"Great," I said to the man laying next to me, vastly relieved that we were simply going to choose our own labels for things in our tenuous new relationship with each other, "And I think I'm just going to call myself Not-your-girlfriend."
I giggled and he laughed, and I realized I was finding myself in an awkward stage of infatuation and revulsion. Despite my best efforts, I was falling into that strange stage of infatuation where even the sight of an unsightly nose hair causes swooning because of its vulnerability and exclusivity. And I was also finding myself in a state of revulsion where side comments about being exclusive, or answering yes when a co-worker asks if you have a girlfriend were causing me to break out in a sweat.
Girlfriend.
It's a label I've held only one other time. A label that led to the disintegration of self, the creation of a new married version of my identity, a label that ultimately led to my personal ground zero and one that I've struggled not to want for the past couple of years.
Girlfriend means danger. Girlfriend means losing me. Getting hurt. Feeling sad. Being lied to. Convincing myself to love him.
At least this is what a tenacious little fighter inside me is saying. Watch out! You know how this goes. It can only lead to pain.
While I appreciate this overprotective little voice for wanting to keep me safe, I am trying to have a conversation with her about letting go of old information, trusting my instincts, and opening my heart to possibility.
***
After our third date, this man beside me said to me, "You're the only person I've dated that I've really liked in a long time."
I paused upon hearing this, filled with anxiety and fear.
"Is that weird?" he asked. "Should I not have said that?"
"No," I answered carefully, "you should always be able to say how you feel." But then, in the darkness of a few seconds, I felt a swell of anxiety push up a sentence that I couldn't hold back.
"But I have to say, I'm a little gun-shy of anything too serious right now." The words spilled out and I held my breath. I had said something that might have hurt this man's feelings, a man I thought I might like, and despite the fear I have faced from childhood about speaking my truth, causing problems for those I love, I had done it. I had said how I felt.
"Oh, me too. Totally throw that out there. I feel the same way," and he explained how after the end of a big relationship in his life he had closed himself off, shut down, walled himself off from possibilities of new relationships. He had known what it was like to be scared of getting hurt again. "But," he went on, "I just have realized that you have to put yourself out there. You have to be vulnerable."
And it's true. It's no good to be closed off forever. As I tried to explain to the protective, anxious voice inside my head, there is no danger in a relationship. I can trust my own instincts. If things don't feel right, if I worry that he's lying to me, I can ask. I can explain my fears. I can end the relationship. I can walk away if it doesn't feel right. And maybe I will feel sad, but sadness is not permanent. It doesn't last forever. Sadness is replaced by joy and joy is replaced by loss and loss is replaced by acceptance, and by appreciation, and by love, and then, suddenly, in an unexpected way, joy returns.
It's no good hiding from life. I would rather go out and hold his hand, see where he leads me.
And so I returned to the conversation with the man laying beside me, to the giggling and laughter, and explained my label of Not-your-girlfriend.
"It's like goldfish," I said. "You can't put the goldfish in a bowl too quickly."
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"You know, when you buy a goldfish from a pet store you can't just throw it in a fishbowl."
"You can't?"
"No. You have put the plastic bag in the water, let the water get to the same temperature as that in the bag, let the goldfish think about things for a while, check it all out, and then you let it out into the bowl."
"So you're the goldfish?"
"Yes."
"You should have explained that with minnows. That would have made more sense to me."
"Minnows?"
"Yeah. We lost so many minnows when I was a kid."
More giggling. More laughter. Joy, unexpected.
***
This past weekend, no real labels determined, but time spent together, I was telling this man about my adventures in Minneapolis parking, relaying how I had run out to my car to move it at 5:30 in the morning after waking to the noise of snow plows and finding a ticket on my dashboard reading "tow immediately." After rescuing my car from the plows, I parked my car on one side of the street, worrying about the vast quantities of snow lining the street, but taking my chances anyway. An hour later, realizing I was still on the wrong side of a snow emergency, I was back out into the morning to move my car again, only to find I was stuck. I explained how two still-drunk party revelers had approached and had offered to help, giving up after 15 seconds saying, "It's no use. Go home, little girl. Just give up." I hadn't bothered to explain the complexities of Minneapolis snowstorm parking to them, but had waited until they walked down the street, got out of the car, and using gloved fingers, dug my way out of the snow bank, rocking the sedan back and forth and emerging, victorious, from the snow.
"Adventures of the single gal continue," I concluded to my new non-boyfriend.
And that's what I realize I'm holding onto- it's not that I'm so resistant to the term girlfriend as I'm clinging to the term single. I like taking care of myself. Part of me cursed the fact that I had no boyfriend to call after finding myself severely lodged in a pile of snow, but a bigger part of me was proud of myself for finding my own solution. Part of me, after moving into my new apartment, lamented the fact that there was no boyfriend to help me haul my stuff into my new space, but another part of me felt free, liberated, safe in the knowledge that I will always be able to take care of myself and that I am a resourceful, independent woman who is going to have a happy life whether or not I find a permanent man in my life or not.
I will make my life what I want it to be.
So it's not so much that I'm scared of moving ahead with this man, or that I'm scared of the outcome of the way a relationship works. Maybe we will last six months. Maybe we will last six more weeks. Maybe we will last forever. Maybe not. It's ok. It doesn't matter. Either way I will be safe. Either way I will find happiness.
In my mind, I'm not quite a girlfriend yet. I'm a single woman dating one man exclusively.
And I'm falling in love with the new label.
Joy, unexpected.
