Brave Enough To Be Bliss

Chapter 3 — Throwing Caution to the Wind

“In my 10 years of being a therapist, I found one sentence that will change your life. Overthinking is under feeling. Thinking is how the mind tries to find a solution to a felt problem. The problem is actually ALWAYS an uncomfortable emotion, a state of feeling that we resist.” @emotionalreleases John would periodically ask a mutual friend and I to go out for drinks. She knew how much I liked him, so she served as a chaperone of sorts. We would sit on the same side of the table and when our legs or arms would touch, it was like electricity, fire or certainly something would ignite within me. He was everything I wasn’t….fun, funny, confident…alive. And oh, how I wanted to experience even a piece of that. Being with him was unlike anything I had experienced, and I wanted so much more of that, so much more of him. The thought of wanting more, desiring to be with him as I did was so very scary, and yet I wasn’t scared of him. Something about him seemed trustworthy, as odd as that felt. For several months, all three of us went out and had many good times together. There was a battle within me, though, between voices that said he was interested in me and others that said he really only wanted to hang out with our friend, and I was just a third wheel. I didn’t like that part, but it was too fun to risk asking any questions, so I went along with it and hoped I wasn’t dreaming that perhaps he was a little bit interested in m e. Eventually, I did become convinced that there was an attraction between us, I knew I wasn’t wrong about that. And he began sharing more of himself as he talked with me, sometimes for a couple hours, in my office after official working hours. I enjoyed every moment with him and was in awe of who he was. So strong, so intelligent, so confident in who he was, sharing all he did with me. We had been out one night with our friend as usual, but as we were walking out, he asked where I was parked, and he walked me to my car about a block away. It was so nice to have an escort and he kissed me on the cheek and then sent me a text to make sure I had gotten home safely . It was all feeling so good, until… One night, our friend had had enough. We’d been having drinks, it was really late, and she blurted out that we should just go have sex, although a bit more bluntly than that. I’m sure she was quite tired of seeing how attracted we were to each other, and she had had enough of the chaperone role and just wanted us to get together. He looked at me and said, “Do you want to?” And I hesitantly said, “OK.” He said, “Don’t you want to go out first and have dinner and then see what happens?” I said, “That would be great too.” Shortly after that, we left, and he drove us to his house in my car because his vehicle was still at the office.

“Don’t allow your mind to tell your heart what to do. The mind gives up easily.” Paulo Coelho

Where was this quote when I needed it? I wish I wouldn’t have allowed my mind to tell my heart what to do as it turned out to be one of the worst decisions of my life and doomed our relationship.

But I had been put on the spot and I really don’t like that at all. They were both looking at me , waiting for my answer. I can handle and actually work very well under pressure professionally, but not in my personal life. And the decision about whether or not to have sex with him should have been a very personal decision that I had time to consider, but there was no time to think right then with their eyes on me, waiting for my answer. All I knew for sure in that moment was I didn’t want to pick the wrong answer and I didn’t want to ruin any chances I had to be with him because I cared so much about him. Of course I was beyond attracted to him physically, but it was more than that, it was his mind. I loved to watch him think and tell me his thoughts. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to him and learning about him. And I wanted to know more so I had to give the right answer.

The thing was, I wasn’t good with multiple choice questions. I needed to be able to answer an essay question. I needed to be able to write it down, not pick one of two choices not knowing the outcome of each answer before

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