew, I love you. And if I have felt similarly about others before, at least know that I don't ever want to with anyone else ever again.