Grapefruit.

That is my breakfast. I'm trying to eat healthier. And although eating a grapefruit at 1 in the morning probably isn't great, it's a lot better than eating a fourth meal at Taco Bell.

Well, I made an A in Nutrition. I am very happy with that. I have to start getting everything finalized for school and my apartment. It is a strange thing, growing up. I want it, because I want to be a wife and a mother (one day) and make money and be able to support myself. But, at the same time, it is very odd to come to terms with the fact that I won't have my brother to go run errands with or my mom to come home to and talk about things. The realization that I am growing up (even at 24) and I am leaving home probably for good, is weird, and very sad. I will miss them both very much, and I don't know how I will function without them, and at the same time I don't know how I function living in the same house! I am blessed with a wonderful, supportive boyfriend, though.

This man. He is amazing. He makes me cry, in absolutely good ways, all the time. It is incredibly amazing to hear that someone plans things around you. It makes me feel like the most important person in his life. Whether I am or not at this point is moot; he makes me FEEL like I am, and it is the best feeling in the entire world. To have someone tell you that the most mundane everyday overlooked things that you do are wonderful or even "sexy" to them is... amazing. I was floored. This man makes me fall deeper and deeper in love with him every time I speak to him. He is the sweetest man I have ever met. (I feel the need to describe everything in great detail, here's why: 1) If I deem it necessary to describe the terrible things to the most minute detail, then why not when life is going well? and 2) as Plato said, "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet".)

This goes back to my last post. Regardless of whether or not we will be together forever, God has shown me a love that I thought I would never have (and I must always remember it as this). It surpasses the love that I thought was the greatest at one point in my life. He is my best friend, and I don't know if I have told him that yet or not. He embodies something so amazing and so foreign to me, that I can't quite explain it. It is a love that is comfortable enough, and yet it still sets my heart on fire. I am excited when I am around him and when I know that he is mine and I am his, it makes me have the greatest sense of security. I look at him, and I can see that he loves me. The way he looks at me is something that I feel like I have never had before. It makes me tear up to think about it (I'm such a sap). He doesn't just hug me, he holds me. He asks me constantly what I'm thinking because he cares to know. He kisses me, and I melt. One of my favorite things is resting my head in his lap and him combing his fingers through my hair. It is the simplest thing, and I don't have to ask for it, he wants to do it. The way he holds my face when we kiss makes me fall into a love-induced sort of drowsy stupor that I can't explain. When we listen to music and he hums the harmony in my ear, it makes my heart smile. I wake up in the morning looking forward to seeing a note or a message or something from him, and when I do, my day is instantly brighter. I feel vulnerable, and it's terrifying, but somehow I feel like that is how it is supposed to be. It's terrifying in that he could take advantage of me if he wanted. He could use me up and break my heart into a million tiny pieces if he so desired, but he doesn't. I guess that's the trust part. That part is the hardest to give away, and I pray about it every night. I thank God every night for him and that I have the strength to not worry and to be at peace with the fact that he has my heart. I hope that he will keep it safe, and he has done nothing to make me think that he wouldn't. He's thoughtful and sweet and open and sincere and I am ...truly enamored with him (although it is very hard for me to say these things in person).

To be in lust is very easy to confuse with love, and I have learned this the hard way from past relationships. I loved him as a person very early on; someone that I wanted in my life, and I told him so. I fell harder and faster with this one in love, with him as a "lover" in the partner sense of the word, and I did not want him to know. I didn't want him to know because I would have been heartbroken if he didn't feel the same, and for my own protection. I didn't want to be in lust with him and then get tangled up in the words "I love you" with confused meanings and feelings. When it happened, it wasn't ideal (it happened over the phone), and when he said it for the first time face to face, I hesitated to say it back. It is bizarre to share your deepest, most vulnerable feelings with someone for the first time. Maybe not bizarre... but nerve-wrecking. When I said it, it felt right. It was love.

It is love. I love his family. I love that I am comfortable with his family. (The weekend trip went great, even though I had a kidney stone...). Everything about him, I love. He is hilarious, and he likes my laugh. He is patient to teach me the ukulele even though I have no understanding of anything related to music theory. We can sit around and watch TV and eat cheap food and do nothing but have nothing to explore but each other and it's a perfect peace. He pulls me into his stories that could be about everything and at the same time nothing in particular. Even when he repeats himself (something that would generally annoy me, since I tend to mentally latch onto everything random and never throw it away), I can't help but smile and think that he is adorable. He doesn't shrink away when I cry, or give up on me when I get angry or frustrated. We still speak for hours on the phone, and like his stories, the conversations are about everything and nothing. We have made up words that make my whole day. When he tells me he thinks of something or sees or hears a song that reminds him of me, it makes me the happiest woman in the world. To be thought of and cared about is something that I went without for so long, that I almost forgot what it was like. To get goosebumps at the touch of someone, or a warmth from a hug, and knowing that he knows right where to touch me to make me melt, is something so precious to me, and I never want to let it go.

There have been times where I have wrestled with the idea of giving it up. In the beginning he had a job prospect that would have taken him hundreds of miles from me. He didn't get it. He didn't know what he wanted out of life and with whom he wanted to be with, and I prayed to God about what road I should take. We both stayed. His job requires travel (something I am against, but that is for another day of soul searching to discuss), and I am praying through it. For some reason, we are still together, and I can't help but think that God put us together for a reason. I am grateful to God for giving me the chance to get to know the wonderful person that this man is. I hope that we will be together for a long time. I learn from him, and I hope that I do offer him something more than my "love" for him.

I just needed to elaborate. I love him, and all of that goes into those three words every time I say them. The end.