I fear commitment. I do. And not because I can’t commit. I certainly can.
In fact, if I look at my life as a whole as it stands at this very moment, it’s essentially a complicated matrix of various commitments I’ve made — to myself and other people — and the way that I balance living up to all of them. How they conflict or converge. How they either do or don’t play well with the time, space, and energy allotted to fulfill them.
All of these relationships, this mass of complications and inequalities, they form the structure of my life.
And I have a long history of managing other balances as well. Ones that carried me through different parts of my life. Through different places.
Look, it’s all informed me. It’s taught me what commitment is.
And that’s why at this point in my life I fear commitment. Because I understand it. And I understand the demands it makes. I know that commitment necessitates acting not as you would want to at any given moment but how duty commands you to act. How promises to your past self and others force your hand. How sometimes the right thing is absolutely not the thing you would choose given any alternative.
And at this point in my life, I’m trying my best to minimize those kinds of conflicts. To spend as few moments as possible having to do such a thing. Proactively. Not spontaneously in spectacular derelictions of duty (as seems to be the more popular fashion).
That’s why I’m so cautious. Why I take things so slowly. It’s not because I don’t think you’re wonderful. And not because I don’t think you’re worth it. I do. I ensure you that I do.
It’s because I take commitment seriously in general — and would take commitment to you in particular especially seriously.
So I’m looking and looking and looking before leaping.
I owe it to you. To what we could be.