I think I've written about the train, the one that sounds like a helicopter landing in the living room and shaking anything touching the floor. And I may have mentioned my blue walls (that still need artwork).

But have I mentioned that it seems like a Thursday evening sitcom? That across the hall live two friends, down the hall live three more friends, and in the complex across the parking lot live three more?

We've established groups of regulars. A perfect elixir to my otherwise lonely evenings. Hanging at the Red Living Room across the parking lot, playing games, drinking imported beer or wine, listening to music or watching the latest Netflix arrival.

It makes me miss you terribly, miss the normalness of being in the same city, the same state--the normalness of hanging out and saying goodnight and grabbing lunch on the fly.... When can it be normal, when can I know something other than a long distance relationship?

It's been so long that I've written here, I'm afraid I've forgotten how.

I haven't even written of the conversation in the living room, in which I said "I'm wondering what we have in common other than growing up missionary kids" and the awkward quiet that followed forever referred to as the "time we almost broke up."

And I haven't written about the conversation in my car twenty minutes later, when he didn't want to go inside because we were finally talking about life instead of daily details.

Nor did I mention that he calls me regularly just to say he's thinking about me. Or that I miss him so much that my body aches. That I feel a phantom hand on my shoulder.

And that I still question. Still wonder. Still hope I'm not just ... just making a decision of logic. And then I wonder, am I so used to life on my own that I don't want anything different?

(When I think too long about it, sometimes I'm gripped with disappointment that we didn't get to flirt with the thrill of the unknown "maybe he likes me" feeling. And when I think too long about it, I wonder how serious my fifteen-year-old self was when she said she could only be with a musician.)

Why must my entries be about a relationship? It feels so girly. Or shallow. But then that is my inclination, to doubt strong feelings, to question them immediately, to try and ascertain a lie in them and wonder down which dangerous road they may lead.

I'm learning how to trust (read: value) feelings again. A daily mantra could be: it's ok that I feel, it's not silly, it's not a sign of mental weakness. Not all feelings need to be run down on the track or breathed and stretched off the pilates mat.

I know, I know, I'm being dramatic. But everytime, everytime I get dreamy-eyed and do the silly wedding dress search, or imagine anything of the sort----

Sigh.

"Will you just trust me?" he asks. "I love you. Trust me. I want to know you. I want to know all the silly things you think. The good, the bad. I want you to be free with me. Will you?"

Those are the scariest words I can hear. My heart races when he says them and I feel invaded. I try to swallow all my hesitations but they catch in my throat. I can only nod, looking away, and wonder why I feel like there's a knife jabbing my brain.

Why is it like this? Why do I draw people to me for glimpses, then close, run away, shut down? This relationship has been one of the most interesting exercises in openness. It hasn't come without hurt, that's for sure. But I see that I'm being slowly drawn out. Sheltered from the monster in the closet.

Soon I'll know if the monster is a figment of my imagination. Until then...until he moves here in the fall...until I know if my finger can bear the weight of a ring....