what we all have been waiting for

I don't want to focus on the negative things that pass through my mind. I don't want to be fixated on the past. I cannot change it but I don't think I should ignore it. I still think about Pants but it lessens. It lessens and goes away faster than before. And I am thankful. And I am grateful. And I look forward to the day there is no thought of him at all; or it is a flicker that quickly dies.
My therapist saw this coming; my memories. She knows my pattern. I meet someone, like them, and then all my demons come back to haunt me. All those past relationships raise their hands and call my attention. And suddenly my heart is not my own anymore.
It's not as bad this time. I don't even feel the need to talk about it (much) or write about it (much). Just a mention. Oh, I remember them. I do. But they are gone. They are gone and I would like for them to stay that way.
I avoid the things that would bring to me the memories I long to repress. Sometimes I indulge and honestly? It's getting easier to not hurt. Or to recover from the ache. It helps to have Shiny, even if I don't yet talk to him about this. I make mention but it's nothing like the story times that have gone into every other relationship I've had. It's nothing like the phone calls and tears and sense of betrayal of the person I'm dating because I can't push these others out of my chest cavity.
It's been healing with help. I feel more whole than I ever have. This is a good time to be in my life. I am relatively stable emotionally, I love school, I like my job (even if the circumstances aren't ideal), I love my internship, I love my roommate and apartment and cat. And now there's this person that gradually got worked into my life.
Shiny fans my embers. He makes my fire grow. My heart is cautious, cautious, cautious even as it screams "GO GO GO." I am grateful for the parts of me that still hold back. I feel safer that way. I feel like I can trust him, but it still must be earned. This is new. Why do things feel so certain? Part of me still expects it all to abruptly end. Like he'll suddenly realize that I don't fit. I know he meets all my relationship requirements, but things are trickier when a person doesn't have any.
I crave solidity, stability, and assurance. I crave the things that I am not. I seek someone to balance me. The only person who has ever done that was my ex-husband. Honestly, in some ways Shiny reminds me of him. The upgrade.
But I don't want to compare Shiny to the people I've been with before. That isn't fair to anyone. I can't help it sometimes. There have been little holes inside of me that people left behind. Little memories of the things that I miss. Head on my shoulder. Mocking my pout. Rubbing the cartilage of my ear. No one else has been able to do it the way he did. No one else could hold me in their lap the way he did. No one else rocked me that way or cried while I did.
There are things that cannot be recreated. Those are what stick inside of me and ask why I did the things that I did. I don't know. I thought it was right.
Shiny fills the holes like water. Or clay, ready to harden with the heat. Will he evaporate, crack, or remain?
Can he lessen my need?
Is this redemption?
What is redemption?
The realization that I deserve the good that I receive?
The realization that I can let someone inside and not have it hurt?
The ability to finally accept someone as who they are and not who they could be, or should be, or want to be?
I want this.
I want it to just be.