simple words

"i'm crazy about you as well."

it's amazing how a few simple words can set off a calvacade of emotion, particularly when they come in response to an equally simple, but no less meaningful, declaration, "i think i'm falling for you." and the emotions -- joy, relief, fear, hope, longing -- all comingled in one fragile metaphoric vessel called the heart.

the one complicating factor is when one of the parties, namely me, has not quite mastered how to follow his heart without a certain level of doubt creeping in. it doesn't help that so much of my background is filled with teachings about how we can't trust the heart because it is "deceptive and wicked." still, trying to operate solely by rational thought and logic in a world that seems to run in contradiction to those concepts has not worked so well for me either.  

i can let my mind be filled with all kinds of thoughts about how this all should (or should not) be happening, what may go wrong, and all the factors that are working against this becoming what i hope it can become. i'm good at that. i have alot of practice at that. that comes naturally to me.

or i can follow the simple, but not as easy or accomplished practice for me, of taking it all a step at a time. as was also shared by he who seems far more assured of how to follow his heart, "it's all seemed right so far." indeed it has. indeed it has.