Familiarity

There are so many things we take for granted.  So much we forget.  So much I have to learn.


I've been single for a long time now.  Actually, in the grand scheme of things, three years isn't that long.  But it's been almost four years since I began a new relationship.  Looking back, I try to remember how I felt during that time.  My hesitation, my apprehension, my reluctancy, my excitement.  Olivia calls them butterflies.  But she's good at starting things.  


I don't trust easily.  In my eyes, trust is something to be built, something to be earned.  I don't know why I am this way.  Perhaps because of experience or genetics.  Regardless, I am a cynic.  


So when it comes to the idea of starting a new relationship, I am every kind of skeptical.  


If I had my way (which, let's be honest, might not always be such a great idea) I would fall in love with my best friend.  A man who had already earned my trust.  Someone I was already comfortable with.  Who already knew my tendency to talk too much, or not at all, without warning.  How I love to have my hair played with.  And all about my irreverent personification of God.


There are so many things we take for granted.  


I remember the first time I saw him.  It was July and he was in the pool.  I remember his unfamiliar, southern accent and the awkward conversation over the threshold.  I didn't know his middle name, or about the unhealthy dynamics of his family.


I also remember the last time I saw him.  I had memorized him.  I knew him by heart.  The way he walked, the gap between his front teeth.  His propensity to exaggerate and to leave.  


I don't remember the first time I met him.  But I remember him standing in the coffee shop, wearing that red hat and sporting that big beard.  We talked about grace and love and my middle name.  Four years later, I know how many days he goes without taking a shower.  I know his nickname, his need for simplicity, and how many months he will go without shaving his head and face.  I know about his dreams and his affinity for the X-Files.  


Sometimes I forget how much time these things take.  That these people I love, the men I've loved, the friends I have were all once strangers to me.  Relationships build and evolve and grow.  Just like trust, affection, familiarity, and intimacy.  


I found myself aching for it yesterday.  For someone who knows me.  For someone I trust.  For someone bigger, stronger than me.  For the hollowed out place under his arm where I fit.  For that strange thing we call love -- which in reality is not a feeling, but a choice.  Simultaneously, I discovered a deep resolution inside myself.  To not give up.  To not settle.  A deeper belief in my own worth.  


And then I got a phone call.  Muffled at first, her sweet little voice asked me when I was coming to see her.  She tattled on David and told me she loved me.  I remember the first day I met her.  Toothless, at the front door.


God bless the child who still loves quickly.  Fully.  Wholly.  


I stumbled across some truth in a broken iPod the other night.  When I was in the middle of a run, the music just stopped.  The iPod wouldn't turn on, wouldn't actually shut off; just buzzed, showing the time and the full battery life.  I finished the run in quiet.  And then plugged it up at home and left it on the kitchen table overnight.  


The next morning the iPod worked again.  And I heard God whisper something simple in my ear.  Sometimes, Anna, things take time.  Sometimes, things just fix themselves.


Yesterday at work a man came in, and while he was getting his frozen yogurt, my eyes were drawn to his shirt.


Some things just take time.


So here's my revelation for today (on the tail end of one of the strangest weeks I've had in months): 


I'm being called to risk again.  Stepping out onto the edge -- beyond the assumptions, the stereotypes, and the expectations, which are the love child of pain and heart break.  To take a step back as my walls, like Jericho, are brought down by a force from within.  


One day I will find myself holding someone's hand.  I will know him by heart; the way he smells and the way his breathing sounds.  But that won't happen in a single moment.  That won't happen holding love at arm's length.


It's time, which will tell us the story.