Overthinking (Too Early)

Is it too early to dream?

Too early to see our lives together? Too early to imagine being wrapped in each other’s arms? Too early to wonder what forever could look like?

Too early to say I do?

We’ve only been around each other twice. Yet we’ve talked for three years, shared plenty of kisses, and connected with an honesty that sometimes catches me off guard. There is vulnerability between us. Passion, too. We talk every day, and somehow my heart still lights up when I see you.

But passion doesn’t mean we travel the same way.

I think about you constantly, while my anxiety whispers that maybe you aren’t traveling in the same lane as me. We’re both working on ourselves. We’re both growing. But one of us learned how to be hyper-independent, while the other keeps wondering what it would finally feel like to build a life alongside somebody.

You’ve done such good work on you.

I hope one day there can be a we.

Maybe it’s too early to say that.

I fall hard. I know that about myself. When you give me attention, acknowledge my heart, and allow me to be myself while I give you room to be yourself, something happens inside me that I haven’t felt in a very long time.

Maybe ever.

And suddenly, falling for someone becomes tangled with everything else.

Because all I want sometimes is to spend my time with you.

Being a millennial in my mid-thirties has started feeling lonelier by the week. Friends can love you deeply and still have lives of their own. Family doesn’t always call just to say hey. People have jobs, relationships, responsibilities, exhaustion, problems, and entire worlds happening outside of you.

Meanwhile, I’m here.

Some days my passions glow. Other days they flicker because I wonder what joy means when there’s nobody beside me to share it with.

Then there’s you.

You give me hope for love, and I want to hold onto that hope without holding onto you too tightly.

That distinction matters.

I respect your boundaries. I respect your pace. I know distance complicates something that already requires patience. Different time zones can turn something as simple as wanting to see someone into waiting for the right little opening in two separate lives.

But physical touch and quality time matter deeply to me.

You’re far away.

And I’m still here.

The Me That’s Here

I don’t always like the me that’s here.

The me that’s here is trying to survive paycheck to paycheck in a city big enough to make me believe anything is possible and a home small enough to remind me that I’m not free yet.

The me that’s here can’t always spend time with family without wondering whether something will eventually be asked of me.

The me that’s here can’t be with friends whenever loneliness strikes because their energy matters, too.

The me that’s here struggles to keep up with payments because whenever I think I’ve caught my breath, something else seems to arrive.

The me that’s here wants freedom.

And maybe that’s why love feels so enormous right now.

I don’t simply want someone to love me.

I want to know what it feels like to build a life where I can breathe.

It’s too early to tell you how much I love you because there are still so many experiences waiting for us. Places we haven’t gone. Conversations we haven’t had. Versions of each other we haven’t met yet.

I know that.

But time moves so quickly that sometimes patience feels terrifying.

I’m in my mid-thirties and only beginning parts of my journey that I imagined would have happened years ago. Sometimes it feels like a bird finally being able to see after spending years trapped in darkness.

The door is open.

The world is there.

But flying is still frightening when darkness was familiar for so long.

Maybe that’s the strangest part.

I’m scared of being alone, yet being on my own is exactly what I continue striving for.

I want independence without isolation.

Love without dependency.

Family without obligation.

Friendship without feeling like I need someone to fill every empty hour.

A home that actually feels like mine.

And a version of myself that doesn’t need someone else to rescue him from the life he currently has.

Too Early, Too Late

It’s too early to know whether you love me.

You’re growing, too.

You’re relearning how to accept feelings that are pure and authentic without rushing to define them. You see me as me. You see what I offer. And you take your time figuring out what is meant for you.

There’s something beautiful about that.

There’s also something terrifying about it when you’re me.

Because somewhere inside me lives the fear that I’ll never receive the kind of love I’ve spent so much of my life giving away.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost so much despite never having some of those things to begin with.

I lost young love.

Young heartbreak.

The messy relationships you look back on years later and laugh about.

The moment when you move out and realize you’re finally building your own home.

The person you marry.

The life somewhere else.

Can you grieve experiences you never actually had?

I think you can.

Time keeps moving, and I’m standing somewhere between where I am, where I’ve been, and where I desperately want to go.

Some days I want to cry.

Not because I want to disappear.

I want the circumstances to disappear.

I want the things that created this version of my life to change.

I have incredible friends. I have passions. I create things. I laugh. I dream. I keep going.

And still, some part of me struggles to find happiness with me.

Maybe that’s the hardest thing this overthinking has forced me to admit.

I can’t become the me I’m trying to be without eventually leaving behind some of the me that’s here.

Maybe I’m Just Overthinking

And then there’s you.

Look what you’ve got me doing.

You’re somewhere living your life, quietly working on yourself, probably playing Pokémon, while I’m over here turning my feelings into an existential crisis.

Very on-brand.

Maybe love has me feeling like I’m waiting to be caught.

But I don’t feel regular.

I don’t feel legendary either.

Somewhere between the two is just… me.

You praise me for my resilience and strength.

Sometimes I wish you could see that what looks like strength from the outside often feels like survival from inside my body.

Still, I’m here.

Still dreaming.

Still creating.

Still trying.

Still wondering what could happen between us without demanding that tomorrow give me an answer today.

Maybe it is too early.

Too early to know where this goes.

Too early to know whether the life I imagine will become the life I live.

Too early to know whether you’ll eventually be standing beside me when I finally become the version of myself I keep reaching toward.

But maybe “too early” doesn’t mean wrong.

Maybe it simply means not yet.

And maybe I don’t have to know everything yet.

Maybe I’m just overthinking.