About A Girl

In slightly happier news, my girlfriend and I have been together for over 5 months now. I haven't written too much about it, mostly because I'm doing my best not to let my emotions take control of me and burn out on it or want something serious too quickly. I want things to happen at their own pace, and not rush into anything that's gonna eventually push me away from it.

And the result has been this: I really like this girl. I don't say it very often, and when my friends ask me how things are I'm generally pretty nonchelant about it, but I really do. She's really chill, and we goof around about the exact same things, and the fact is we both learn so much from each other. I like that we're still getting to know each other as well. As time has gone by, we've started talking about things little by little, learning about each other's pasts, and likes, and dislikes, and really kind of discovering each other at our own pace, and that's really nice. I've never felt uncomfortable with her.

We don't really volunteer information to each other, or ever really ask about it, when it comes up it comes up and we both listen and learn. And as we get more comfortable, we've started making our own groove, we have our own little sayings and our own little ways to tease each other, and they're unique to us. That's what I like the most, basically nothing we do is a rehash of anything I've done in other relationships, and that makes me feel like this really is special.

The language barrier is fun too. My Japanese has improved a lot, and people tell me that all the time, and I see that her English is improving too, much like that of other students I've had who date foreigners, in that her listening is way above her speaking ability, and her reactions and side comments are increasingly more natural. She helps me with little phrases, and most all of our text messages are in Japanese now, so I get practice every time we talk, and it's in writing too so if she uses any form I don't know, I can learn it and start using it right away.

One of the Mexican workers at Haggen's years and years ago during my first job once told me that the best way to learn a language is to fall in love. And though I knew there was truth to it then, I see it now every day, as I struggle successfully or otherwise to find ways to communicate exactly what I mean, be it serious or otherwise to her. She's a reason for me to grow and improve myself as a person, and though that's reason enough to be happy, everything else just makes it so wonderful.

We don't see each other all the time, and that's great. I need my space, lots of it, as I'm sure she does too. We both work a lot, and I see her maybe once a week at best. It's great, I get all the time I want to do my stuff and we come together when we have time. Perfect. We don't even talk every day, we'll go a few without texting each other and that's not the end of the world; a far cry from other ill-fated codependent relationships I've been in. I trust her completely, as I'm sure she does me, and unlike my relationship with Melissa it doesn't bother me at all that we don't spend more time together. In fact, I prefer it because, as I mentioned, I never burn out on being around her.

We've taken day trips together, and I'm always happy. In two weeks, we're going to go to Nikko for the weekend together, and I'm looking forward a great deal to our first multi-day trip together. I really like the idea of the two of us traveling together, crashing in a hotel after a long day doing stuff. Couple stuff.

It's a little scary, I'll admit, because I catch myself thinking that I'd be happy with it become more serious with time, like living together and marriage and kids and the like, and I usually put those thoughts out of my mind as quickly as possible, because I really do want to just take it slow and enjoy it for what it is. Also, I don't want to mentally consider our relationship something it isn't yet. It's not forever, not yet, regardless of if I'd be happy if it were, so I'm not going to let that kind of thing cause me stress thinking about.

If it ends, it ends, and I'll be grateful that it happened, but I don't want it to. Not any time soon, maybe not ever.

It's really strange for me to be writing about how happy I am being in a relationship, this coming from the guy who's spent the last 5 years doing everything in his power to avoid one. And it's not that I'm happy to be in a relationship, because that much is true still, I don't really want to be in a relationship. What I want is to be with her.