Sailing and the shore

I'll probably be doing a lot of running tonight. And a lot of thinking.

Jenny's leaving for Germany in a week's time, and it will be months before I see her again. We joked about what could happen in 3 months - who knows? Lots of possibilities - the ring, the proposal, or the ultimatum. The romantic part of me knows the deal will be sealed and my chances of being a donor dad will be next to nothing where she's concerned. I don't want to even consider the darker side of realm of possibilities attached to this trip. Not being her donor dad doesn't bother me at all. I just want my friend to be happy.

We came to the topic of frames of mind, or mindsets if you will. At our age, we both know we're ready to settle down. We can make calculated risks about our private lives and know what to give up, what not to. In her case, my friend knows she can go as far as migrating to where her love is, giving up a very stable and successful career and starting over again in a foreign land. She's even learning the language. To me, that's fairly strong indication of how far she's willing to go for the opportunity of a lifetime. And even though she wouldn't call it that, I would anyway.

The thing is, given our age and presumed maturity, we tend to be impatient when we see someone taking too long considering options, or taking too much trying to cover every turn and trying to make sure everything is perfect. We may have been perfectionists ourselves, but we know that in love and in life, there is no guarantee. Didn't we find that out the past 10 years of our lives, trying to look for love in places it never existed and overlooking where it does?

I just wish there's a way to synchronize frames of mind in the same way we synchronize time. Then I'm reminded of how the beauty around us unfolds, not by force but by nurture. And that requires time.