Thoughts on a Tuesday: Maybe This is It

Sometimes things begin to happen or begin to fall into place that you just don’t see coming. It happens pretty frequently, actually. Of course there are times where being blindsided is a horrible thing and knocks you to your knees. But there are other times when the thing you don’t see coming is maybe, possibly, exactly right.

Before you read any more, let me just stop you here. This isn’t an exciting blog post. This blog post is about dating. So if that’s not where you thought this was going (surprise!) don’t keep reading.

(Don’t worry, it’s not where I thought it was going either.)

I don’t date much at all. Never have. That’s because in my mind if you’re dating a person you kind of eventually either fall in love with them or set them free. Anything else seems unnatural. And if you love someone that you’re dating, you eventually marry them. And if you’re married to a person you love (at least if you’re a practicing Catholic like I am trying to be) then eventually you will end up with little people called “kids.” Long story short, I didn’t want to be tied to a person, let alone make more menacing little Tessa’s, so for the most part I’ve avoided the whole kit and kaboodle.

And then in December this guy asked me out. We had begun to be friends just a couple of months before but we’d gotten pretty close pretty quickly. I still had absolutely no idea that he was interested in me. Although, looking back I can totally see it… I guess I was just too enamored with the friendship to have thought past that. But he was quickly nearing Best Friend status at the time, and I kind of froze. But I said yes, we could go on a date.

The problem was still there – nothing had changed in my mind about what I wanted from life: freedom, travel, adventure… And the things that he wanted, or wants, from life, are so completely different. He is a cyclist and has a passion for bicycles. (I didn’t know that was a thing either, folks. Don’t know what to tell ya.) He wants to keep working with bicycles for the rest of his life, eventually designing, making, and selling his own line of custom bikes. He’s Catholic and wants a big family with many kids, a happy wife, and homeschooling mother.

Oh boy.

Before anybody starts a tirade over sexism, I think it’s great that he wants those things. I think that the world would be better with more of those people and more of those families in it. It’s just not something I’ve ever wanted for myself…

So it’s been two months of flip flopping. Because once I realized that he really liked me and had been quietly pursuing for quite a while, and when I sat back and thought about how much I loved spending time with him, and what a fantastic specimen of a human being he was, it was pretty hard not to begin to fall for him. But we want different things. But I like him. But we want different things. But I want to date him. But we want different things…

I’m not sure where this story is going, if I’m being honest. It’s not like I’ve made some big life changing choice. But in the past two months I’ve seen this guy be the epitome of selfless, generous, caring, and affectionate. He doesn’t go out of his way to be any of these things, it is his way to be all of these. I am just really impressed by that. Astounded, really.

The other night I was leaving his house just before midnight. We both have a pretty bad head cold and were very tired and I had about an hour to drive to get home. As I pulled out of his driveway, where he’d walked me to my car, I noticed my tire was squeaking awfully loud. I asked him to just glance at it, and had my suspicions confirmed – I’d managed to get a flat. Without so much as thinking twice, this guy changed my tire, pumped up the donut for me, and kept the flat tire to see if he could repair it in the morning. He wanted me to take his truck home just in case the donut wasn’t great, but I knew I’d be fine. He then stayed up until I’d driven home and texted him to let him know I was okay, before he finally went to sleep.

The next morning after church and before a long day of multiple obligations and events, he took the time to find the hole in my tire which we couldn’t find with a flashlight the night before, dig the tiny twisty nail out of it, and patch it up. It held air and has been back on my car doing its thing ever since. Turns out that before that night he’d never either changed a tire on his own or done the patch.. he just figured he had to figure it out for me, and somehow he managed to look like a pro. (Even to me, who knows how to change a tire, but he insisted that I let him do it, so I did.)

Changing a flat and patching a hole aren’t the biggest things in the world. They’re pretty small, and pretty easy. But it’s just that spirit that you don’t see so often of leaping into action to do something for someone in need. Like that time he went and bought a toothbrush for my sister who he’d just met because she lost hers on a trip. Little things that say a lot, ya know?

I’m done rambling. I’m just realizing that I’ve found a really good thing and a really stellar person, and that maybe all the things that I’ve pursued my whole life are a little more trivial than I’d thought… maybe there are greater things out there to be had if I just wait and see.

(BUT! Speaking of all those things I’ve pursued forever, I’ll have a super exciting post soon about this other great thing that happened which has been a long, long time coming!!! EEP!)