Before Heading Back to LA

The last day of camp that summer, I felt a strong need to have a direct talk with P, about our relationship, and what she was looking for.  I really liked her, and we had been having great conversations together all summer, but we never ventured anywhere close to discussing the relationship we had with each other.  It was the first time in my life that my head and my heart were in agreement on that topic.  In the past, I had been very attracted to girls who I knew probably weren’t the best match, and I knew girls had were very compatible on paper, but I just didn’t feel much emotional connection towards them.  It had always been a process of weighing the heart against the head, which usually prevented me from really doing much in any case.  So having both of those perspectives leading me in the same direction, was a totally new experience for me, which I didn’t really know how to handle.

 

I never used to discuss those types of things with other people either, but Kenny had been both my prayer partner and PPAIN group leader that summer, and he was moving to Virginia the next week.  It seemed pretty clear that I was never going to see him again, making him an ideal person to discuss it all with.  We spent that last afternoon together, cleaning up the paintball gear for the season, but I couldn’t bring myself to initiate a talk on that subject until we were walking back up the hill.  I usually start those conversations fairly vaguely, to see if the other person has noticed any of the same things, which would validate my somewhat more biased observations.  Eventually he directly asked me. “Just spit it out, who is it?”  When I told him, he encouraged me to make sure I had a direct conversation with her before I left. “You just got to do it man.”

 

With those words of wisdom, I headed off to the last horse show.  Ironically I had a similar conversation with H during and after the show.  Taking a similar vague approach led her to the conclusion I was indirectly talking about her.  I could see that was the direction her assumptions were going, but it was still difficult for me to reveal the identity of the person in question.  I had never really shared my feelings with others in any way, so it was a challenge no matter how I went about it, even just telling other people.  She was relieved to discover that my relationship with her was still solidly in the “friend” camp, and encouraged me to have that talk with P as well.  My only reasons to hesitate were that I had never really done something like that, and I was basing my feelings and perspective on pretty vague signals about how P felt.  I was pretty emotionally spent after the conversation with H, and the show was long over by the time we finished talking.

 

As I walked over the hill away from the arena, everyone was just finishing cleaning up, and getting into their vehicles.  I was offered a ride, and ended up in the car with P and her friend, who we dropped off at staff parking.  So this was that opportunity I had been waiting for, I couldn’t have asked for a more straightforward chance to have a direct talk, but it still took me a few minutes to move things that direction.  Eventually I told her that I had really enjoyed our interactions and conversations, and hoped that they would continue.  “Well, there is always Facebook,” is not exactly the response I was looking for, but it definitely could have been worse.  So we resumed our online dialog as I headed back down to LA, with a cast on my arm.