the big spoon.

I'm pretty open about the fact that I tend to be emotionally unavailable to all but a few people. Although it's easy for me to open up in my writing and express how I'm feeling in an indirect, albeit very public, medium, in person I don't often share a lot of myself with others. I share my humor and my stories, but everything else stays relatively hidden. To use the oft-cited metaphor for emotional boundaries, I have walls. An intricate maze of walls, actually.

It's something I'm working on. I've started seeing someone new, and I feel excited about this person. And even though we're very much in the getting-to-know-you phase, today it occurred to me that maybe she's snuck into the maze while my guard was down. It took me a little while to figure out what I was feeling today, but I think the feeling was that I miss her.

Maybe it seems strange that it would take me some time to register that feeling. I miss people and things regularly - I miss my friends, I miss derby, I miss Arkansas, I miss my family. I'm accustomed to missing those things, and I've long passed the homesickness benchmark such that my missing those things isn't a feeling of sadness or longing. It's more so a feeling of fond remembrance, and of looking forward to seeing those people and places again some day. It's a feeling that comes and goes.

What I felt today was different and more vague. Because not many people make it past the first few turns in my maze, it's been a little while since I've felt this way. Even when I'm dating someone, and even when I like them a whole lot, I don't usually miss them when I haven't seen them for a few days. It's a little scary to feel this way, to be honest. I can feel some resistance forming, as if some hidden guard is desperately trying to mend the breach to keep her from finding her way in further. When did I become so afraid of getting close to someone?

I'm hoping I can be brave and bribe my guard from his post. If not now, then one day. Because as strange and slightly alarming as the feeling was I had today, I like that I miss her. I like that I can miss someone, especially someone whose position in my life isn't permanent or well-formed yet. Maybe that's a good sign.