Tuesday, December 23, 2014

It’s Saturday, on a cool Dallas evening, and I’m writing these first few lines in a coffee shop, right across from the Leviathan. She’s busy working, with no fewer than four smartdevices splayed across the small, round table–two phones and two tablets, one of which is inexplicably powered off–and I’m pecking this shit into iNotes in a valiant bid at productivity, when in fact I’m effectively, like, texting myself.

This is date two–or, technically, date one, if brazenly lying to her friends who saw right through the charade didn’t count–but for all we know, this could’ve been date seven. We’re at a Starbucks because she favors the taste of fresh-ground capitalism in her brew, and it’s a mellow capstone to a day spent at the theater, dinner, and ample amounts of driving and walking.

But it doesn’t seem to matter what we’re doing, really, and this is something we talked about, not more than an hour before stepping into Starbucks. There is a flow to the banter–always has been–but on top of that, there’s an ease to the company. Part of this may be personality. She and I are two sides of the same coin, according to Myers-Briggs, but then again, you do have to take that hoodoo with a grain of salt. All we know is there’s a connection, and that’s rare.

When it’s this early in a relationship, everything seems awhirl. You want to enjoy it without projecting upon it. Value it without suffocating it. Experience it without anticipating it, and this may be the toughest balancing act for me, because I’m susceptible to overthinking. And so I try to focus instead on the simpler things I know: that we’re spending Christmas together, then New Year’s at the Chief’s and Earth Chick’s, and then beyond that? Dunno, can’t wait, and maybe that’s exactly how it should be.