tug-o-war

So, there have been a few times in the last 2 months when i've found myself sort of frustrated. No real object of the frustration. I guess maybe frustration at the realities of the situation i find myself in with this girl. I mean, if I was at Taylor and we had been doing this crazy dance toward starting a relationship, things would be a little different. The biggest difference would be the level of intimate, personal knowledge of one another. There would have been about a million coffee dates and all the random run-in's as well as im sure 10 big depressing emails from me (I've managed to keep it down to one this time). I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is a small tug-o-war in me. On the one hand, I know that emotionally, I am very attached to this person. Everything about getting to talk to her or be with her makes my days that much better. In my heart, I think I am ready to start talking 'relationship'. On the other hand, mentally, I remind myself that, even after doing things for 2 months I know about as much intimate, personal detail about her as I have gotten in 2 or 3 conversations with other people. And I ask myself what the heck im thinking about relationships if I dont even know her that personally compared to other girls i've known only to have those fail later on down the road. That's the tension. I've gone back and foreth on this on for about a week. Here are a couple of realizations. I cannot think about how me doing this now compares to me doing this at taylor would match up, cause the situations are simply too different. The number of encounters doesn't work becuase i could have gotten together a million times with her and still been balking at my friends who would try to call it a date. These are real dates. These are intetional things with very intentional reasons. Her agreeing to go on a date with me now is telling me about a Shakesperian sonnet's worth of information compared to what getting together for coffee at Taylor would have told me. anyone can sit down for coffee with anyone at taylor and it still be safe to make whatever you will out of it. Not so for agreeing to go to indy with someone who doesn't even go to school anymore. I need to give that more pull in this little tension of mine than i allow it. Here's another thing... When I was at school everything about 'relationships' hinged around time and knowledge. Do I know her with little to no depth yet to be charted? Have we spent enough time to constitute knowing each other well enough to make such a committment as 'dating'. Here's where i'm beginning to realize that school was this situation unique to itself in all the rest of life's experiences. I was allowed to assess things with that criteria in mind because I had both the time to do such things, as well as a setting which was conducive to engaging that to it's fullest potential. To not know a girl with such depth or to not have spent a million hours of face time together was probably a pretty valid red-flag to waive at potential relationship because in such a situation as college, there's absolutely no reason you don't take full advantage of that and get to that place. The changed situation is this... No longer am i able to pick up the phone and convince her to meet me at the union where we can talk all night and, at worst, maybe oversleep a class or not spend enough time on a paper that will get maybe a little lower letter grade that wont really affect the class grade too drastically, let alone your GPA or whatever. Who cares? Now to pick up the phone to do that means getting in the car, driving an hour, sitting and talking all night, driving back and jumping in the shower for work cause the day begins at 545 and if you dont have enough physical energy to stay on your feet and stay focused, bosses are going to get pretty pissed cause you're gonna do something wrong. Not to say that I probably wont do this from time to time (cause it's me and those are the sorts of things i do cause they are both necessary and worthwhile), but I'm not able to do this with a 10th the frequency as I would be able to at school. All that to say, i am working on being ok with not having had a million hours of contact before i seriously contemplate dating this girl. Cause I think I really do want to date her. No, I'm convinced that I want to date her. And as I try to think and feel and process that through I realize that it's not the same rational, linear reason that I've come to that point in the past. Because of the distance. Becaue of the inability to insatiate her with coffee until she tells me everything there is to know. Becuase of the other things I would use to process, I think i've found myself, maybe for the first time, allowing my emotions to play out more wholely. Emotionally, I have decided that I know her enough to be a part of her life. Emotionally, I feel like there's enough connection to constitute relationship. Emotionally, this all seems to line up wonderfully for me, it's just that the emotional is so not my forte that it's caused a bit of internal tension. This realization takes me far, because i'm ready to say 'screw-it' and throw inhibitions and aprehensions out the window and just go with the emotions on this one. Dating could be this wonderful, beautiful process of her becoming more and more comfortable with me, and me becoming more and more personally aware of who she is. I like that idea and I'm going to fight hard in my head to not let all of my mental criteria for certain levels of knowledge and time be satisfied before I open myself up to where I feel I already am on an emotional level. I may not know her as well as I know others yet, but I know her enough to know that she is worth following my emotional self for once.