Pardon the admission of weakness, but I'm a bit tired of putting up a front that everything's always dandy in my head. The only way to confront weakness is to bring it out in the open. With that in mind, I'd like to detail a few recent struggles.

Crystalization
My life was temporarily in melodramatic emotional turmoil. My mind was spinning in overdrive.

You might recall me mentioning Crystal in the last entry. I suppose I'll give a little more detail now. Around two months ago, she messaged me. Said she’d seen my profile on AmericanSingles. We chatted for a few days before I finally met her. We seemed to hit it off pretty well and continued chatting and seeing each other every few days or so. She seemed really cool. The only hang-up that presented itself…she'd broken off her engagement a couple of weeks before. Therefore, there was the ever-present warning of "Rebound" from various parties. Thus, my aim was to keep things slow until she felt comfortable. This went on for a couple of weeks, and I felt increasingly closer. Lindsy informed me that she felt Crystal was leading me on, but I took it with a grain of salt.

One evening, I took Crystal to see "50 First Dates". I ended up holding her. I considered kissing her, but I didn’t feel that the timing was right. I later learned that she'd wanted me to. Anyway, the next night, we ended up hanging out until late, and she kissed me. She kissed me in a way that restored my faith in kisses. I’d always held so much expectation for them…probably too much…and ended up quite sobered as a result. This time, there wasn't nearly as much expectation, and I just let it exist. I think it was better as a result.

Each of us went home that weekend. When I called her, she seemed half-surprised – she wasn’t sure that I would. I insisted that I’d be crazy to not. Things were happy for most of that week. Eventually though, the commitment level seemed to get to her. We were dating "in-exclusively", but we were acting fairly exclusive. Thus, we went back to being friends.

My problem was that I still wanted to be with her. Thus, I took every opportunity to hang out and flirt. I kept trying to figure out if I just needed to give her time. If it was a matter of time, I was willing to give it. However, I eventually realized that I just needed to let go. I needed to trust God and see what would happen. Unfortunately, that's been quite difficult in practice. For example, I wrote this sappy bit of sap a week or so ago in a bout with sleeplessness:

I squeeze my pillow between my arms and remember you, but it's not the same. It’s soft like your skin, but it doesn't have your warmth. It doesn't have your sweet smell that makes me smile. It doesn't have your cute twitch that makes me grin. It doesn’t have your placid eyes that draw me in. It doesn't have those lips that I marvel at…that I long to kiss. Most of all, it doesn’t have arms that return my embrace.

If you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, 'How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronize me, or show off?' The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise.