Settling in

When my sister, Ms. Swamp, first read Dreamy's online profile a couple of months ago, her immediate reaction was: "Oh my god! Two very disorganized people together? That could be a recipe for disaster." (Dreamy described himself as disorganized.)

I wouldn't say that I am disorganized, per se, although compared to my sister I suppose I am (or you could put a less-positive spin on it and call it "anal" -- which, interestingly, was the first word she came up with to describe herself when I was having a little word retrieval problem the other day and said, "She's like... like you. What's that word?" I was thinking of something totally unrelated.). She is one of the most organized people I have ever met; she loves alphabetizing books by the author's last name, and she carefully enters all her expenses and purchases into an Excel document. These are not activities that interest me in any shape or form. Still, I am pretty good at managing my money, I'm getting close to finishing paying off my student loans which were supposed to take 15 years or so to pay off, and neither my classroom nor my bedroom are chaotic.

I would describe myself as laid-back, and Dreamy is the same way. We are both spacey sometimes; we both started new jobs on the same day, and are immersed in our jobs and have a lot of brainpower taken up by them. The other evening, I screwed up the timing of our date and promised Slinky I could meet her for a quick drink beforehand and was late. Likewise, sometimes Dreamy forgets about commitments he has, like the High Holidays last week, and has to change our plans (although in that case he thought he couldn't get together, and it turned out he could). Or last week he left his backpack in a coffeeshop and asked me wistfully, "Does this kind of thing happen to normal people?" (Yes, it does, especially when they're a little overwhelmed.) It's pretty much a given that we will both be 15 minutes or so late for every date, but still make sure to text each other updates on our E.T.A. This would drive Ms. Swamp absolutely batty, but it works for me. We are also both excited about our new jobs, and it's nice that we're on the same page in that respect. Last week he voiced the exact sentiment that's been going through my head recently: "I am loving my life right now."

When I was at Dreamy's house the other evening for our last date before his trip to a very far-off country, a shift occurred. Up until that point, I had been preparing myself emotionally to be disappointed by him. When he told me he'd call me last week, I fully expected him not to and was kinda shocked when my phone rang, even though he had repeated twice that he wanted to call me. Each time I didn't hear from him for a couple of days I started to think he was gone forever. My Wise Woman tells me this is normal, after my traumatic experience of being royally screwed over by someone I (very mistakenly) trusted last year.

Anyway, somehow last Tuesday I started to feel that I could relax. He just likes me. He is not going to tell me he'll call and then fail to. I like him, too. I feel very good when I am with him. It does not need to be any more complicated than that. I don't need to keep worrying about how soon he will contact me after a date or keeping track of who asked who out last time.

So far, I've managed to hold on to my relaxedness. I didn't wonder when I'd hear from him after our date, and was pleasantly surprised when a message entitled "Au revoir, mademoiselle!" appeared in my inbox telling me he can't wait to see me when he gets back. Let's hope this trend continues.