can't promise anyone anything

Relationships are delicate. Both people have to be on the same page. Both people have to be at the same point in their lives, wanting the same things. Can’t have any doubts or reservations. Do something too early, and you can taint it. Jump in too quick, you can screw things up. Wait too long, it may be too late. There are so many other variables besides who the person is, you have to consider who they are now, who they will be in the future, if you have the potential as a couple to grow together. Are you on the same page and will you continue to be?

Dating someone new: he would hold me back. I think we both know it, and that is why this won’t work. After graduation he will stay here, working. And I keep talking about my big dreams. We will both end up hurt. I will want him to come with me, and he won’t be able to, won’t want to. How could he want to follow someone with no plan? No, he would want me to stay or even assume I would be moving back to California after I finish my free soul traveling, which maybe isn't the case. I don’t want an anchor right now. I don’t want to be tied down here. I need to go where the wind chooses to blow: make connections with people where I go, make new friends, settle when I feel most comfortable or return to my home in California if nowhere else seems like home enough for me. Only then will I settle, when I find out where I want to be or I become tired and weary and sick of looking because I have experienced enough and lived it well, done something meaningful, changed someone’s life for the better, had fun, had adventures, and am finally ready to settle down to a place of comfort, whether it be somewhere else or here. I can’t promise him anything. I can’t promise anyone anything right now. I am scared to jump into a situation that will tie me down. That’s why I was so scared in my previous relationship. I knew he would tie me down to this place and I knew he was tying me down to this place. He was preventing me from spreading my wings. He was weighing me down and I felt the only way to remedy this situation was to carry that weight with me. I expected him to come with me on my adventures, but sometimes some weights are just too heavy to carry I suppose. I will have to leave it behind. I will have to leave him and the idea of him behind. And I can’t expect to meet anyone within the next year that could possibly understand this, even when he is this wonderful amazing intelligent someone who seems to be perfect. Because no one could possibly comprehend that I am a rolling stone and I intend to be a rolling stone and I like it that way, I want my life that way. My ex was also preventing me from living my situation now, he was preventing me from living out this time in my life fully, with no reserves. I have lived and had so many experiences at THIS point in my life, within the last year, that I wouldn’t have been able to have had I stayed with him. I wouldn’t have wanted to be tied down, I didn’t want it then and I realize now it was a wise decision for me. I cant have a relationship right now, no matter how wonderful this new guy may be, I am nowhere near ready to settle, to get married, I wont be until I know the PLACE I am happy at, and only then will I be able to plant roots. I can’t do it now.
It’s a shame, I am a walking contradiction, I want to be loved, I want someone to love and appreciate me, but how can you love a creature as fleeting as I am. I move, my character changes, I view the world differently each day. I want love, a relationship, and comfort and yet I want to carry that comfort with me from place to place everywhere I go and it is not possible and I need to realize that, you can only choose one situation at a time. If I choose to settle with the comfort of love before I am ready to, I will undoubtedly end up miserable later in my life, yearning for something more. If I choose to explore before I settle, I will feel accomplished and satisfied that I lived my life to the fullest and now it is time to make a family of my own, to raise other people, children to grow up and enjoy their lives as well. But only when I am finally ready to. And I know this is only fair to me and to him and to any other him. I’m not ready, and that’s okay. Right?