07 July 2014 journal entry

What’s weird, though, is that sometimes I can imagine taking the future as gently as I am taking the present. I can imagine finishing college and getting a good job and marrying who I am with right now. I can imagine all the compromises I would have to make and the arguments I would have and I know the things that would be missing in my relationship for the rest of my life. Maryland is as comfortable as it has ever been and I am able to exercise this thought sometimes that dreams are only dreams so long as you are young enough to avoid actually seizing them. I’m growing up I tell myself quietly. I’m taking responsibility, and someday when I am living normally I will remember my dreams and I will favor reality.

            but sometimes  I have this feeling in my entire body that I am not in love, not the way I dreamed I would be. I can’t picture myself being for the rest of my life with someone like Dani. Someone who makes me feel insecure and wishes my hair was straight and only makes me laugh sometimes.

            I don’t know what love is, I really don’t. And if this is it, then it makes sense and it doesn’t because I am terrified to lose him and I am equally terrified that I will never have anyone else. And I know that if he came to Paris and asked me to marry him my mind would say yes and my heart would nod but I would be nervous when the word finally showed itself on my lips and in a certain light the ring would feel icy on my finger.

But my god, I can’t lose him

and sometimes it feels right to utter the words and sometimes

I think I am just holding on too tightly to something I’ve never really gotten the chance to grasp

and I trust him wholeheartedly and I know I could spend a long long time with him

but I don’t get butterflies in my stomach when he walks in the room

and sometimes I wonder about somebody else

and I don’t know if I feel what I’ve learned I should

and sometimes I just think I know this:

I know this isn’t love because

I haven’t received what I’ve been promised