longest nonpost ever

So I absolutely ADORE going back and reading entries from my blog over the past few months. It’s like a journal and reminds me of all the good times I have.

The following chronicle the development of BOY and me (and my crazy crazy thoughts!)

Each new excerpt from a random entry is marked with a '*.'

*(previously unpublished) What should I do? What am I doing? I feel really icky. But not really.. I am feeling things that I probably shouldn’t after such a short time, but I am.This time it feels different. I like this guy’s personality, his goals, his persistence.

*He tasted like a Christmas tree last night. It was delish. He fed me Arby’s curly fries while I drove. And he blew on each one of them before giving them to me. Is this guy for real? His middle name is Morgan.

* The quote I actually started this entry thinking about was “When you're young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun, then you grow up and learn to be cautious; you could break a bone, or a heart. You look before you leap and sometimes you don't leap at all because there's not always someone there to catch you. And in life, there is no safety net. When did it stop being fun and start being scary?”

Life is scary. We’re getting older. Decisions stay with us. They affect us. When you start a new relationship, you have to consider things you never did before. Because I don’t want to date someone for 3 years and then just settle for them. I want the fairy tale, but I want to achieve my goals simultaneously. And that might not happen, but I don’t want to choose between the two. But there’s no map to follow…and so I guess.

*I don’t know. I just don’t know. What should I do about this hotard boy I am ‘dating?’ dating, yeah right. I think that term implies that you actually see each other every once in a while. BOOOOOO! What makes me the most mad and scared is I know I am freaking out because I like him a lot. But I am acting like such a girl….

*But he sure does let me go off chasing my rabbit trails. And telling him ridiculous stories of my escapades. And he just listens and laughs (somewhat) on cue. So that is why Bill is a pretty good complement for me. He is kind of like Jeremy is for Nikki. He lets me be completely crazy and out of control and just watches. Of course he has never seen me really out of control (like pissed off or sad or some other emotion), but I imagine he would handle me pretty well and just let me run my course. He would just sit there and let me go crazy and know that I would calm down in a few minutes. Or maybe he would just say shut up steph, you’re fine. Either would work. This is awful, but we would also have really pretty kids. I know I know I shouldn’t have thought about it yet but they would be pretty.

* So he wasn’t trying to get rid of me. We hung out last night. And just as I always am after hanging out with him, I am a smitten kitten. It’s scary to admit, but I really really like this guy. Really. I just don’t know how to handle my feelings right now. We still need to have a bit of a DTR, which I think will occur sometime later this week. And of course I will provide all the gory details.

*TNB is back in the running. Thank God. I really like him and was hoping all along that he would not turn out to be a complete passive aggressive chauvinistic jerkface. And he’s not. Whoo hooooo! He has basically nothing to do for 2 weeks until selection so he is alllllll mine. Hahahaaa. But now that he is done with all the training, I think it means he can leave really soon. Crap. That is not funsies. Oh well, will cross that bridge when we come to it.

* HALLMARK MOMENT: I just realized that TNB is not really ‘the new boy’ anymore. After careful calculation (or me just sitting here thinking about the events in my life over the past few months…), I discovered that we have hanging out, or dating, or doing whatever we are doing, for almost 2 months. That is a whole heck of a long time for stephie1010 to hang around with a guy. WHOA! What a giant accomplishment for me to achieve (clapping for myself…)! Seriously, I am thinking about it, and this ‘relationship’ might qualify as one of the top 5 longest…wow.

* Things I Have Recently Learned About Myself:
1. I become VERY VERY kissy when I drink around a boy I like.
2. I don’t need as much sleep as I once thought I did.
3. I can be comfortable in work clothes.
4. I LIKE having a boy around to hang out with and talk to.
5. I might actually enjoy small PDAs…every once in a while. When appropriate.

* Things I adore:
1. being adored
2. diet dr. pepper
3. happy surprises
4. forehead kisses
5. making lists
6. people playing with my hair
7. getting dolled up
8. foot massages
9. my friends
10. thoughtful cards
11. happy text messages
12. laughing
13. red wine
14. BOY’s lips
15. BOY’s teeth
16. BOY’s eyes
17. the way BOY calls me when he says he will, or just to talk
18. okay, BOY, in general
19. liking someone a lot
20. luxuriating in bed on a rainy day
21. cuddling
22. taking funny pictures
23. fun dancing

* Intimacy is a definitely a two-headed dragon. It is so amazing to be soclose to someone but yet so deathly frightening at the same time. Wanting to tell someone everything about you; wanting to know everything about them…that’s a powerful desire. It comes with a price, though. Vulnerability. Once someone knows everything about you, they know your weaknesses. They know how to hurt you the deepest. They know what cards you hold. And they definitely know what cards to play. On the flip side, however, they know what you value the most, what makes you the happiest, your dreams and aspirations. They know how to comfort you in a way no one else can. They know. Everything. And knowledge is a very powerful entity.

* So some huge stuff happened this weekend. Well, one huge thing. Something I didn’t think I would EVER let occur. Yep, I sure did let BOY read the blog. It just kind of came to the point where I realized he knew how I felt about him and I don’t care if he knows what an INSANO I am…he has probably figured that out already and he is pretty crazy too. So that’s good. I don’t know what else to say because now I know he is reading…hahahaaa…JK 2K6! Seriously though, he loved it. He laughed at the funny parts and totally understood the posts where I was mad at/upset about him. I think him reading it and finally getting into my mind really freed me in a way. I am not a pretender, per se, but there are some things I don’t freely discuss, and now he knows them. Which is really cool. And scary. And yet cool.

* I think I am falling in love with BOY.

* So, once again, it was another AMAZING weekend. I feel so blessed that God has bestowed upon me a wonderful family with whom I have a BLAST, amazingly talented, giving, and loving friends, a BOY I adore (who knew I could like him even more now than a few weeks ago?), and a true joy that I have lived and learned during another year!

* The relationship with BOY is a beautiful thing, an example of true harmony, where each entity involved benefits greatly from our union. You see, he likes to cook and I like to EAT! Heheee…jk. But it’s true. However, I not only eat the food, but I clean up afterwards. And I don’t mind that. Cleaning is pretty therapeutic for me, except when I slosh dishwater all over myself like I did last night. That was NEATO.

* Current, New, and/or Chronic Obsessions:
1. NEW: Raspberry Lemonade Jolly Ranchers…little hard drops of heaven
2. NEW: BOY’s cooking
3. NEW: BOY’s hands (they are BEAUTIFUL! Nice shape, fingers, nails, no icky callouses, and they are the perfect size!)
4. Instead of continuing the listings of things I am obsessed with re: BOY, just know that I like a lot about him, i.e. pretty much everything
5. Giggling. Last night I had one of those fits when something not even very funny sent me into a fit of hysteria—I laughed so hard I cried and convulsed…BOY just sat there and watched. And laughed at me. I can’t even remember what was SO funny.
6. The smell of clean laundry. Or clean BOY.

* CASE IN POINT: this is why I HEART him…he is just as eccentric as me! he got extremely excited-o about dressing up. Okay checklist again: amazingly attractive, perfect teeth, FUNNY, loves food, loves to get dressed up, massages my feet, kisses my forehead, laughs at my jokes, doesn’t take all the crap I throw out at him, is so good to me, has the clearest, most beautiful blue eyes I have EVER seen, can actually hold a conversation about REAL things…LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE it!

* So all in all, a great weekend. Pretty much spent it with the BOY 24/7. I like it that way. He is my current addiction. And hopefully a chronic one. Because I heart being with him.

* (posted on a blog I share with besties) So here is some exciting news for the Stepho…the BOY (for those of you who don’t know about him—read my blog, but his name is Bill [William Morgan—HOT name!]; he is from PA; went to RPI in NY and is an enginerd; is an NFO [Naval Flight Officer—navigator, like Goose in Top Gun]; is about 5’11” and has crystal blue eyes, curlyish brown hair, strong jaw, perfect teeth, and very nice hands—SWOON; is a big dork like me; loves to dance and get dressed up; is funny, etc. etc.) asked me to come to his winging ceremony! It’s a fancy formal ceremony when all the pilot/NFO students get their wings and are official! They wear their whites (hello HOT navy guys with educations—I will take LOTS of pictures) and their families come in town. So his is May 19 (which indicates that he is planning to still be around me at that point) and I am SUPER EXCITED to go with him. He asked me in the cutest way…we were cuddling and he was like ‘so I was wondering something…’ and I was like, ‘crap did he read my blog and hate it, is he going to ask me a weird off the wall question…what what what!’ but I just said ‘yeah?’ and he was like, ‘Would you like to come to my winging ceremony?’ I was like HOLY CRAP on the inside, bursting with excitement that he asked me, but I just said ‘Are you serious? Of course, I would love to!’ and then I couldn’t stop smiling. So cute he is. So stepho is excited and already wondering what I shall wear, in true stephie fashion.

* (also posted this one in a blog I share with the besties) Some questions for you guys. As I said on my last post, I am pretty much positive that I am in love with this kid. I know this because I want to spend EVERY MOMENT with him (and we pretty much do-which is why I am always MIA at night) and I am fine just laying around with him. And I can’t stop thinking about him. And I think about the long long-term with him. Like thinking about what type of ring he would buy me (SCARY, I know!). And I help him cook and clean and cut his hair. This is all sounding disgusting (and so atypically me!), I know. And so on and so forth. But I don’t want to get my heart smashed into a million tiny little spiny slivers when this guy leaves either (in June probably). But I don’t want to just continue with a long distance relationship, bc those pretty much suck unless there is some sort of higher commitment level (like with you and Matt, Kimber!) However, he has started talking about weird little things, like asking how long Morgan (my bestie) and her husband dated before getting engaged (he is a pilot too), and yesterday at church he asked if the Baptist church would accept a marriage between a Baptist and a Lutheran (which he is). Little stuff like that. but am I reading into those comments too much? Are they just typical questions? Am I just hearing what I want to hear? I am driving myself CRAZY! I do this sort of thing at work when I have nothing else to do but think. It is a bad bad thing.

So should I just let it be? Should I bring something up? I still feel it is a bit premature to have the ‘what are we going to turn into when you leave’ talk. Because it is still over a month away. And that question might be answered thru natural causes during the next month. We could break up. We could evolve naturally and the question won’t even need to be asked. I just don’t want to scare him or ‘limit’ the relationship by trying to define it so much right now. And we still have SO much to learn about each other. HHHEEEELLLLPPPPPP! I am such a hotard!!!!!

*(blog with friends) so…the boy and i said 'i love you' last night. AND we talked about the future. i didn't even bring it up! he got a bit jealous because a guy friend called me last night and then we launched into a discussion of our relationship and its future and what's gonna happen and how we are both scared, etc. etc. i told him we should just let it develop naturally over the next few weeks and not stress about him leaving yet, but that i most def was not going to follow him unless i was married to him and i wasn't going to wait around for him if we broke up. and he totally agreed. so we are kind of going to be at a breaking point soon. commit to long distance. or not. i hope commit. :)

*(random self-ranting) It’s official. I love him. He loves me. and we are both scared to death. Scared because we weren’t in each other’s plans. Neither of us was expecting to meet anyone significant that night at Chan’s. I don’t know what to do or say. I started writing this yesterday before I saw him again after that fateful conversation. I was nervous to see him again to be completely honest. What if he had changed his mind about me? what’s going to happen to us? What are we going to decide to do in a month or so? Questions, questions, questions. We haven’t re-uttered the ‘I love you’s’ again. Does he not want to say it to me? and what was with him telling me he knew I loved him? Am I THAT obvious. I don’t want a pity I love you. I want him to LOVE LOVE LOVE ADORE me. to fight for me. to love me until me until the day I die. To think that I am the MOST beautiful woman in the world, even when I look like crap. Which is more often than I should.

* REASON #456784 I HEART BOY: whew, he can dance. So hot right now. But he also enjoys the fun dancing and doesn’t have to grind on me all the time like most guys do because they CAN’T dance. No no he can hold his own. And I love that.

* I didn’t get to see BOY last night. It made me sad. I felt like some part of my day was missing. It’s weird, I am sitting here thinking, and I think I’ve seen him every day for almost a month (LOVE that). It’s like he’s part of my daily life now…and yesterday was kind of icky because I didn’t get to hang out with him. BOOOOOOOOOOOO. I hate how work and studying gets in the way of fun! This too shall pass though, my friends.

* Portabella is one of my favorite restaurants in the Pensy. For a town our size, I must admit, we have a pretty good variety of dining options. So BOY and I get all pretty (I look REALLY cute by the way…a scarf shirt—which causes some ‘fun’ later on and black capris with slingbacks…so hot right now!) and head to the restaurant. Turns out our waiter was a guy I knew in high school so he treats us really well. Dinner was amazing (portabella app, tomato basil soup, pork with sweet potatoes and apple, mocha liquer mousse cake…and yummy vino); we start talking with the waiter about what he’s doing with himself and what I am doing with myself and BOY SURE DOES pull out a copy of the article I had in the newspaper and share it with the guy. Soooo like those people who, while you are talking about mergers and acquisitions or something totally NOT on the topic of them are like, ‘oh you want to see pictures of my kids?’ I both loved him for it and wanted to slap him at the same time. A bit embarrassing, but really cute. He pulled it out later while we were one of his friend’s houses too. He is such a silly billy. He also made me crazy by telling me he hadn’t thought about my surprise/reward for only drinking one soda a day at all either. But then he said he had. But he hadn’t really. But he had. Aaaaah! He did that just to make me CRAZY! And it worked.

* Arrive at BOY’s house to flowers, a card, a can of DCVDP (Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper), and…bananas foster cheesecake. Oh yeah, and a pot of delish gumbalaya brewing in the kitchen. And dogs humping my legs. And BOY with freshly cut hair (so cute!). And an admission that he was going to write a poem but couldn’t come up with rhyming words (it was true; the thesaurus was out and everything), but he still decides to draw me pictures and put ‘happy words’ on a pink poster-y thing anyways. The flowers are gorgy…he made a bouquet of a rose, gerber daisies, and wildflowers all by himself (he might just be a frustrated florist…hmmmm). Love it. So we hang out, eat, he studies and I watch TV and then…IT’S GREY’S ANATOMY TIME!

* So, my friends, BOY and I had the ‘what’s going to become of us when he leaves’ conversation last night. And we decided to stay together and weather it. It kind of sucks that he is moving to pretty much the farthest place in the contiguous US that he can, but hey, I ADORE the NW…so frequent visits will have to ensue. Gotta love the price of plane tickets and ridiculously long traveling time. He is worth it though. Totally.

* Love is one of those things I have been afraid of my entire life. I don’t mean ‘afraid of’ in the sense that I stayed away from guys or never got into relationships. I just never let anyone completely into my life, let them see all of me, gave them my everything. Why? Because, deep down inside, on such a subconscious level I am not sure I can identify even today, I was afraid of losing. Losing them, losing myself, being hurt. I think allowing myself to be vulnerable, or letting people SEE my vulnerability is one of my biggest fears.You can’t be hurt if you don’t allow yourself to be. Also, to be completely honest, I never met anyone who I wanted to give my everything to… So I hid my heart and protected it and wrapped busyness and success and school and my love of friends, family and all people and all my little crazies I have to hide true feelings around it…and it worked. I have never really been hurt. But I had never really loved either. I don’t think I was at a point (or would ever be at the point) that my heart was hardened, because I LOVE so many people, just not any men. and I don’t think that I am worse off for it. I haven’t given myself to everyone I have met, or dated. That makes it much harder to do now…I am not used to being vulnerable, to admitting that I am upset, to having conversations about feelings with an SO (significant other)…
It’s new territory for me. and it’s scary. But it’s definitely exhilarating. I feel like a thrill seeker or one of those people who are addicted to pain because of the rushes of adrenaline…this time might be the end of me or damage me beyond recognition, but it might just be the best thing I have ever done.

* Again, an amazing weekend with fun times. BOY and I talked about a possible relocation for Stephie1010 in the future to the land of rain (AKA Washington state) which might just work out with grad school plans, or it may not. It’s weird though, when you meet the right person, all of a sudden, your ‘plans’ change. They don’t necessarily fly right out the window, but they do become much more fluid. I think about him, our relationship, when I think about my future, because I really feel, deep down inside, that my future is really our future; that it’s going to involve him. And I know he feels the same. We love us. The idea of us. How much fun we have together. How we make each other smile and laugh. How well we mesh. What we value. Our differences. Our similarities. We both think the other person is simply amazing. We just make sense. It just feels ‘right.’ And when something feels so right, you can’t let it get away. Why would I let it?

*So we are just walking around and pass a jewelry store and BOY suggests we go in. WHAT WHAT WHAT? My head starts spinning and I get a little weak in the knees. Pulse is racing…is he just playing with me? because I would SLAP him! But he isn’t (he is like, we talked about it, I am going to follow through and do it—I guess he really does want to be the luckiest man in the world…j/k winky face!), so we go in and try on lots of shinies and whoa, I love all of them. The salesman is a little greasy and we both insist we are just looking and def not buying today, but we get his card and move on. Whoa. This is a big deal. I mean, I know I want to marry him and spend the rest of my life with him, but I didn’t expect him to suggest looking at rings that day. Perhaps the hope had crossed my mind that he might sometime in the very near future (okay, that he would want to while we were on vacay), but the gravity of actually doing it was mind numbing. I realized, at the moment that he asked me to even look at rings, that we are really going to do this. I mean, I knew I wanted to and we had discussed it, but I don’t know, it’s just so amazing when action actually follows conversation. It’s so crazy that I met the love of my life at a sketchy college bar, but I did. And all the times I doubted when people told me that I would ‘just know’ when the right one was in front of me have vanished. They told me that all my carefully laid plans would fly out the window when I met the man of my dreams. They were right. It’s just right. He’s the one. And I feel more complete than I ever have before. And I’m so excited for what our future holds (a lot of laughs, dancing, and LOOOOOOOOOVE!). it’s gonna be awesome.

* Thank you to BOY, the love of my life, for being exactly what I need when I need it. For being the perfect match to my craziness and for letting me go crazy when I need to. For letting me cry on your shoulder. For making sure I eat breakfast. For loving to shop and to get pretty with me. For caring about my health. For fun dancing with me. For being proud of me. For thinking I am beautiful. For cooking for me. For being the perfect balance for my life. For kissing me when I want you to. For loving grooming yourself (and me!) as much as I do. For loving me for what I am, and for what I might become.

* I LOVE when BOY:
1. comes to eat lunch with me
2. kisses my forehead and neck
3. stands over the stove cooking (it’s the cutest sight in the world)
4. makes up new nicknames for me (because we all know I am the nickname QUEEN!)
5. bites his lip
6. really listens to what I say (because he REALLY does)

* I wish he was here so I could give him a hug…run my fingers through his hair…see his eyes light up when he sees me. so I could tickle his arm or let him kiss my forehead. Hear him tell me a story or laugh. But he’s not here, so I’m left remembering these things. Re-enacting them. Anticipating when I see him next. Which hopefully is soon…because it hurts.

* I’ve been thinking a lot about my life lately. My past. What I am doing with myself right now. What I want for my future. It’s crazy, this wonderful guy comes into my life and all my plans change for my future (maybe not change so much as become fluid, less urgent, or I think about different aspects of my future, like where I want to live, etc etc…), but I reflect so much more on my past too, the events that have brought me to this place… It’s also weird how events that really really suck can contribute to later events that are really really great. Like working at my old job. And how it pretty much was the worst thing EVER. And how I was so unhappy there that I just HAD to quit (even though I hate quitting anything) and move home before grad school. And how boy got burned and started school later and decided not to select a certain platform much earlier in his schooling that would have moved him away from Pensacola before we ever met. And then how we met. On a random evening. At a bar. Let’s not tell our grandkids that story. Hahahaha.  God was really watching out for me and planning my steps even when it seemed that I was moving in no particular direction. Pretty darn cool if you ask me. I am in the ultimate relationship. I have met the one. The man I will love forever. The man I will spend the rest of my life with. The man I can cry in front of and not worry about how stupid I look or ridiculous I am. The man who makes me feel beautiful even when I think/know I look like crap.

* You know, it’s a fact that most elderly spouses die within 6 months - 1 year of each other. I look at them, at the lives they have built with each other, at the love they have cultivated and pruned over the decades, and I completely understand why they can’t live without each other. By that point in your relationship, the line that separates two people into separate entities is probably fuzzy at best, and more likely nonexistent. I bet they can’t even remember a time when they weren’t ‘they.’ I want that. I want to be that sweet elderly couple that I watch at breakfast places…you know, the ones that gaze into each other’s eyes, past the wrinkles, and are emphatically and helplessly in love. The kind where the wife cuts the husband’s food and he guides her as she walks. I want that. and I believe, with my whole heart, that it’s possible and I know that is what I have. And I wish that for everyone I love. And I’m so happy that I didn’t settle for anything less than butterflies, than the fairytale.

So there it is…pretty much a blow by blow of the development of my relationship. I love it. Just rereading about it makes me all warm inside (which is good because it is absolutely subzero in here) and makes me miss him. But love him all the more. We rock.

Whoop it up now.

6 days…