“Hey baby, what’s your hurry? Relax and don’t you worry. We’re gonna fall in love.”

I listen to Frank Sinatra coo in the background and realize I’m feeling like a cock-eyed optimist again. This is new, I think. This hasn’t happened in a while.

The music swells in unison with my nervous heart and it feels a bit like high school again. Or senior year of college. Or really, any time I’ve felt a surge of emotions for another person. Stuff I haven’t known in a while. The kind of feelings you jot down in a diary. Or I guess if you’re me, on Thought Catalog.

Welcome to my journal, world.

“The problem now of course is to simply hold your horses, to rush would be a crime. ‘Cause nice and easy does it every time.”

Frank continues to croon and everything inside me wants to listen. I want to take my time. I want to learn the art of taking things slow and not showing all my scars on a second date. But there I am again, showing my mistakes and awards with a weird nonchalance. I don’t know how to keep things contained. I don’t know how to take it nice and easy. I am an open book of “this is what happened when ___” and “I think I really like you.”

I don’t know how to stop or if I should. My mother says, “You always jump into things and maybe you should take time to protect your heart.”

I remind her, “I only jump in when someone is worth the dive.”

I low-key hate the ocean. Which is kind of funny considering I adore sharks and think they are the coolest, most fascinating creatures roaming (swimming?) this earth. But there is something about open water that terrifies me. Maybe it’s the endlessness of it all. The unknown. I have always feared the unknown. Because change, while inevitable, can come out of nowhere. It can topple your boat or take you under the water. And that gives me ulcers. That makes me think I should stay on land.

But when someone is worth it, I’ll throw on a life-jacket and dive into icy waters. When someone is funny and kind and reminds me life is fragile and unpredictable, I want to take the risk. I want to go all in.

I love Frank Sinatra and think about dancing with my first love to him on an empty road. It’s the kind of memory that hurts. It had a perfection to it, something you try to replace until you remember that’s a recipe for disaster. But now, I’m listening to Frank and I don’t agree.

I don’t want to take it slow or nice and easy. I am incapable of relaxing. Everything inside me says: “Go! Tell him! Be with him!”

And I know, trust me, I know. That could be my undoing. That could leave me bruised and crying and wishing I had formed a crusty heart.

But I don’t know how. So I’m not going to.

I’m just going to try. With an open heart and outstretched hands. I will be here. Ready.