Some physical issues

 My trip to Z and visit with SM last weekend was incredible. 

This time I stayed at his family’s house since my grandparents were out of town. He gave up his room and had to sleep on the couch. We watched old home movies – yes, he was an adorable toddler – and went to a musical with his grandparents and the rest of his family, and I spent a morning with his mom while he was at work. And we went hiking in the snow with his sister and her fiancé, and a long walk with just his dog, and out to eat one beautiful evening.

Let me take a second just to say how awesome his mom is. She’s down-to-earth, kind, plainspoken, hardworking and creative, godly, thoughtful – and she’s raised some pretty amazing kids. She is also very similar to me in both interests and personality. She loves the ordinary things, is very perspicacious as well as eager to help, and so on.  I really enjoy hanging out with her. Besides, I get to hear all kinds of stories I wouldn’t hear from SM. J

So… SM and I were sitting on the sofa watching home movies – and cuddling. Sitting very close and holding hands. Which is lovely. But this time it got a bit intense.

 Did you even know hand-holding could get to that level of intense before the fact? I definitely did not. It got to the point that I was hanging on (figuratively) and praying hard. And God in his grace kicked me off that sofa to go get a drink from the kitchen. And SM followed me, and gave me a nice hug, and said, “I think we both found our boundaries there. We’re going to need to be extra careful.”

And we certainly did. We found out that after reaching that point, we’re always going to be acutely aware of one another physically. We watched a movie the night before I left, and we were more careful about cuddling – I think we were holding hands most of it, but not sitting close enough to be touching, and also not moving around - at all. Perfectly innocent hand holding... if it hadn't been for that first evening at least. This time, I could feel part of his forearm resting on my leg – through several layers of the throw I was snuggling with. And I felt it the whole time – just getting worse and worse. We both said goodnight and went to bed when the movie was finished, but even then, through several walls and a floor, it kept going on.

I got up early before he left for work to say goodbye, and we brought it up again.

“I’m sorry our weekend’s over and you have to leave,” he said, “But... it’s probably a good thing you are.”

Oh goodness, are we going to have to cut back on everything? We’ve always had little goodbye hugs, and held hands, but we’ll have to watch out for those too.

We decided to keep a sharp lookout, and both of us help one another, and to pray hard. None of our little halfhearted efforts are going to help a thing unless ‘the Lord keeps the city’.

If it gets any more intense, I might have to switch back to sleeping at my grandparents’, twenty minutes away. I don’t think there’s a real danger of actual sexual “going too far”, but it would help in keeping our thoughts shiny and pure.

I’m very glad that early in our relationship, he suggested waiting until one’s wedding day to kiss. It's neat, because I actually changed my view to to match, several years before I knew him. I used to think it was stupid, but I think a lot of couples need that rule. I decided on it when my sister was engaged – there was such an increase in PDA and such a decrease in actual friendship-making. And also, it was just awkward for her family. J

I don’t know how the couples who do choose to allow even just little pecks of kisses even make it.