Saturday was a lazy day for Mr. W and me. For the most part, we laid around unproductively and napped frequently. Then late evening, we picked up a Mexican pizza from 3 Alarm Pizza, brought it back to my house, and watched the final 3 episodes of WB’s Angel on DVD, which I’d missed when they aired. Sunday (today), we walked to Starbucks really early in the morning (thank goodness the one about a mile from me opens at 6a on Sundays), had coffee (him), Chai tea with soy (me), cranberry scone, banana nut bread and zucchini muffin, and upon our return to my house, he installed/wired a digital compass in my car that also gave temperature, barometric pressure, altitude readings, and unclogged my upstairs bathroom sink. All voluntarily.

Mr. W met the ‘rents plus maternal grandma today. They’re going to China at the end of this week and I asked my mom if she wanted to meet him before they left. They in turn invited us to dim sum. (Another thing to cross off our list.) I think it went really well. My parents were a bit awkward at first but they warmed up really quickly — especially my dad, once he realized how much in common he and Mr. W have. After dim sum (Mr. W’s first time, he really enjoyed the food), my parents invited us back to their house for a demonstration of a traditional tea ceremony. I’d emailed my mom about how Mr. W was trying to pick out loose tea and asked me what the difference in quality of tea was, and how I couldn’t answer the question but deferred to my parents for that kind of tutorial. So my parents got to show off their tea stuff (some new really interesting pots; one that used some kind of water pressure physics and magnets so that once the teacup is placed at the base of the clay dispenser, it automatically filled the cup and would stop when the cup’s full), my dad got to show off his expansive natural stones collection, and pass on some of our culture and legends. Mr. W ate it all up because he has a natural curiosity toward the histories of other cultures, and he and my dad share so much of the same interests, i.e. nature, animal behavior, fish, etc.

For awhile now, I’d wondered whether I was just unbalanced in relationships. Once fully independent on my own and comfortable in my own skin (i.e. not dating and happy about that choice), I was dizzyingly happy because I was the only one responsible for my happiness and sorrows; I was in full control. I didn’t want for anyone or anything, I didn’t hurt because of something someone else did. Life was blissful. I made myself so darn happy. (Without the perverse connotation.) I started figuring that maybe, like my ex had told me over and over, I was just an insecure, jealous and suspicious girlfriend, period, and I have always been and always will be, and all of it had nothing to do with the fact that he gave me more than enough reason to take on all of the above negative traits. But I had been dating Mr. W steadily for about 6 weeks before I announced that hey, it turns out, those traits weren’t me at all because I was happy, stable, satisfied. And come to think of it, before this last ex, I never thought my prior exes were out picking up on other women when they weren’t with me, or that they were cheating on me, because none of them gave out that vibe.

But here we are, at the close of week 7. When Mr. W left me in the late afternoon to get back to his own life, I missed him. Immediately. Almost before he left. It was still early in the evening/late afternoon, and I actually had to think of things to do with myself. I could finish up laundry…I can work out…watch TV. I put away my freshly laundered sateen bedsheets, velour blanket and Lakers blanket. Fell asleep watching some Danielle Steel’s novel-turned-movie on the Lifetime Network. Made myself some English breakfast tea. Ate some gummy bears he bought me. Reviewed the weekend in my head and the little things that shouldn’t bother me but did (such as when he gushed about a girl I know that he “was in love with for 2 weeks” when he had reason to associate with her, because “how could [he] not be,” everybody was in love with her). It’d be easy to blame my discomfort and slight insecurity on PMS, but that’s too convenient. What it is, I think, is that crap, I’m in trouble. It’s easy to be smug and secure when I have nothing to lose. Now that I’ve grown exponentially more attached in the past weekend (or maybe even the last entire week), I’ve managed to scare myself.

Because, what if it’s true? What if I’m just crap in relationships? I can feel the emotional self-preservation trying to kick in. “Don’t get attached, it’s bad for you.” “Don’t be vulnerable.” “Don’t give up anything for a man, ever, he will always let you down.”

My friend William had once said to me, “You’re one of the best relationship-people I know.” I hope he’s not wrong.