My truth

The moment I started having the conversation with the jalapeno about needing space and time to think, I felt awkward and off-center. My feelings for him are stronger than I was willing to admit. They flooded my brain as my mouth was speaking things like “a little bit of time and space isn’t going to change our feelings for each other if we are meant to be together.” After he suggested that we can see other people (as I wanted initially), but he hopes the physical and emotional distance doesn’t extinguish the fire between us, I realized that I don’t want that either. As soon as he suggested that, my heart leapt into my throat and I suddenly felt like I was making a mistake.

He cares about me, respects my wishes and wants this to work, but I can tell he’s frustrated with me and that created an internal reaction that I wasn’t anticipating…it made me feel terrible. Not because he was controlling the situation, but because he was giving me what I wanted, was very sincere, and in so doing deepened my confusion.

I say confusion because it is so hard for me to admit the deepest, darkest truth. Deep breath. Here goes.

My truth is this. I haven’t felt like this about a man in over a decade. And that scares me. The speed of my feelings scares me. The speed of his feelings scares me. I’ve been alone for six years and so have cultivated myself as an independent, free-spirited woman who makes all of her own decisions and is beholden to no one. The last time I even remotely started to touch on feeling this way (Bachelor #1), I got burned.

I say that I don’t want to be put in a box, but the truth is that I believe being deeply in love with someone doesn’t put you in a box, it frees you in a way. I have experienced this before, if only for a few years. But I am scared of how I feel for the jalapeno. Of how natural and easy and fun it feels to be with him and talk to him. Of how I can easily imagine doing all of those things he talks about doing in the future. I’m scared of my individuality being subsumed into a relationship and of having to sacrifice pieces of myself and become an altered version of me…I’ve been through that before. So I see warning signs everywhere, whether they are real or not.

And before you say, but he isn’t your ex-husband and he isn’t Bachelor #1…I know. But I’m placing all sorts of thoughts and fears and expectations on this situation that likely have nothing to do with the jalapeno. They only have to do with me. And while my concerns about being absorbed and diminished are a natural reaction (for me), I also realized over the course of the evening after I talked to the jalapeno that my reaction to his overwhelming confidence in his feelings for me has more to do with my fears than with his sincerity (which I do believe is real).

What is wrong with me? Am I no longer capable of losing myself – in a good way – under a man’s strong umbrella of feelings? Am I destined to run the other way when a man basically expresses love for me in every way, but without saying it?

The truth is, I’m scared of falling in love. I’m so scared, it makes me cry and my extremities go cold. I’m scared of what it means, so I’m resisting. I’m scared of what falling in love will mean for my future – and I imagine it to be a negative impact. I’m not used to being scared and overwhelmed. So my reaction is to back away like a cornered cat looking for escape. But if I’m being honest about my feelings, I do want to be with the jalapeno. He makes me feel like a sexy, desirable, lovable woman worthy of love and respect. And it’s not that I don’t think this about myself, but there’s something very different about the sentiment when it’s coming from a man who very clearly means it.

I had no idea I was so damaged.