Me.

The truth is that I am: irrational, paranoid, affectionate, mean, self-conscious, easily hurt, honest, sweet, worrisome and dysfunctional. More importantly, I'm just me.

There's nobody else in the world like you or me or the next person. We may each possess certain qualities but not one of us is exactly the same.

Since this is technically a journal and I won't be photographing or reviewing food until Friday afternoon, I'll write about what has been plaguing me the past few months.

ter·ri·fy
–verb (used with object),-fied, -fy·ing.
to fill with terror or alarm; make greatly afraid.

I am terrified of being left for someone who is more beautiful, more confident, funnier, sweeter, nicer, better at physical affection or affection in general (so now you know the truth, despite how stupid it may sound to you). I am terrified of losing the one man who has treated me better than my own mother has.

I'm terrified of getting cheated on, whether it's here or some other state. I'm terrified of the fact that Ian could probably look me straight in the eye and lie to me and I'd believe him. I'm terrified of how I never know what he's thinking...when I see him looking off in another direction I wonder - "Is he thinking of someone else while he's here with me? Does he imagine he's kissing someone who's actually good looking when he has to kiss me? Is he missing someone else while he's stuck with me over the weekend?"

Another truth - I will never know for sure. Love really is a gamble....you are taking so many chances by getting involved with someone. The more time passes, the more scared I get because I feel more inclined to get comfortable BUT once you get comfortable, someone pulls the rug up from underneath you.

I am terrified of not making him happy and I'm scared that one day he'll just get fed up with me for good and that will be that. Another situation that I screwed up.

I'm scared of loving him completely. I'm scared of thinking about a future with him, about moving in, or getting married or even having children that I'll probably want to kick in the butt every other day.

I am afraid of so much in this world, so many little things! I don't understand it. When did I become so scared of living and giving my all in a relationship? How did this happen?

Truth #3: He hasn't done anything wrong...sure, sometimes there are more vague answers than there should be...and I don't completely understand why he never talks about his past relationships and what went wrong or why he never mentions other women that he met and briefly dated from the website that we found each other on. But that's all little stuff, isn't it? Maybe it's okay not to know about everything. And I think not knowing everything is what's helping to drive me up the wall because I have always had this NEED to know what's going on. I'm nosy. I've always been nosy. For instance, when I see someone on his friends list with a female name...OF COURSE I'm gonna ask questions. OF COURSE I'm gonna worry that 'maybe he's going and talking about what a pain in the ass I am and how he wish he never met me' because I'm stupid and terrified of him NOT being a part of my life.

I know the real reason why I'm so scared. It's because I'm happy and every time I've allowed myself to be happy, something went wrong. Here I have someone who is...a lot like me in more ways than I'd prefer, someone who makes me happy, somebody who makes me smile every time I see him, somebody who can make me laugh even when I'm feeling at my worst, someone who's embrace makes me feel like it'll all be okay...even if it's just for 5 minutes - the world will be okay for that 5 minutes.

I'm waiting for him to ruin everything.

But I am beginning to think that deep down inside, I'm waiting for him to ruin everything because that's secretly what I want - because that's what I'm used to.

I need to stop thinking of myself as "the help" and thinking of myself as a princess. And I need to start lifting my head up high when I walk, whether I get left or get cheated on or NOT. None of it matters or should matter anymore. At the end of the day, I'll always have myself to hold onto when I feel like the world has pushed me down and for now, I think, I'll have Ian to pick me up when I do fall every now and then.