Falling in Love

I've always wanted to fall in love. It's a bit traditional, I know, but it's true. I've wanted to find my love for so long, a part of me stopped believing it could happen.

I was desperate. Speed dating, dating apps, even hiring matchmakers. I wondered if any man I ever talked to was The One. 'We both like oranges, maybe he'll ask me out!' 'We've talked for 1 minute, are you single?' on and on and on.

But none of that worked, none of the putting myself out there could work until I was able to do two of the hardest things in my life. Love myself exactly as I am and be at peace with the idea of being alone.

As humans, we can feel no emotion toward another we do not feel toward ourselves. I cannot give love to another until I can love myself.

We're on a park bench and the sun is setting. My head is cradled gently in his lap, as his hands trace patterns on my exposed skin. It's a summer's night with a slight chill in the air, my strappy dress and cute sandals more appropriate for when the sun was out or we were inside. I close my eyes and feel his fingers glide over my arm, sometimes mixing up the pattern with his middle or ring finger, playing my skin like a pianist.

Today has been amazing. After a month texting, today is our first date. It started eight hours ago, and neither of us want it to end.

We met up at the mall, and he kissed the back of my hand like a gentleman of old. I blushed. He said I looked beautiful. I blushed more. We walked around and around not caring about any of the dressed-up mannequins in the storefront windows, just talking and talking. Weaving between existential questions about why we exist as humans to him telling me about an Anime he thinks I'd like or me talking about my past relationship baggage.

We've covered the basics, politics, religion, family, dreams, ideology, and theology, along with a little sociology too. We don't agree on everything, but we know, accept, and understand where the other is.

After two hours of walking around we didn't want it to end, so we saw a movie. After the movie was over we still didn't want it to end, so we got dinner. And after dinner was over the only thing left open were the parks.

I look up into his eyes and smile in complete contentment. I feel like I'm floating in this moment. Waves of energy buoying me in place, a feeling of sweet calm drifting over me.

He smiles back at me, and I finally understand the concept of the world fading away, with only him remaining.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asks, his voice soft and sweet like honey. He holds me as if I were the most precious thing in the world, as if at any moment I could slip away and he must be ready to catch me if I start.

"Just thinking…" I trail off. It's too soon. We've even talked about that in texts. It's too soon to say 'I love you.'

"I know."

"You know?" I question teasingly.

He smiles. "I know you're thinking." He taps my nose, and I happily squirm in his arms, my smile never lapsing.

"Oh?" I giggle. "How so?"

"Your eyes," he says keeping his voice quiet, neither of us wanting to break the magic of this moment, just wanting to learn the magic of the other. "I can see your thoughts drifting or flashing across your eyes. They're the most expressive eyes I've ever seen."

I smile and wiggle a bit more in his arms, but I don't fall and I don't try to leave. It's a happy wiggle, goes along with my happy giggle. Both I've been teased about in the past and told to either control or stop it. But he doesn't tell me that.

Some point early on in our texting I used the phrase 'happy giggle' as a reaction and told him it's a good thing. It means I'm happy and likes what he's doing. He told me then he wanted to make me do it as much as possible.

In the mall, simply hours ago, when I laughed and told him that was the sound, he told me he was grateful to finally know what it sounded like, and that it was adorable.

I could feel that he wanted to kiss me, we were already holding hands by that point, but I'd asked him at the beginning of the date not to cross that line for our first date. A kiss on the hand was ok, but please not the lips, not on our first date.

He didn't make a move, but I could tell he wanted to, and honestly, so did I. Our bodies were being pulled together by some force and only logic kept us apart, though we kept our hands entwined. For now, that satiated the pull, the pull of two magnets that desperately wanted to touch.

I feel that pull even stronger now. Eight hours into knowing him, but it feels like more. I want him to kiss me, and I don't. So instead I ask, "What do they look like? My eyes," I clarify.

He pauses, takes off his glasses, and leans in to get a closer look. He doesn't brush the question aside or answer quickly with some overused quote from a movie. It's serious and that makes me blush and want to kiss him even more. His nose is inches from mine as he looks deep into my eyes. His hands currently stilled in their tracing of my arm.

Anyone could see. Could walk by and notice the tender caress that he holds me in. I don't mind. I don't care. For this moment there is only him and me, both of us resisting the physical pull toward each other as best we can, logically repeating that it is our first date.

"Like clouds before a storm as they move across the sky," he answers. "Beautiful," the final word seeming to tumble out of his mind and into the air without conscious thought. As if he didn't mean to say it, he meant only to think it.

I smile and nuzzle his legs a bit. He leans back and returns his glasses to frame his face, before beginning his tracing again. This time adding his other hand to stroke a spiral pattern in my hair at the crown of my head, and I nearly let out a purr like a new born kitten.

"I know this is our first date and all," I start, words difficult to find, due to the wonderful feelings his touch is creating inside me, but still I muster on. He wears an amused grin as he watches me struggle. "It doesn't feel like our first date," I finish with a mix of humor and honesty, disbelief really.

"I know," he agrees. "It's like our…"

"Twentieth," I finish.

"Yeah." He nods. "It's like…" we interlace our hands together, "We fit."

"We fit," I echo, liking the sound of that.

Silence again.

His look darkens for a bit.

"Penny for your thoughts," I ask back, teasing him by using his phrase and giving him a slight nudge.

He shakes his head a bit. "It's just…" He looks back at me. "I keep… I keep waiting for the rock to drop, you know?"

"Yeah." Knowing exactly what he was referring to.

"Like… it just… it can't be this easy. Every time I think there's something incompatible… there just isn't. You've already caught it, or thought ahead, or it was a misunderstanding. How… how are we … how are we already like this?" He asks in clear wonderment with a slight squeeze to my hand.

"I don't know," I answer, feeling the same wonder. "But we are, and for now," I shrug happily, "Let's enjoy it. If a rock reveals itself later, we'll deal with it."

He sighs and I can see a weight of worry slide off him. He brushes my cheek. "I really wish I could kiss you," he says softly.

"I wish you could too," I whisper back just as softly. He leans down and rests his forehead against mine. I bite my lip and in a temptress voice purr into his ear, "but that's what the second date's for."

It took years to achieve, and sometimes I'm still rocky at loving myself, but it was all worth it. Because I'm here in his arms, at last.