The Early Stages of Dating

When you first start seeing someone, everything is rosy and good and nothing is dark and bad, and there are no tears or drama or jealousy. It’s the lovely, simple time before you even have your own feelings figured out.

You don’t want to seem needy and clingy and overly-attached, but suddenly all your friends seem lackluster and your new beau is the zenith of all that is fun and amazing in the universe and you just want to non-creepily spend every spare second in their company. So you make plans. First it’s happy hour, then food, then maybe a movie. Then it becomes all these inane activities. Let’s go rock climbing, let’s try trapezing. Ever hiked in the Shenandoah’s? LET’S DO IT.

Because when a relationship is first getting off the ground, you’re hopelessly reliant on organized activities to give your time together some structure. The gist of the plan is essentially meaningless, but there’s an unwritten rule that you’ve got to have one. Both parties must at least pretend there's an underlying reason for meeting up besides possibly wanting to exchange DNA.

So the Big Date is scheduled and details confirmed but fro-yo becomes dinner which turns into drinks which leads to morning coffee and suddenly you’ve powered through all the classic date night activities in a single whirlwind evening and you find yourself sprawled on a couch watching re-runs of sitcoms wishing you’d spaced things out just a little bit better. It’s like speed dating except with one person instead of a roomful of singles.

And now things aren't rosy and good or dark and bad but some kind of murky pinkish middle ground.

Is this (just) real life?

Ties that Bind...

I watched you pack up your apartment in a matter of hours it seemed. You posted and re-posted on craigslist offering up the last of your freecycled furniture and managed to turn a profit off the pieces you’d accumulated over the months. I was impressed. And jealous. And sad.

Your ability to take flight, literally, made me feel all the more stifled and tied down. I’m grateful for the life I’ve made but I have too many things.

I have an apartment and it’s pretty and I love it.
I have furniture and it’s heavy and hard to move.
I have clothes that overflow from every dresser and closet and plastic bin.
I love this and I hate this.

The life I’ve made for myself here is valuable and valid. It’s evidence of my existence, of my efforts to create a home.

And yet, watching you climb out of my car that morning, all limbs and luggage, it seemed so unfair.

You are quick to make friends, quick to build experiences, and quick to create stories, but you never knotted yourself to me. You made it easy to pick up and take off and start anew.

You left me behind. Saddled now with not just my life, but pieces of yours; your boxes and our memories and a check to cash when your bank account was full again.