accept, or not accept? That is the question.

I think if I'm being honest with myself, deep down I've known for quite some time that I'm always going to alone. For years it's felt like my cross to bear. For years I've tried to ignore it and say, no of course not, I'm NOT gonna be alone forever, it's just for now. But I feel that I am, deep down; it's just I've not wanted to accept it yet. During the months I've gone without really connecting with anyone or even trying to, not going out, not trying to meet new people, not even seeing my current friends (which isn't for lack of trying, they just have their own busy lives and I'm not a part of it in a real way anymore, just in a once every 3,4,6 months kind of way); during those months I have accepted a forever single status. That's mostly why I don't see the point in trying. If I am going to be alone for the rest of my life then it's a complete waste of time trying to meet new people, going to horribly boring meetup groups and meeting someone for dinner from ok cupid. There's no point in that, because it's not going to lead to anything. I am willing to go to things that I REALLY want to go to. Like one time a friend had her meet up group meet at her house to hear her friend play the guitar for us and it was awesome, the best night I've had with people I didn't know. And tonight I'm going to a coffee shop to hear a girl sing, and it's a part of a meetup group as well. I guess usually if it involves music, then I'll go, but these seem extremely rare. I only go because there's gonna be live music. I LOVE small, intimate concerts. I love acoustic guitar. My dream girl would be able to sing and play the guitar or the piano even.

Even if deep down I know I'm going to continue being alone for the rest of my life, it doesn't mean I don't want somebody. I do. I want it more than anything. I want it more than I want to win the lottery, and I want that ALOT. I want it more than I want children. As much as I want to be a Mom, I want this more. I would give that up, just to have someone in my life. Ideally, whoever I end up with, would most likely want kids too, but that's how badly I want someone, that I would be willing to give up what I want 2nd most in life, for what I want 1st. They used to be equal, but the older I get the more I want the 1st, not the 2nd one as much. I think being a Mom is extremely hard, but so is being a wife. No matter how hard it will be, I still want it and would work my butt off to be a good wife.

Just because you're not willing to accept something, doesn't make it not true. You can accept it and move on and have a good life (which I do most of the time), or you can not accept it and go out and do things you don't want to do or go places you don't want to go, just in the hopes that you might connect with someone and that it leads to a real relationship. Sometimes when I'm out somewhere and every where I look there's couples, I think how does everyone have somebody, but me? How did they meet? What lead to them being in a relationship? I have no idea. I feel like it involved alcohol, though. It seems like most of the meetup events involve one of 2 things- alcohol, or old people. I don't mean to sound mean about that, but it's the truth. I'm not interested in either one. I do have some interesting stories to tell, based on the many groups and events and such I've been to, so at least there's that. Then there's the single people you see and it's clear as to why they are still single. Usually, I can see that it comes down to a social breakdown of some kind. An inability to have a normal conversation or know how to talk to people. I may be shy but I know how to talk to people. I'm no more awkward than the next person. I am highly aware of how to act in social situations. So when I see that single person talking to themselves or talking about something so random and not reading that the other person could care less and doesn't want to be there, or there's just something off about them in the way they talk to other people or their body language, I do feel bad for them, but I can see why they might be single. But maybe they aren't! Maybe they found someone equally as weird as them, and if so, good for them! That's awesome. So then, why can't someone like me connect with anybody? Am I really that bad to look at? I don't think I'm boring. I know boring. I don't want to talk about the weather or even my job to a degree. I'm not saying I'm the life of the party, the funniest person around, but I know I make my friends laugh. It could just be that even though I don't think there's only one person out there for everyone, maybe in my case there is and I just haven't crossed paths with them yet. I would rather at least have a girlfriend for awhile than not at all. Not to say I would date just anyway for the sake of dating. The thing is, there's not even just one person for everybody, because if there was then everybody would have a love, even if that love died before you did. I refuse to believe that the 2 guys I dated were my only loves; because they found their true loves! They are married to them! They have kids with them! So they were not my true love and I'm still owed at least one. But people die all the time without finding love. I think that's cruel and I don't know how I feel about a God who allows such a thing. There's always going to be people who would rather be alone than be tied down to someone. There's always going to be circumstances as to why a certain person never found anybody, or more likely they drove that person away. Unfortunately addiction and mental illness can be too much for even a true love to handle. It makes me sad and I do hope those people find help AND have the support of a friend, at the very least. But I don't have any major issues that would make having a relationship a challenge. I'm sure I'd have the same problems as any couple has, in every day life. But if I found someone that loved me and chose to spend their time with me, most of their time with me... man, they wouldn't know what hit them (in a good way). They would find a single rose on their windshield or a hand written card on their doorstep. I would show them how much I loved them every single day, even in the smallest of ways. Even just a text or a phone call to let them know I was thinking about them. Of course I'm not crazy, this would only be once we've solidified that we are in an actual relationship. I'm not an overbearing stalker. I just love showing people I care and love them. But for now I'll just keep writing my 2 stories. Living vicariously through my own words. One, a story of a past I never had, and 2, a story on a future I'll never have. It's ok. We can't always get what we want. And as far as what we "need;" I think what we truly need is: water, air, clothing, food and shelter. Everything else is just extra. Everything else is just a wonderful bonus; a treat after you've eaten your veggies, a gift and it's not even your birthday or Christmas. I hope people recognize all these "gifts" in their lives, because some of us are living on bare necessities.

Control and dirty carpets

I hate that feeling of not being in control. I mean, don't we all? But it seems like it's the little things that go wrong that infuriate me to my breaking point. Traffic being the number 1 infuriating inducer, but that doesn't seem so little. But if you throw in being hot, and starving and literally not moving or taking a detour only to find it's a dead end and you have to turn around and end up right back where you were before, but at the back of the line now... well all that gets me past my breaking point. I do have rage moments, I'm not going to lie. 99% of them do happen in the car, but some happen at home too. All that happened today and more happened in the evening at home. This time I wasn't hungry but I was hot, despite the air conditioning being on, which I usually don't do in Springtime. I usually have the windows open and cool my house down, but I was losing it, and my blood pressure was probably really high which explains the being hot. Despite my entire house being covered in tile floor except my bedroom, my cat thinks she has to run into my bedroom to throw up on my carpet. I knew she was about to do it because I heard her low guttural meow and I hurriedly grabbed her to move her but all this did was make the mess cover more of my carpet. So I clean what I can and wash what I can and febreeze it all and close my bedroom door. Except I didn't close it, it was open a crack I guess and there she goes right back in 20 minutes or so later and throws up again. On my damn carpet. And on a new side. I was yelling and screaming all the while thinking would I react like this if it was my own child? Well maybe. Especially if they were old enough to run tot he toilet. Mollie is the smartest cat I know and understands so many words and follows directions, I felt like she knew she's not supposed to throw up there. But anyway, I guess at least it wasn't my brand new rug in the living room. It still has that fresh clean look to it... for now.
Sometimes I feel like the longer I go without having that need met of physical intimacy, being held and kissed and just hugged even (I rarely even get that. Like extremely rarely); the longer I go without it the shorter my temper gets. The higher my rage gets. The breaking point gets broken quicker and easier than before. I consider myself a chill person. At least I used to be. I think it's the lack of controlling the biggest and deepest desire of my heart, of most people's. That need to be loved fully and physically by another human being. Not having any control over that makes me feel like I should be able to control all the little things, but of course we can't. As a kid we think being an adult means we could control everything about our lives, what we did, what we ate, what we wore, where we went, how late we stayed up. All things kids wish they could control but can't. I actually don't care about any of those things. If I didn't get to control what I ate because my love was cooking me dinner, well then that would be great! Fine by me! If I stayed up way too late not because I got to control it, but because I literally had no idea what time it was because I was up talking with the greatest girl in the planet, well that would be fine by me, as well. With the invention of dating apps and websites galore, we have this sense of control, swiping left or right, I don't even know. We can pick and choose who we want to talk to and respond to a wink or whatever it might be. But it's also 2 sided, and have to be reciprocated. And it's also all BS. At least in my experience. Matches aren't matches, they are random. I'm sick of it all. It makes me want to throw up like Mollie did tonight. But at least I get to enjoy this cool night outside on my porch, Pandora playing inside, Mollie jumping in the air trying to catch bugs in the front yard in front of me. At least I have that. I can't control Mollie any more than I can control traffic. I don't even know if I can control it when I lose it. I guess if I'm being honest, I don't want to. Screaming and cussing, throwing a fit is not my response to having to clean a carpet, it's really me reacting to all this pent up... whatever, I don't even know the word. I know for a fact that if someone that loved me held me tightly, I would be ok. I would calm down. And no a straight jacket won't do the trick. If you were thinking that. It's gotta be a person. A trusted person. But no such person exists. The few that could sort of kinda meet this in some way shape or form, I only get to see every 4,5,6 months sometimes more. So that doesn't really do it for me. But what are you gonna do? Continue on the path of life until the path reaches a dead end or merges with another path. I'm hoping for the latter. But I'm not gonna hold my breath. I've already passed out from holding my breath for 8 years. It's probably never going to happen. I'll be okay. I'll make it. I won't be the person I could be, but I'll still be awesome.   

Life with a capital L.

My friend asked if I has ever failed at anything before. I thought about a second, but the only answer I had for her was, that I've failed at life. I joked about it. I laughed it off, but it kind of felt true to me. At least in certain moments of my life... or lots of moments of my life. An almost 34 year old woman should be married with a couple kids under her belt. She's probably already done having kids, maybe one more. I haven't even begun. I haven't even truly dated anyone in 8 years. I'm not even being the 33 year old single girl going on many dates finding the one. I'm nothing and nobody. What's even worse than that, is wanting someone who doesn't know you exist. Someone you haven't even met, haven't even talked to. Being in love like that, even though everyone would say it's just a fantasy, it doesn't feel like that to me. I feel connected to her in more ways than the obvious. I had gotten better by not seeking out this person and trying to forget about her but then she snuck back in and it's starting all over again. I'd almost rather meet her and find out she's a complete fake and complete jerk. Even though I seriously doubt that's true. But I'd rather get my bubble burst, my glass ceiling shattered, than continue to go on like this. Continuing to want her, continuing to feel all these strong, unexplainable, ridiculous feelings for her. As I write this Damien rice is singing the words "I can't take my eyes off of you... I can't take my mind off of you," which pretty much says it all. The song ends with "till I find somebody new.." Which is exactly what I need. It's the only thing that will get me off this drug she has me on. If I met a real girl, living in my reality, not in the alternate universe I've created for us with my words...but a girl that lives in my actual world and surroundings; well that would do it. That would break me free. My mind would shift. My focus would be on what's in front of me, in person, not what's on a screen. I may not live in the kind of fantasy world that involves dragons and gosh I don't even know, but you know what I mean: the online gaming world. I don't even live in a fantasy world created by the shows and movies I love. I mean I love talking about them, but it's not like I'd ever want to live in the world of The Walking Dead, I mean c'mon, seriously. But I do live in the fantasy world I've created with my own words. Sometimes when I think of something I wish could happen, but I know it wouldn't, not in a million years, I think to myself "I can just write about it. I can make it come true with my words." I'm in every story I write. In my fantasy "alternate universe story." In my "1995" flash back storytelling of first love (that never happened, it's just a 'what if' kind of situation). I'm even in the screenplay I was writing there for a long while. If things aren't happening for me, and they look like they won't ever happen for me, for whatever reason, I feel like if I write about it, it's almost like it happened. It's not that I believed that it really happen. I know reality from fantasy. But it's the second best thing to all those things I write about, actually happening. Especially when you feel like it's not in your power to make any of them happen. I know life is short. I know that you have to get out there and make things happen. But when it comes to finding true love, how do you make that happen. And how many times do you have to try? Is a hundred times not enough? I probably haven't tried 100 times, but you get what I mean. I don't know anyone that has tried for as long as I have, with no results at all. Not even just one relationship to last a couple of months. Nothing. Even not trying doesn't make anything happen. You're supposed to just live your life and see who you meet and not "try." Well that hasn't worked for me either. But I don't really believe that I am nothing and nobody. The work that I do with babies and moms, tells me that I'm not. The things I have read about myself or have been told in person, from the moms I work with, tell me that I am somebody and I have helped a lot of people in the 11 years I've done this work with babies with disabilities and developmental delays and their families. That's something. I may almost never get to see my friends, since they are married with kids now, but I get to still feel their love and their presence at times. For instance I had just written that first part of this blog, one day, a few weeks ago and I was really having a hard time and right at that moment out of the blue, an old friend texted me to say she was thinking about me in that very moment. Now this friend goes way back to when I was a baby Freshman in college, 18 years old. I was very much moldable and fragile and looking to figure out my purpose, who I am, all of those things people that age are trying to figure out. When she came into my life, I feel like I felt what it felt like to be truly cared about by another person, for the first time in my life. Like deeply cared about. I looked forward to talking to her and getting a hug from her and hearing "love you" from her, more than I looked forward to going home and seeing the family I grew up with. Probably because all those things weren't exactly common place in my home growing up. This friend does live in my surrounding area, in fact she's less than 10 minutes from where my parents live and where I grew up. But life is crazy, so getting to see her a few times a year is precious in and of itself. So when I got that text, I knew she still thought about me. She still cared as intensely as she did in college, it's just I can't see her multiple times a week like I did back then. On more than one occasion she has texted or called on a particularly bad day or bad moment. Sometimes you have those friends that even though you hardly get to see them or even talk to them really, you have a connection that will never truly break apart. Why else would she decide in that moment to contact me? I love stuff like that. It's rare, but if it wasn't rare, then it wouldn't be a big deal. If I was always having people constantly encouraging me or spouting praise at me or telling me how great I am all the time, then it wouldn't hold a lot of weight when it happened, now would it? It would be just "another day at the office."

Life is life. You take what you're given. Sometimes you can make more happen, but sometimes you can't. You can always choose to see the good side of things. Sometimes you have to look really hard. Even though it seems like life has happened in the exact same way for everyone else but you, it hasn't. And you never know what life is really like for them, because you're not in their head or their bed. So, I haven't failed at life. Life looks differently for everyone. I don't know why it is that I haven't met a girl that I connect with. I don't know why it hasn't happened yet. But I know I won't give up. Not entirely. It still may never happen, no matter how many more times I try, but I'm still alive, I'm still breathing. I'm still here.

Accepting and hopeful

I wasn't going to address this commercialized made-up day, and I'm still not... yet. But by accident today, on this day of all days, I read some short stories I had written about a guy I dated in Colorado and almost married. I swear I didn't open this document on my computer on purpose. I wanted to re-read some of my stuff and I saw something titled "short stories" and I assumed it was short stories I made up. I didn't realize till I opened it that it was 8 pages of short accounts of different times we shared together. Camping, the Tim McGraw/Faith Hill concert, our day at the park, ect. It was weird reading it. Like really weird. It was like I was reading someone else's story, except all the memories were mine. But the vernacular was so foreign to me. I talked about how I felt, how he made me feel:


"He pursued me. Even in the beginning, he treated me like a princess, the way a woman should be treated. At restaurants he always made sure that I had a menu, had a drink, his jacket if I was cold. He was very attentive and always included me in groups and talked to me. He had the qualities of a man I always wanted- loving, caring, independent, attentive, touchy-feely. He made me feel like I was the only girl he saw. If I was being left out of a conversation, he’d bring me in. He wasn’t afraid to hold my hand in public, or pull my chair closer to his when we were at a restaurant with friends."


Re-reading it I was like, oh yeah! I experienced that feeling! For so so so long I've had nothing and no one to make me feel this way, I kinda felt like I had never felt that way. Like maybe I was making it up, or maybe I saw it in a movie and that's why I wanted it. I wanted to feel the same way and be treated the same way as that character in the movie. But that's not real, that's just a movie. But it wasn't! That was my life for real! At least for a short time in my life. He was exactly that way...until he walked away and broke my heart. My life was like a fairytale for a short period of time. He actually said the words "damn girl, your eyes are beautiful," and it wasn't a pick up line, he already had me, but even if it was, no one else has ever used that line on me. We were actually one of those sickening couples you see; that put their hands in each other's back pockets and are attached at the hip, just one person, you can't tell whose arm is whose.

This actually fucking happened! I didn't make this up. This wasn't in some movie I saw. This was a night, long ago:

"The night of the concert, we both dressed the part. Me in my black skirt and cowboy girl top, and Steve in his black jeans, boots and black leather jacket. We were the hot couple there that night. I was at the most romantic concert ever, with the man that I loved. I couldn’t think of anything better. We were on the very top row at the Pepsi Center in Denver, but we didn’t care. We were at the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill Soul 2 Soul II concert. Standing there with his arms around me swaying to the music, I thought I was in a dream. I was so sure that at any moment I would wake up. As Tim sang, “Just to see you smile,” Steve sang right along, singing the words in my ear as I was standing in front of him, his arms wrapped around me. Even though that song’s kind of sad, because he lets her go, just to see her smile, Steve said that that song was for me. When I later told him to listen to the words of the song, he didn’t realize what the whole song was about. He just liked the chorus and knew that –“just to see me smile, he’d do anything.'"
It's weird reading about your own life in that way. It feels like a million years ago, but it also feels unbelievable. Like maybe I made it all up. Like it was all a dream. In the grand timeline of life it was like a millisecond long. The whole relationship from start to finish, meeting to break up was all of 5 months. But I was definitely going to marry him. And since he brought up marrying me first, I believed him. It was his idea, to begin with. But all that doesn't matter now. I have zero feelings for him now. I haven't for a million years. It's just weird reading about it again, after all this time. I don't think I've read it once since I wrote it. We dated in 2006 and according to my computer I wrote about it in 2009. Although that must've been when I typed it in, I'm pretty sure I wrote it earlier, but anyways, I definitely haven't read it till now. What a trip. I'm grateful to have experienced all that though. It's at least something. I might not connect with anyone in that way now or in the past 8 years, but at least I did at one point. If it happened once, it can happen again. Or twice, actually, counting my first relationship. If you've loved and been loved, it can happen again. Some lucky ones (I have more than just one or 2 friends that this applies to), marry their first love and are still with that person. It amazes me. They are the luckiest people on the planet...or they're stuck. A person changes SO much in their 20s and into their early 30s, so being with that same person s...well I hope they've changed together at the same pace and are still people that want the other. I guess so, since they're still together, but what do I know. Obviously I'm glad now that I didn't marry my first love, but I'm not glad that I have yet to have my first love, in the gender that makes me weak at the knees and gives me this feeling in my stomach that can only be described as butterflies doing flip flops on a rollercoaster. It's intense, if you didn't get that picture. And not something I've felt before in the past with the guys I dated. Both guys I dated had the qualities I must have in a person: loving, caring, independent, funny, attentive, touchy-feely. If you don't like being touched, then stay away. I'm not inappropriate in public or anything. I'm a normal human being, but that would be at the top of  my list.
So I went to this party a few weeks ago. It's also weird saying that, because I don't typically go to parties. I went because it was at a current friend's house, so at least I'd know her, AND she was having her friend who plays the guitar come and jam with us, which is the best and only way I would truly enjoy any kind of party or gathering of strangers-if there's live acoustic guitar music. So I was already in heaven. And since he was pretty much an amazing rockstar, I was already having the best night I've had in an extremely long time. Like an embarrassing amount of time. What was also cool about this night is that I got a lot of physical touch. And hear me when I say none of it was meant or seen to me as anything more than it was; just casual, friendly touch. But it was nice to be around people who are friendly in this way. It was refreshing and invigorating. My already friend is a very social, outgoing extrovert of a person. She likes to call people "babe" and gives hugs or just a simple touch, or arm around you while she talks to someone. It's all innocent and just who she is, which I think is awesome. So I got to experience a lot of that, that night. And then there was this new girl who was apparently an ex-introvert. She told me all about how she just decided one day that she wasn't going to be one anymore and be out-going, an extrovert convert. I'm not sure that's how it works, but I'm happy for her. She is a very very outgoing, outspoken, friendly girl. She has no problems talking to anybody about anything. She was also a personal space heater. She said she's always been hot natured and she took my hands in hers to prove it and was like dang your hands are freezing. Which they were. They aren't always, but they were that night. So she felt it her duty to warm them up, and I think they cooled her down too. She proceeded to hold my hands as if we were praying together or having an intense conversation about our relationship. I didn't take it to mean any more than it was, one person warming up another person's hands, but it was definitely a different and new experience for me. I had never had that experience with a stranger before in my entire 33 years, and it was really cool, I have to say. It wasn't as awkward as you'd think it would be. I actually didn't pull away, which was unlike me, with someone I don't know. It went on for a good while. She talked to others while holding my hands and did it again another time that night. My point being, human contact, real human physical contact is pretty much the best thing on earth. I mean you need air, clothes, food, water and shelter to survive, or you'll literally die front the elements. But I think you also need human touch. And I am definitely lacking in that area. I'm majorly lacking. I get it in some form with the little ones I work with. Most don't give real hugs at this age, but I have this one little boy who is about to be 3 and leave the program, who started running up to me and give me a big hug every single time I come. This started a few months ago. And I have another little boy who finds comfort in rubbing my ear lobe while we look at books, and another who likes to tickle my arm while I type my note. It's all simple touch, but it all means the absolute world to me. It's not enough, but it's something. Touch and being touched, can't be replaced by anything. No amount of texting can come anywhere close to matching what physical contact provides. I really hope I meet a girl one day who is exactly like me in this area. I hope she needs physical touch as much if not more than me. I would snatch her up and never let go. I am made for someone like that, and she is made for me. I hope she does exist. And I hope that I get to be in her life someday really soon. Or I might die from lack of touch...okay I guess technically I won't.

I don't care that I don't have anyone today. It's not a special day. I used to think it was, but it's not. People who are married or in a relationship of a special kind shouldn't have to have a day set aside on a calendar to remind them to love their significant other. And I don't mean that in some bitter, single girl way. It's just a fact. There really shouldn't be a "Valentine's Day." Doesn't each couple already have one? It's called their Anniversary. I don't think I would even do anything out of the ordinary today, if I had somebody. We'd stay in and order pizza to avoid the crazy crowded restaurants. We'd continue watching whatever series we were binge watching at the moment on Netflix, instead of attending some poorly written and acted and over-sexed movie in a theater, where everyone can feel awkward about what they are watching next to the complete stranger 2 inches from them. Flowers. I would want flowers. But I want flowers all the time, not just because it's valentines day. Not expensive flowers. $9.99 or less at the Tom Thumb around the corner, come on, be realistic and don't be picky and snobby. I show love in a lot of ways- words, gifts, time and touch. And I receive it back the same. But there are just some things only that person you are in an intimate physical relationship can provide. I don't have that person, nor do I have friends that want to snuggle platonically in bed like Hannah and Marnie do in the pilot of GIRLS. But maybe that doesn't really exist in real life. Or in the real life of most girls and their best friends. It is what it is. Life's what you make of what's been giving to you, not always searching for more or better. It's not about complaining. It's about making the best of it. So I'm not gonna complain or be sad. I'm just accepting and hopeful. This is me. Accepting of the now but hopeful for what could come in the future. After all, the future is only one second from now. Oh look, I'm already there.   

The journal of a teenage girl

I'm so glad I found my journal from my teen years. I began it Thanksgiving Day 1993 as a goofy 12 year old 7th grader who enjoyed using the word "cheesie" entirely too much, and it ended as me heading into college as an extremely scared, shy and somewhat depressed 18 year old Freshman. Even though I generally remember everything I wrote about, it's good to really get down to the deep feelings of it all. It's eye opening, but also kind of hard to read at times. I don't really know how I got to the point where I would say "...oh well, it's not like I'm practicing to be a writer. I used to want to be one but now I know I'm not as creative as I was in elementary school and junior high." I think I partly got to that point because I had a very busy high school experience. Yet it was very lonely at times. I was in Band, National honor society, Choir, Crescendo (girls ensemble at school), Flag Corps, church choir, church girls ensemble, and endless church youth group activities including camps, retreats, mission trips, choir trips, as well as church on Sunday morning and night and Wednesday night. I mean, is that enough for you?? And I of course had school, which I wasn't the top of my class but I squeezed by with an A for my GPA at the end of my high school experience. I'm not saying all this to brag. I'm not involved in any of those things now! I'm not a professional clarinetist, I don't perform in the Flag Corps on any professional level...I know it exists somewhere. I'm definitely not a paid singer of any kind. But I am SO glad that I did all those things. I had a blast doing them and they were really important to me at the time. But I guess it left little time to be creative with my writing. My brain was too full of math I'd never use again and all types of pointless things I learned in school, or lyrics to the endless songs I had to memorize for 4 choirs, and routines to perform with the Flags. I barely wrote in my journal. It ended up being a couple times a year sometimes. I did mention that I kept it hidden because I was always afraid someone would read it, not that my Mom gave me any reason to think she would, but every kid worries about having their deepest feelings exposed. So, I often forgot I had it, since it wasn't out where I could see it. Sophomore year I wrote about my plans to take a writing class my senior year, but when the time came I didn't. I was in too many extracurricular classes as it is, with 2 different choir classes. I didn't have the time. I wouldn't have had the time to do all that extra writing outside of class anyway, what with all my after school rehearsals and practices and such. I don't know I regret it though. I loved all that I did and was involved in. Looking back on everything now, I wouldn't change WHAT I did, but I would like to have changed how I felt or responded to people and experiences, things like that. However, I was at the place emotionally I was at because, that's just who I am. If I went back now, I guess I would be a 33 year old stuck in a 17 year olds body and everything would be different in my mentality and how I thought and responded to people and situations, but that's only because I've matured as I got older. I've experienced SO much more since then. I've learned and grown. I can't be that person again, just because of nature and how our mental and emotional selves grow. They just do. At least for most people they do.
I wrote about how I was scared out of my mind to go to college. It sounded like a big, scary, lonely place, and I was even going with 3 of my closest church/school friends. But I was already feeling like I was losing them before we even left. I was struggling personally, and it left me feeling like they were leaving me out and didn't care about me anymore. My fears weren't subsided when all three of them got married literally the second we graduated college, and I saw them next to never again. I wrote how confusing my senior year was. How "my self-esteem plummeted 100 points. I still cannot get over the feelings I have about myself." I think these feelings were that I hated who I was and I hated being sad and depressed all the time. I said I was looking for a "best friend," but I had higher expectations of my friends than they could perform. And it wasn't their fault at all. I didn't know what I wanted at the time, I was completely unaware of any of it, but I think what I wanted was a deep emotional and physical connection that none of them could provide, because they were all looking for that... in a guy. I wanted an "intense friendship," I wrote. I didn't even know what I meant by that. Being gay wasn't a part of my world at all.  I didn't know anyone that was, it never crossed my mind at all, it wasn't on my TV, it wasn't on the radio, and the internet was barely a thing and I didn't have a computer anyway.
My church, which was my everything, let me down in a HUGE way. I already knew that I couldn't afford to go to Baylor, but it's the only place I wanted to go and so while I got a small chick-fil-a scholarship since I worked there, and some grants, I knew I was going to be paying for college for practically the rest of my life. So when I didn't get the church scholarship I thought for sure was an easy one to get, I was more than disappointed; I was crushed, I was devastated. I didn't understand what I did wrong. I was an A student and heavily involved in both church and school activities. I even somehow managed to be on s student of council of sorts very briefly, at church. I had been going to this church for 10 years and the ones that were given the scholarship had only been there a couple of years. It seemed that the only thing the others had that I didn't have, was money. Their parents were rich and they tithed more to the church than many parents did, that I knew to be true. My parents ended up leaving that church and going to another one, not right away though. I too didn't come back but a time or two, since I was in college anyway, but also because they had really hurt me.

I also documented my experience with boys before college, which was this: I asked a guy I worked with at chick-fil-a to go to a movie with me, on the fact that he was funny, nice, he talked to me at work, and he put his hand on my back when he passed me when I was doing dishes in the kitchen. We accidentally wore the exact same outfit- khaki pants, a sweater and brown shoes, and we saw "meet Joe black," which I remember nothing about. I found out later he had a girlfriend, so apparently he didn't consider that movie anything but going to see a movie with a co-worker. I also went to Senior prom with pretty much the only boy I talked to from church, who I had so much fun doing the Easter Story 3 years in a row, with. It was this big musical production our church used to do. He was a Junior at a different school, and I went in knowing he had a girlfriend at the time. He spent most of the night talking to my best friend who made me go with her and her date, in the first place. I didn't even want to go to prom, but my Mom wanted me to go because she didn't go, and my best friend wanted me to go too, she actually set up the whole thing for me. Anyway, my date doesn't play for my team anymore anyway... nor do I... wait I'm confused. Eh, you get what I mean. So I didn't have the best track record, as you can tell. This is me going into college: "I just cannot speak to guys very well, it's like they're aliens and I don't know what to say. I usually don't speak or I say something stupid. I'm usually okay with guys younger than me, but at Baylor they'll all be my age or older and I'm going to freak out, I just know it." And yet I met my first boyfriend that first year... didn't start dating till the summer after, but he was a whole year and a half older than me. So I guess I proved myself wrong. I had managed not to freak out too much. But we were friends first my whole freshman year, so he knew me really really well before we had even kissed.
Re-reading the final pages of my journal I'm reminded how incredibly scared I was going into college. I had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life. That and my time in Colorado were both the best and worst times of my life. Isn't that weird to say? Isn't that contradictory? But it's true. Both times held the happiest, most fulfilling moments and friendships, and both my relationships with guys, in my entire life. And then they held the most pain I've ever felt, and loss and pushed to the brink, having everything you held in highest importance ripped from you. It's interesting that those two extremes can come from the same place. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think taking the biggest risks can often times give you the biggest rewards. It might also be followed by everything being ripped away, but that's a part of life. And I wouldn't trade any of those experiences for anything, just to not have those really bad times remembered. It's like that movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." She gets all her memories of him erased. But you're taking the good along with the bad. I wouldn't want that taken from me, not for the world! I loved those times where I was the happiest and most fulfilled and loved and cared about so deeply by my closest friends and boyfriends. Sure when everyone left me it sucked, but at least I still have those amazingly good memories. I wrote down on the last page of this journal, this quote I saw on a bathroom stall in the shared bathroom down the hall of my Freshman dorm: "Recall it as often as you wish. A happy memory never wears out." And so I will...

Words are good and fun and stuff

Oh wow! It's been a whole month since I've written a blog post, and that's not because I suddenly got a life. No, I've just been busy writing my fictional story about a real live 15 year old me, set at the end of 1995. I'm 91 pages in... and nowhere near an ending. It would be all that and a bag of chips, if I were to get it published one day in book form. That would be like the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have so many thoughts running through my head right now, this will probably be a very random blog, but that's not saying much, because many of mine are. I try to get a theme going, though, in most. So, no segway here but, it's obvious if you know me at all, that I LOVE TV. Like love it love it. Almost 100% of my conversations with my Dad are about the shows we watch, and we watch a lot of the same shows, he watches almost everything I do. I got my love of TV from him, and if he were a deadbeat Dad who never got a job and never provided for us, and I in turn were not a college grad with an actual job providing for myself completely and utterly 100% on my own, well... then I would say "lay off the TV and get a life already." But he is not those things, and I am a productive member of society, so I think we're fine. The Walking Dead is our favorite show. He is totally going with me to the "Walker-Stalker con" in March (yes that is really what it's called). To prove how much I used to be scared of zombies and refused to watch it for years (I just watched all the seasons last summer) I had nightmares just from watching Zombieland. Yeah that's right, it's a comedy and meant to poke fun at it. Well, needless to say, I gave in and am now the biggest Walking Dead fan ever. I am even making a T-shirt to wear at the event that says "Beth is not dead." Just in the hopes that Emily Kinney will give me a thumbs-up, as I pass by her. I'm such a dork, I know, it's been established. It is the best written show there has ever been or will ever be. It is perfection, even if they kill off characters I like. But enough about The Walking Dead. So there's this other show called Hindsight and it basically is about a woman who wakes up back in 1995 the day of her first wedding and is able to make different choices in her life and yada-yada. What's cool about it, besides being a pretty well-written show and the only scripted show to hit VH1, thus being the only show I've watched on VH1, with the exception of that "I love the 80s" show I watched years and years ago, that talked about the great fun things from my childhood and other things I had only vaguely heard about, because I was too young to really know about them. So what's cool about Hindsight, is that I'm able to get some more ideas of awesome 90s stuff for my story. Like for instance clothes and music. What was fun to see in the first 3 episodes thus far, is that I have already claimed several songs they've thrown in, as my own in my story. It's kinda neat that I start my 1995 story just before this one came out. It's like I'm "trendy" or "popular" for the first time ever. Ok, and the 3rd and final TV reference I'll make in this blog is to the HBO show Girls. I've watched all the seasons, but so far I like this one the best because they seem a bit less whiny and trying to "grow up" and join the real world more. I was too young to relate to Sex and the City when it came out and too old for Girls, but at least I had Felicity, which was on when I was in college as well, although I didn't start watching it till it's last season and then went back and started from the beginning. REALLY great show, by the way. But I can't go into that now, I said I was on my last show reference... and I lied. So in Girls, Hannah (Lena Dunham, writer, creator ect), is also a writer in the show. She's at this college for a writing program, kinda like a Masters I'm guessing. Everyone has so much to say about her writing (not good stuff), and it definitely makes me never want to take a writers workshop, unless I can just give my writing to a teacher-like older person and they can email me their critiques. I don't think I could ever read my writings out loud to a group of fellow writers and have them tell me how flawed, or weak or immature or whatever they want to say it is. My writing is deeply personal (despite being out there on the internet for anyone to read). I don't welcome comments, unless to say you love it, and that's the way I like it. So will I ever get my "1995" story of a 15 year old girl discovering her true self when she meets a girl that opens new doors for her and changes her life forever, published? Probably not. But that's ok. I share it with those I trust and who I don't think would be weirded out by young love of a lesbian nature. These friends are few and far between, but maybe one day I'll share it with more.... lesbians probably, but maybe the world. Who knows. Everyone always says "Do what you love," and I believe it. They didn't say "you'll get paid to do what you love," and that's got to be ok with you. What I love is writing. As awesome as it would be to make a ton of money on one book so that I could quit my job and really focus all my time and energy on writing more, that's probably not going to happen. I'm not Lena Dunham. That's alright. In my 1995 story, the character Christie is me, totally me at 15. I have a different family and live in a different state, to make it more interesting and a change from how I grew up, but I love that my personality and what I loved and wore and listened to and watched, is all me. I remember my senior year of high school I chose to take a girls ensemble class, despite already being in Choir, over taking a writing class. I didn't have the ability to take more "extracurricular" classes than those. I had already dropped band, after playing the clarinet since the 6th grade, I suddenly stopped senior year. Didn't even want to finish that last year. I was done. I always regretted not taking that Creative Writing class, though. Where could I be now if I had taken it? Maybe nowhere. Maybe I'd still be the same exact person I am. I knew I was going to Baylor. I knew my strength was working with children. I had done it since I was 12 years old, practically still a child. So, that class might not have made a bit of difference other than being fun for me. But maybe, as it will in my 1995 story, it spurred me on to apply for a writing program with a college, which leads to an internship at a publishing company. Maybe I become a junior copywriter, and then who knows what. I don't really know the whole process anyway, I'm not completely sure what a copywriter does in the first place, I've just heard that word in movies. But my point is, in a story you can be anything. You can HAVE anything. If you think it up, it's yours. I love writing like that. I hope I can keep writing till I'm old and gray. I hope they develop technology that can take my thoughts as an old lady and put them in print form on a computer, so I don't even have to talk or type. One of the best things about writing is being able to go back and read what you were thinking at one point in time. I have a journal (one of many), from 1995, from a trip to Centrifuge (a Christian camp my church youth group went to in North Carolina). The whole trip was 10 days long, and I wrote everyday in it. I'm so glad I did that. To be able to go back and read about every little thing I did there, how I was feeling, what cool popular older kid talked to me that week instead of being the invisible girl I was most of the time; all that is priceless. I could never remember all that, but I don't' have to, it's in the pink journal with the cat on the cover that looked like my cat Oreo, that my Mom got me right before we left. I first started journaling the previous summer, in 1994. That June I broke my leg on my 13th birthday. It was the worst thing to happen to me in my entire life up to that point and was quickly followed by the 2nd worst thing- my best friend moved out of state like a week after I broke it. She was the same friend that was there when I broke it and I distinctly remember her trying to climb into the ambulance to go with me, but of course they weren't going to let a 13 year old girl ride in an ambulance. It was all so surreal. I felt like I had left my body and was watching it happen to someone else. My leg was dangling in my hand when I lifted it after I fell on it. I knew it was broken, I heard it snap. It didn't hurt right then, because I was in shock, but later at the hospital I pushed the morphine drip till it wouldn't give me any more. I had broken my left femur in half. Like half half. Seriously, I wish I had the X-ray, the bone was side by side. I still have the steel rod though, that they put in and left in for about a year. And I still have that 6 inch scar on my left hip where they went in to put it in and take it back out after my leg had fused itself back together again. After that happened and my best friend moving, the 3rd worst thing happened, I couldn't go to my first youth camp, having just finished the 7th grade, which triggered events that led to my other 2 best friends from my grade at church, to bond further to each other and forget I existed for the better part of our teens. It's alright though, I made new friends eventually. I even reconnected with one of them towards the end of High School. But the best thing, the only good thing to come out of it was that, that was the summer I started journaling. Sure I'd written many stories I made up or even a "Dear diary, I had pizza today at school" type of writing in the previous years, but it wasn't until this huge life change and set-back (at least for a 13 year old girl who church was her entire life and to miss out on the first youth camp! That was just unacceptable); that I began to really write down my deepest feelings and emotions. I haven't re-read them in years, I can't remember much now, but I still have it, and it most likely had to do with losing friends. To a 13 year old girl, friends are everything, there really isn't anything else. Especially this girl who didn't have crushes on boys or think they were cute at all. So in the end it all worked out. Maybe I wouldn't had started writing, in a deep way, if it hadn't been for that leg break. Or maybe it wouldn't have come till much later. Writing is so powerful. It's why I'm pulled to really well-written TV shows, and how I despise reality shows, to the point that I weep for humanity as their brains are turned to mush from this horribly stupid and pointless nonsense of people competing for "true love" and slapping each other and getting drunk just so they can yell some more at each other, because people who are sober don't yell as much. And don't even get me started on SpongeBob. This is destroying the brains of our children... and the adults that they grow into and continue to watch it, as it seems to have been on since the beginning of time. But anywho, I digress. I love to share my writing. My blog is for everyone and my other stories are for the few, but really just one person who consistently asks to read more and always tells me how much she loves my writing, because I write in such detail that she can actually see everything that is happening. Even just sharing it with one person, makes me feel good. There's a difference between writing for yourself (your emotions and struggles and pain and hopes and dreams), and writing so someone else can read it. It makes it more real. If just one person reads it, it makes you feel not invisible in this world of too much information. There's far too many books, blogs, articles to read. It would be impossible to read them all, even if you wanted to. But I don't know, there's just something about knowing that you're known by someone else, in this way, through the words you've written. It's special. It makes me feel alive and I'm grateful for this person and she knows who she is. She's read every blog and several things I've written. She'll be reading this very blog as well, probably in the next day or two. As my eyes are starting to droop, the time has come to end. Sometimes it's difficult to end. Sometimes my body fails my mind. There's always more to say. Again, it would be awesome if I could think my thoughts and have them typed out for me on my computer. That would be the coolest thing ever and needs to be invented now. Before I start to unravel and make much less sense than I probably already am now, I will end this blog post. I will stop writing. Tonight. Not forever. Never forever. Long live writing.

Oh 2008!

I found a little notepad when I was cleaning and on the first page, (as well as the only thing written in it), was a list of my 10 favorite things of 2008. I believe it was written in the summer time, based on some of the entries. Here they are:
1. Meeting Joshua Radin
2. Steak n'shake cheeseburgers and skinny fries
3. My perfect sized efficiency apt
4. My new 27 inch TV. It's huge!!
5. Coldplay's new CD released on my birthday.
6. My super empty apartment pool and raft
7. "The Office"
8. $4.50 movies
9. The return of  blue bell ice cream
10. New friends.
I had moved back home to Texas from my 2 year adventure in Colorado, at the end of 2007. I was defeated and had lost my money, all of my friends (except my best friend from there) and an almost fiancé. I had moved home for a couple months, but started out 2008 in my very own efficiency apartment. It's all about perspective. In Colorado, I had always had to have roommates wherever I lived, since I couldn't afford the rent on my own, and the only TV I had was what I could fit along with everything else I brought, in my SUV, which was a tiny one that fit on the floor of my car. That one room apartment was small, but it was all mine. In Colorado they didn't have Blue Bell Ice Cream or steak n-shake, which ended up being right by my apartment, when I moved back at the time. I also had my own pool a few feet away, no one ever came to it, it was so small and there were otheres scattered all over the huge apartment village, and a much bigger one at the country club where all the parties were held. I also met Joshua Radin, he's a singer-songwriter and my favorite male artist, for the first time. I've seen him 5 times now and met him 3 or 4 times). And the new friends I referenced, well I can say that I am still friends with one of those girls to this day. She leant me her car this week while mine was in the shop. The point is, most of these things are not huge and amazing things, they don't even seem that great to me now, but at the time they were everything. It's all about perspective. I may not have the one thing I want in all the world, but today I have far better things than even what's on this list, 6 years ago. I now live in a house, much much bigger than that efficiency apartment. My TV is much bigger than that one, 42 in. I think. Unfortunately steak n'shake is gone but Twisted Root is here and it is even better than steak n'shake. The Office is gone, but Parks and Rec replaced it...(which is about to be gone as well, but let's not speak of that, it just makes me sad). Maybe Brooklyn nine-nine will replace it. It's pretty funny, but maybe too soon to tell. Change is hard. But change can bring about better things. Better things that all of your favorite things of that year. I'm going to sit down and make a top 10 list for 2014. Maybe in 6 years I'll read it and think how awesome it is that my "favorite things" are nothing compared to what I have now. That's going to be be fun. Looking forward to that. Also looking forward to discovering more new favorite things this year. Things I haven't even thought of yet, or haven't even experienced yet. No matter how small, every year brings newness; new favorites, new experiences, new people. You gotta be grateful for every little thing you have... even if it's just ice cream and cheeseburgers.