i am eating whale-shaped bits of cheddar, i am writing a reason why my eyelids are so red, i have leftover thai in my refrigerator, and there is someone, somewhere (a place i know), who can't stop thinking about me.

am i content? i don't know. i'm certainly happy. content seems to suggest a certain amount of peacefulness and calm simmering with the bubbling joy. right now, things don't seem too calm. things seem a little scattered.

and this is what scared me: being afraid of the way things might turn out from the get-go. i say that i like to live in the present, and most of the time, i do (it's one of the many reasons that i'm a procrastinator, i think). but when it comes to things like this, the brakes stop working. i feel all doom-and-gloom, and that inevitably, i'm going to sabotage something and hit the oncoming traffic head-on, or go straight over the cliff and keep falling...falling...

it is incredibly pessimistic, and according to those who know me, and even those who know me well, nearly completely out of character. it's not that i wouldn't have faith in the relationship, but i lose faith in the most important thing--myself. i grow weary and suspicious. i panic. i panic too early. nothing is even given the chance to withstand the flames of the furnace that is my self-doubt.

i relay my thoughts from the base of my skull to my frontal lobes: perception and sense are heightened, and neither are focused on the right thing. i know too much of my own history (if you care to call it that) to see this working out. i know my behavior patterns, i know my emotional graphs, and the only thing i don't know is how this whole deal is supposed to work, because i've never actually been a part of one before.

panic. a whirlpool i can only swim away from by not flailing my limbs every which way, but by executing a steady stroke. and even i know i was never that steady a swimmer to begin with. i was forever swallowing saltwater whichever way i turned my head.

i know i should have more faith in this.

this is a damn good thing that is happening. a damn good thing. and god damn it all if i'm going to ruin something this good through my own pathetic self-doubt.

i ought to try. what do i have to be afraid of?

-d