1. Of All the Things to Keep Me Up at Night

Generally at night when other people are sleeping I spend the night staying awake. The quiet hours of the night are often the best for thinking ,reflecting, and figuring problems out. But, sometimes there are those situations that throw you for a complete loop and keep you completely occupied for hours. One of those situations for me is dating.



So I started dating this girl, Susan, a few weeks ago. Things have been great so far, but in the back of my mind there always is that irrational fear that she will up and leave without much notice at all. When I am with her these fears aren't anywhere in the relationship, but when I lay down alone at night and get to thinking, it keeps me up.



I think about how things ended with my first few girlfriends. A sad fact is that every single time I have told a girl that I loved her she has broken up with me within 24 hours. My second girlfriend Erin is a prime example of this. After three and a half months of dating, I finally worked up the courage to tell her that I loved her. It should have been one of the most spectacular nights we spent together. In the end, it was the last night we spent together. She seemed to think that it was too early to even think about things like love. We aparently needed to re-evaluate our relationship maybe even scale things back a bit. One thing I have learned from dating though is that once you hit a point there is no going back. Either your relationship works or it crumbles. That night I found myself eating ice cream all by myself trying to figure something out. I still don't know what went wrong



I told Susan two days ago that I loved her. I am in new territory. It is exciting and at the same time I am scared that something bad is going to happen. I guess we will just have to see what goes on this week. But I think everything is going to be all right. Either way it is just one thing I think about when I lay down to sleep. I just worry too much.