The goals you mentioned are extremely nebulous. I want the same things, but there is so much to account for along the way that can't be accounted for. There is very little stability in our lives at the moment. You've said it yourself. You might not be able to get a job near Merced, or maybe even not in California. I might get an offer I can't refuse from a software firm in southern Texas.

It's impossible to say what is or isn't going to happen, and I don't mean that as a cop out. I just mean that I don't necessarily see it as valuable to pursue every single possible outcome, every contingency. Maybe it is, maybe I'm wrong, or maybe the value in that is different to different people. Either way, it's not something that terribly interests me. I'm sorry if it's something you want to talk about more, and it seems like I am avoiding it. Pointed questions would be much easier for me to answer than "What are your life goals?" type questions. Not that there's anything wrong with that questions, I just probably won't ever have a good answer.

I couldn't tell you if we're on the same page because I don't even know what page I'm on. I'd probably have just as good a time eeking out a living in backcountry Michigan as I would as a successful software engineer in San Francisco. I like to do everything. As for what I want to do, haven't figured that out at all yet.

It is scary. If we're being honest, I don't think I love you as much as you love me. I don't know if I'm capable of loving anyone romantically to the degree that you love me. Maybe love for me just works in a different way, but it certainly isn't as fervent.

I have thoughts. They're scary. I don't know what it really means to be in love. Sometimes I wonder if I had more points of reference I would know better. I wonder if I would love someone else differently, or more, than I love you. It's scary. I get it. But as best as I can, I've made peace with it. I don't know if we're soulmates made in heaven, or just two people, or what we are. I know that for some reason I've chosen you, and so here I go.

Maybe the fact that I chose you? Maybe that's love. I really don't know Sierra. I don't know what love is, I don't know how it works. I don't know if I'm supposed to feel a spark, or some firey passion, or whatever. And if I'm being completely honest, I don't. But I've decided that I'm just going to be with you. I legitimately don't know what my goals are. I don't know where I see us in five, ten, or twenty years.

I don't know if I'll never stop wondering whether it would have been better with someone else. I really don't. I'm trying to be as honest with you as I can, and there's a lot I don't know. And there's a lot that I'd absolutely love to find out, but a lot of that finding out process would involve not being with you. And, as previously mentioned, I've decided to be with you.

I am compelled by other people. I want you to know that I've never acted on it, nor do I ever plan to, but I've just sort of accepted that it's a thing that happens. I'm sorry if you're not okay with that.

I struggle to separate intrusive thoughts from real ones, in this regard. If I think about being with someone else, for example, which hasn't happened to any serious extent, but either way: If I think about being with someone else, is it a thought just like "what would happen if I drive off the cliff?" Or am I actually trying to tell myself something? I really, really don't know.

I don't know what I want; in fact I barely even know what I have. I don't know if the right move is to keep refining our relationship until we're both 100% content. I don't know if that's possible. I don't know if the correct thing is just a willingness to approach that point. I don't know if I should be off talking to person after person until I feel some sort of spark, and even if I did I wouldn't know what that spark meant.

It's scary. It's the future. It's big, bigger than me, bigger than I can comprehend. It's unpredicatble, gigantic, incomprehensible. So here I am, ignoring it best I can, and working with what I have, which is you.

I don't want you to think I feel like I'm settling. It's not like choosing a car. Settling is not really a thing that happens I don't think. I don't have any relevant criteria for what makes one person better than another, if I already consider them both good people. It's difficult, and I'm sorry