Slow and Steady

Ahhhh, the joys of meeting someone new.  The excitement and freshness and fun and tingling anxiety is a wonderful high, especially when you meet someone that really catches you.  As one might guess, I have met someone like this.  It is all rather new for me and that is exciting and fresh and invigorating.  This woman is petite and cute and fun.  She likes to drink and play games and rock climb and camp and run and is into sci-fi and geek games and she is independent and strong and sexy.  She has an amazing body with nice legs and a gravity defying ass (yes, I am a man and those things are important).
This thing between us is new because I had only spoken to her a few times before our first date.  Every time we go out, we explore each other.  I am not used to going out with someone that I did not know prior to dating.  I like it, but it offers its own challenges.  I don't always know what to do or to say or if it is okay to not talk for a bit or what she likes or does not like.  I feel unprepared.  The only thing I can do is to be myself.
What a fucking concept!
The only way I can approach being with her is to be myself, since I don't know what she would want, and to talk to her.  I ask questions and we talk and discover.  It's almost like I am doing it right.  
She has a lot of the things that I have been looking for in a woman, which is great, right?
Yep.
Great, except for that anxiety that is not tingly.

I keep expecting a bomb to drop.  What is the catch with her?  She is vegetarian, but eats fish.  That in itself is not really a big deal.  It makes it a little harder when picking a restaurant, but whatever.  So, if that is it.  Win for me.
Another challenge I seem to be facing as this road opens before me is being over watchful for pot holes.  There has to be some great fault that is going to blow this out of the water, right?  She can't be this perfect.  Or can she?  I know that everyone has their quirks and ticks that we look past if we really like them.  Some people have traits that you can't look past, however.  I keep looking for hers and it is well annoying.  The fact that I catch myself doing it makes it a little better.  I see it, I back off.  More often than not it is a soft whisper that I easily ignore when I am around her.  Yet, it is there.
This voice of pessimism is a result of some bad relationships.  It is my baggage creeping in and ruining the game for everyone.  It is a royal annoyance, but it may also be helpful in the long run.
When I meet someone that I really like, I want to dive in and go full steam.  My hesitations based on this belief that there has to be something about her that will break my heart has slowed me down.  This is a good thing.  Slow and steady and whatnot.
I know that I have to just relax and enjoy this; find the balance in the relationship.  Take it slow, but not too slow.  Hear the voice, but don't let it influence me.  I have decided that I want something with this one.  Something more than a friendship, more than just sex (which I haven't done yet, which says to me that I do really like her and it's not just physical).  I want something meaningful.  It really is an amazing feeling.  My gut says that she and I can have that.  My head says go for it.  My heart is still a bit on the fence.  Too much heartache will do that to you. I battle with my fear of intimacy.  I catch myself over thinking.  I ask what if. 
I need to stop.
She is a lighthouse.  She is a guide into this unknown. I need to relax, sit back and sail into the wind of what is growing here.  I get the feeling that it will be a great ride.