I want to flash forward. I want to know what the universe has planned for me, you, us.

Will we be an us?

I don’t know quite what we are right now. Talking but not dating but also too much not to be nothing. I feel like I know you, but I don’t “know” you yet. Crazy to me that over a month’s gone by and here we are.

P, you’ve come in my life at a point I never could’ve expected. While I’m incredibly thankful, I’m hesitant. Hesitant to let myself be myself. Hesitant to let you in. Hesitant to let us be what I think we could be. Because with you, I see things I haven’t in a really long time. I won’t ever forget the facetime till the wee hours in the morning with both of us deliriously tired. You forgot how to say goodnight and at one point, you were clad in suit and tie and me in a dress.

With you I feel a sense of comfort that I haven’t felt with anyone in a really long time… it just feels right. I can’t explain it and I can’t tell you. I know we both said we want casual. I know we both said we’re relationship people, but that’s not where we’re at right now.

But I can’t help my heart from wanting. But… I can’t help myself from thinking, can we get there? Can we be that?

Because it’s you who I see myself driving home with to the east coast for thanksgiving and finally checking off seeing the RV hall of fame in Indiana with you. It’s you I want to take with me to the middle of nowhere heritage park to do astrophotography and stargaze. I’ve imagined that moment more than I’d like to admit. It’s you I want to go hiking with at Starved Rock, it’s you who I see going on late night lakefill walks with as the sky grows darker and nights grow colder.

But I can’t tell you this. Because I don’t even really know you yet. And you don’t know me. You don’t know my struggles, my faults, my flaws. You don’t know my hopes, my dreams, my goals. You don’t know who I can be to you if you let me. All I can hope for is for you to give us the chance to be something beautiful.

Because even in the back of my mind the idea of forever is there and daunting. I won’t lie I want to fall in love, and I want to find someone who’s willing to fight when things get tough and give me the world that I can equally give to them. I have so much love to give, and I see myself becoming that to you.

When we talked for the first time it felt so natural. I hung up and I was shocked. The first text I sent after was to a friend: I’m scared I’m going to catch feelings for this one.

Because that’s the truth. You are what I’ve been searching for for so long. For too long. That I stopped searching. And there’s equal parts wonder and fear surrounding what I think of you right now. I just want to let my mind go and let it dream.

Dream about the memories we’ll make, the photos we’ll take, the moments we’ll share. But the more I think about you the more attached I’ll get and I’m so afraid of getting hurt that I don’t want to do this. It makes me want to run. Run so far away from you, push you away and say we can’t ever meet up or talk and you have to be gone. Because I see this going somewhere even now so soon, and my fear of it not becoming something beautiful is almost scarier than never trying at all.

I see us going on road trips and exploring in a world of our own. I see us having the little moments. Even now, you’ve learned so much about me that I didn’t anticipate you knowing so soon. But the same can be said for you. And that sense of comfort, that sense of feeling like I’ve known you longer than I have, it keeps growing. And that just makes my mind go in circles.

As much as I’m sitting here staring at the ceiling hoping this lasts, P I hope you give us the chance to be what I think we can be. The chance to know and learn and love each other.

Because it would be a shame for both of us and huge regret of mine if we never got the chance before we were even able to start.

-M