On Waiting for Him…Or Not

The thing is…

I have no idea what he’ll look like or what he’ll do or even how we’ll meet. Maybe I’ll say the wrong thing and he’ll step on my toes when we first spin around a dance floor. Maybe he’ll grin and trip over words when all he means to say is I want your number with a desire that knocks the wind out of me. Maybe he won’t wait three days to call and maybe my past will cloud my trust. Maybe one kiss, and then two, will cure it. Maybe he’s not a doctor or a lawyer and maybe I couldn’t care less. Maybe I’m from Texas and he’s (oh, Heaven help him) a damn Yankee. Maybe I write and he won’t quite know how to handle my frenetic typing at 2 AM. Maybe he’ll make a pot of tea and coax me out of my self-doubt and into his waiting arms. Maybe I’ll look at him as though he’s stitched together with goodness because of course he will be. Maybe he’ll shake my father’s hand and maybe I’ll meet his mother and maybe her knowing smile will give him away. And maybe he’ll stay true and wake one morning with forever spilling from his lips and maybe my teeth will chatter with yesyesyes until there’s nothing left to do but seal it with vows and a lifetime of daily effort.

But I know that I’m waiting for someone who will look at my bookshelf and my graveyard of coffee cups and my unfinished journals and muddy boots and tangled hair and steady eyes and half-baked travel plans and think, I’d like to share all of that. I’d like to make those eyes light up. I’d like to see my reflection in the blue-green sea of them. I’d like to sit on the patio and drink that coffee and fill in those blanks and watch those cheeks turn to fire and hear that laugh all over me until the day I die.

And, oh how I’ll love him back. He won’t know what hit him.

I’ll wait for that. And I’ll revel in the waiting because I’m learning what’s worth it and what isn’t. And I’ll continue keeping record of this wild time without him. One day he’ll find these small, nonsensical stories of a twenty-something woman who had no idea what on Earth she was doing. And I’ll sit beside the man reading this tangle of words—words I once strung together with nothing but lamplight and steadfast dreams.

I’ll hold that man so tightly and I’ll thank God for him–and for the waiting.

Because the waiting isn’t even waiting, is it? The waiting is life, and I’m taking it and running like hell until he catches up to the rest of the story.

And then…

Well, then we’ll run together.