You make me want to be brave

Conversations of late have had me thinking about commitment and the terror that surrounds it for me. My thoughts are rambling on the subject and, well, it's been interesting to follow random thoughts to their end and see what different directions they can take me, and how not terrified I am of some of the results.

But I digress.
I have a very full life. Until maybe yesterday I had always thought that a commitment would lessen that. I like that I can go where I want when I want and not have to ask anyone, or even really tell them if I don't want to....but I also don't have someone that I can take off on road trips with and have comfortable silences with in the car.
I like to have a plan, a formal vision of what my week is going to look like. In the last year or so I've been trying to be more relaxed on that, play it by ear as it were. Because while I understood that things don't always have to go perfectly, it's a very hard concept for me to live out.
Contrary to popular belief (or the belief of anyone that's ever set foot inside my house) I crave order and continuity. I like knowing that this is where I go when and what we're going to do. I often try to plan the fun right out of events.
I used to depend a lot on drinking to move past that, because when I drank, I didn't care what the heck happened, just that people were paying attention to me.
But the most fun that I've been having, is just the playing it by ear of late. The rambling conversations that you realize at the end lasted for hours, the spontaneous 7 hour shopping trips (I know, I'm surprised I lasted that long too) and wooden banana shaped plates from goodwill.
Yet, with all this order and planning that I have, I don't really make long term plans well. It's like I feel this need to exert maniacal control over the short term and I think I sacrifice the long term for that.
Ask me about my career plan. I'll give you some vague la-dee-da about ideas and what I think might happen.
Ask me about this weekend, I'll bullet point it for you down to the minute.
Ask me about school, I'll change the topic so fast you won't remember we were ever talking about it.
Ask me about what I'm doing tonight and I'll rapidly lay out the list that ends in my scheduling phone calls for conversations just to chat.

It all confuses me very much. This holding two opposite actions and beliefs at the very same time. I can imagine that some of you are confused too.
I feel happy and sad at the same time. I feel contemplative, but if you ask me what I'm thinking about I couldn't tell you, it's like I'm thinking about...nothing. Either that or I feel some sort of insta-shame about whatever it is that I'm thinking about.....like it's not smart enough or witty enough to share.

I'm terrified that lists of requirements I make for men to meet are only so stringent so that no one could possible make the grade....thus allowing me to cower away from even the semblance of a commitment.
Should I calm down? Most definitely. I mean, of everything that I think that I want in a partner, I can tell you reasons why I also want the opposite of that reason. It seems that the list can dwindle down to only 1 finite point that has never changed.
Faith.
I want to be loved by someone, and to love someone that shares the faith I have. It seems that everything else, for the most part (see even now I can't make up my mind), can be worked out, talked about, compromised.
But I want someone that will go to church with me. That will talk about the sermon with me, even if we don't get the same thing out of it, or even agree on the action that could/should go with it. I want someone that thinks faith is important, necessary.
I don't have all the answers to why with my faith, and I don't think it would be necessary for anyone else to either. But have faith, that's important.
Of all the things that have changed and evolved over the last almost 5 years, that really hasn't. To me that seems to mean that the rest, it's fluid, it changes and dissipates depending on the time of day.

I don't know how to get over this fear of commitment, this idea that no one will really stick around long enough to last a lifetime paralyzes me most days.
But today I feel brave. I felt brave yesterday, and maybe I'll feel brave tomorrow.
All I know is I'm feeling braver longer now, then I ever have before.
So there could be hope yet.