Okay so far it's screwed up; now what do you do?

Well as anyone who's ever seen a Laurel & Hardy movie knows: every action is followed by an equal and opposite reaction. Thus begins my comedy of errors that puts me in this seat today.

So I wander home; bawling the whole way-okay so it's like 2 miles but give me a break. Somewhere in my mind I think that talking to Paul will make me feel better. So I sit, in this same seat, and start the late night ritual of IM'ing. He has no clue of my current freak-out state. And he cannot in any way, shape or form make me feel better. In fact I feel much worse. I have cheating guilt for a cheat that only happened in my heart. The worst cheating guilt ever.

I was raised Catholic; we have the market cornered on guilt. For a while after I distanced myself from their ideology my motto was, "Guilt is an emotion I refuse to possess." It works well you just have to avoid doing stupid stuff that you'll regret the next day. It does not take into account these sorts of situations however.

So I had my super-sized helping of guilt and no one to confide it in. So I chewed on it.

All day Thursday- my job requires no brain- and therefore leaves lots of time for me to wander around with my thoughts. This was not helping me any.

I decided to drive to see Paul. I had no idea of what I was going to say but I had nearly two hours to come up with it as I drove across mid-Michigan. I seriously wondered why I had bothered to pack a change of clothes about midway through the trip. Someone's "I love you" had taken hold of my brain. I had wanted to hear him say it for so long. But when I finally heard it my knee-jerk reaction was that it wasn't packaged prettily. I am such a girl sometimes. So I was working on what should have been my breakup speech. And its counterpart to Rick that would come later. It was dark and snowy. And just as I was turning onto Paul's street there was that disgusting sound that never leaves your mind. The screech of tires and an explosion of glass inside my car.

It wasn't one of those where your life flashes before your eyes. But it was one of those that made you say, "Holy shit" when you finally did get out of the car.

I sat there for a moment and realized that the radio was still playing. I was nearly pinned in my seat. I thought for a moment about who I wanted to call. Rick was 110 miles away (and might not answer). Paul won by proximity. I didn't really know how bad it was until I saw the look on his face.

I was okay though, or at least I kept telling myself. I was banged up and bruised and had almost the whole drivers door of glass in my hair but I was lucky. And in a few moments I convinced myself I was lucky to have such a great guy to come get me.

The real lies came when people started asking me what had happened. You can't exactly tell people that you nearly died because you were distracted by someone's unexpected declaration of their innermost feelings. well, I guess you could but ...

So there was no break-up. Mr Wonderful took care of me; drove me for a rental car, retrieved my crap from the salvage yard where my car had been towed (He said he didn't want me to have to see that again) and in general acted like his wonderful self. And for a moment I forgot.

But the phone would ring and the caller id would say a different name and there I was- giddy like a school girl again. He started out by saying that he guessed he owed me an apology. Which made me question if he remembered what he had even said. In my mind we now had- I love you, I'm sorry. which was even slightly more confusing than the original sentiment. so I danced around the subject for a few minutes. He really didn't know what he had said. But he did know I was questioning it. After some wheedling he managed to get it out of me-"Well you told me that you love me and then proposed."

And then there was silence.

The sheepish voice recanted. No; he wasn't in love with me. But he could see himself being in love with me. He always wondered why "we" never worked out. Logically there's no reason. we hemmed and hawed in our usual respective roles until it was obvious "the thing" had reappeared.

"The thing" is like a 600 lb gorilla in our relationship. We've always had it; it took us more than two years to identify it and now that I think I can squash it- I'm blogging.

A lifelong engineer and a woman referred to as the Ice Princess probably aren't the most typical romantic leads. But the attraction is as real as "the thing." The attraction has been noticed by others- we keep "the thing" under wraps because we're not admitting to it yet.

So in the midst of this tell me how you really feel conversation the question of "the thing" comes up. But this time the difference is that I know what it is now. It's fear. We are afraid I say. And for a moment more silence and then the question," so all we need to do is decide that what we have to gain is much greater than what we could lose?"

It was quite possibly better than hearing I love you. But I sat there like an idiot. He asked to come see me and to talk and foolishly I said no- the house was too dirty. "Do you really think I'm coming to see the house?" But stubborness won out and I laid in bed and replayed the conversation in my mind a few dozen times.