she shoulda sung me n'sync, then there'd be no question

I took my time getting over to see her yesterday—sometimes I just need time in my apartment and to know that I’m the one in control of my own time—by baking for Flop Down Day today at the Women’s Center and finally getting some catch up time with Autumn.

So I got over there and HOLY SHIT she is amazing. Get this. She found an apartment on Saturday, packed and went to work on Sunday, moved, unpacked, and decorated yesterday. Done.

Can you fucking believe that?! My apartment isn’t as put together as hers is and I’ve had three months.

But when I got there around 8, she was still finishing up with the unpacking and decorating (I still don’t understand—3 fucking days for the ENTIRE process!). One of her neighbors came to her door and introduced himself so Jessa introduced herself (“Allow myself to introduce…myself”). The guy then looked in at me so I smiled and said, “oh, I’m just the friend.” That’s what I’ve been saying because I went and looked at apartments with her on Saturday and helped her find this one and so we were meeting all these people.

Maybe 15 or 20 minutes later she was working on something sitting at the table and I was standing next to the table. Extremely casually she just kept talking and focusing on what she was working on before turning up and making eye contact with me and she said, “I’m tired of introducing you as my friend, and I’m tired of you introducing yourself as my friend.”

(I wish my blog had a soundtrack because this is the part where I play the song “ohhhhh, freak out!” du du du du duuu du du du du duuuu!)

I pretty much just stared at her. For a while. Then I bent over and kissed her. Then she started to just look down at her work and playing with that and I still wasn’t saying anything I was just silent and every once in a while kissing the top of her head.

So then it was really weird and she started just joking around and trying to talk to cover up the awkwardness of me not replying, but sometimes I just need time to process what’s been said to me, y’know. I just needed some time. But she started to talk about random stuff and then she asked if I wanted to play tic tac toe because she had unpacked this dreidel/menorah tic tac toe board, so I sat down and just started playing with her. I still didn’t know how to respond. I was trying to come up with what I wanted to say, but I really didn’t know because the word “girlfriend” really freaks me out a little bit. Like, I mean, I know that we’re totally already acting like girlfriends and when I talked to Ashley she pointed out that if nothing changes then why does it matter what you call it.

So I thought about those things and that's all correct; we’d finished an entire game of tic tac toe where we both played and pretended nothing out of the ordinary was happening and then she got up after she beat me (only because she got to go first) and started doing stuff across the room. I continued to play with the little dreidel and menorah pieces but then I blurted out, “would anything change?” Keep in mind that she was probably freaking out inside too, but I didn’t know how to deal with that so she dealt with it by talking and talking and talking and I guess pretending that nothing had happened because I clearly didn’t give the response she was looking for. Dude, talk about mixed messages, I’m spending absolutely all my time with her, we’re starting to be really nice to each other with all the stuff we say (yeah, at first we kinda had a rule not to say anything too nice to each other because we’d both freak out), and yet, after over two weeks of spending every night with her, being nice to her, telling her I like her, having amazing sex with her, I am utterly silent when she asks me to be her girlfriend. Oops.

So I asked “would anything change?” but she was still in talking mode and ignored it. (It was around this part that I started to feel like a big asshole because if she wasn’t my girlfriend, then what the hell was I doing to her?) The next time she paused, I asked again, “would anything change?” She didn’t know I was still stuck on the whole girlfriend thing, I think she had moved past it and thought that silence was my answer, but really I just needed time to respond. I asked more clearly if anything would change if we were girlfriends. And she said no, but asked if there was anything I did or didn’t want to change. Then I felt even worse like I was using her or something, which I’m really not. (“A real man would not shoplift the pooty from a single mother.”) So I said that I really liked everything we were doing and didn’t want anything to change and she said that she didn’t either and well, now I have a girlfriend.

Weird. Still a little freaked out when I say it. I have a girlfriend.

But you know what else, also extremely excited. We kept having talks throughout the night about all sorts of stuff and just opening up a bit more and it was really good. I kinda explained to her why I was so scared to be called girlfriend and did my thing where I tell a past story to explain a present event so I told her about talking to Ashley about whether or not the vocabulary even matters if the actions don’t change. I also told her that I was slow to say anything because I am scared of what being in a relationship means and my last one, y’know, was kinda shitty for a while and it was such hard work and I just worked and worked and worked at it and it was worth it at the time because I thought things would change and that there would be a payoff and that it would be my turn to be happy at any moment, but it never happened. Not that I was totally miserable, I wasn’t, it was just a lot of hard work. So I told Jessa that I don’t want it to be work. And I don’t. I’m not here to work, I’m here to feel good and cared for and happy and have fun. And I think she’s here for the same stuff.

So, yeah. I have a girlfriend. Do I need to tell the ex? I know that the answer is “No, you don’t have to tell the ex,” but I feel bad. Would I want her to tell me? I guess I’ll have to figure that out. The ex called not too long ago and we talked a bit, but I didn’t tell her much. I don’t know. I think I’ll feel better if I just tell her. I don’t want to lie anymore. I know it will hurt her, but wouldn’t it hurt her more to find out later that we’ve been together this whole time? And, if there’s anything the ex has taught me, it’s that secret relationships totally suck and are awful. So I think I might tell her.

And don’t worry, after I got used to the idea, I did get really excited about it and I told her so and she felt good and I hope that I convinced her that it wasn’t just about me giving in to her wanting me to be her girlfriend, but that I want to be her girlfriend too. It’s scary, but I do. And hey, I learned from that book she showed me last night, “Love is letting go of fear.”

NOT THAT WE’RE IN LOVE! Woh. Reel it in. I can have her be my girlfriend, but, as shitty as this may be, my hurt heart isn’t in a place that it knows how to love someone right now, it needs a lot of time, and it’s definitely not ready to hear that anyone loves me. I might have to run in the other direction if that were to happen.

But it does feel good to trust her and to let myself have that bit of security.

She really does amaze me.

Stop. Sorry, I can’t write that stuff. That’s opening myself up to be hurt. I should just be happy I can feel it inside, I don’t need to write it down. I’m just going to enjoy it. I have trust issues, but I think I’m doing a pretty good job.

Dudes, I have a girlfriend. A kick ass one.