Uncharted waters

Sailing the waters of a relationship is hard. You never know when you'll have clear skies and smooth water or when you'll have murky water with a looming thunderstorm on the horizon. Or worse, the threatening hurricane. "Thar she blows!"

It's another sleepy night with a weird feeling. I was watching a movie with my boyfriend tonight. When I went over to his place, everything felt like the same ol' same ol.' After the movie, and we were both very tired, he was lying there half asleep; however, the look on his face also looked like he was thinking...possibly like he could be troubled. Of course, he could just be half asleep. But I was tired too, and was starting to worry. Cuz that's what I do, apparently. He didn't look 100% completely satisfied so I immediately began thinking of everything I could do or hadn't done. Did I say anything during the night that I shouldn't have said? I sometimes do without realizing it as it escapes from my mouth. But at least it's never anything super bad. But my worried, anxious, neurotic mind is like super-grow to these tiny seeds of doubt and it grows way out of proportion.

Lots of little things rushed into the forefront of my thoughts: Do I say "I love you" enough? (I have a hard time expressing meaningful things sometimes due to my rather emotionally closed-off childhood.) Do I do enough little things to show him I care? Do I do too much and risk smothering him? Am I too nonchalant about important issues because I don't want him to think I'm turning into a crazy commitment-for-life seeking woman? And the answer to all of this jumbled mess is, I'm scared. I've never been in a relationship for this long before. I'm sailing uncharted waters. Bigger questions rise to the surface after all of the smaller ones. Bigger ones like: Should I start looking for potential long-term clues? Should I consider trying to make this relationship go for the gold or should I start re-charting? Have past issues with the opposite sex led me to think if I find a good one, I should just hang onto it, even if there could be a better one out there? Or is this the better one and I just don't fully realize it yet?

What am I more scared of: losing him or being alone? And there is a difference. Being alone means the unthinkable (breaking up with him) and then never finding another big fish. Losing him means he throws me back when I don't want to go.

And the funny thing is, the more mundane, domesticated type stuff we do together, the more I begin to imagine us doing even more mundane, domesticated type stuff, and then I panic that I'm going to lose that...that he'll grow tired of it and decide he's had enough. And I suppose the fact that I'm stressing about this means I really do love him. Why else would I start to worry that it'll all end? (Oh geez, I'm tearing up a bit.)
The hardest part is talking to him about all of this because as I've already said earlier, I'm worried this will scare him off. (And because I'm worried I'll scare him off must mean that I don't want him to go anywhere.) It'd be nice if this ship had a navigator. But alas, I'm on my own and nobody can tell me what to do.

So what do I want? Where does it all stand right now? Well, I think I really love him...a lot. And I certainly don't want him jumping ship. Do I want to seek further commitment? I dunno. It's too soon. We haven't even dated for a year yet. But what about in another year from now? .................. Perhaps. All I know right now at this moment is, as I go to sleep, I'd really like snuggle him close like a teddy bear. Is that my answer?