Strangers Now?

It is amazing how someone who has long since been gone out of your life can still take your breath away.  It has been almost 2 years since I have had a real conversation with Liam (see The Many Loves of My Life ) and a over a year since I have even seen his face.  Yet, when I saw him ride past me on the escalator of the metro, my heart stopped.  I wasn’t even sure if he still lived in DC until that very moment - when time seemed to stand still.  

He didn’t see me.  I am not sure he would have talked to me had he seen me.  I had started to forget how much I loved him.  It had been months since I had even thought about him.  But all it took was 5 seconds, just a glance, and everything came flooding back.  I don’t know that anyone else has ever looked at me the way he used to.  His crystal blue eyes had a way of telling me his every thought, especially when he thought I looked pretty.  I have never felt more beautiful in my whole life than when that tall, kind, stunningly handsome man told me how pretty I looked, because his eyes always told me that he meant it.  It is hard to realize you are just another face in the crowd to someone who used to be the only person who really saw you.  

As I stepped off the escalator and made my way home, I was so flustered I could barely eat dinner.  My hands were shaking, and all my friends were off playing softball on the many fields scattered across the Mall.  I went to the bar, hoping a cocktail would clear Liam from my mind.  One cocktail led to two, and after two who was still counting?  I became a huge flirt (what’s new?) and just needed  to be seen.  I needed someone I wanted to pay attention to me.  As I flirted my way through several of my mini crushes at our regular bar, I felt myself start to settle back into myself.  My life is great.  I am great without Liam.  

When a boy I have grown quite fond of got really flirty by the jukebox, I naturally flirted back, even though I shouldn’t have.  He is roommates with one of my best friends.  I am over at his house ALL the time, yet that didn’t stop me.  The brush of his arm against mine, his hand on my waist - it was intoxicating, and I was already intoxicated.  When I said I was going home, he insisted on walking me.  I like to be walked home when I think the boy has romantic intentions.  I was dying to be kissed.  Valentine’s Day was a long time ago, and, after seeing, Liam I needed to feel something, anything but missing him.  He kissed me, a sweet gentle kiss.  We kept kissing for what seemed like an hour by the back door to my building.  

It was sweet, and I didn’t really want it to stop.  It wasn’t hot though.  I want a hot, passionate, a little rough, can’t-breathe-without-you kind of kiss.  I want a weak-in-the-knees, you-will-never-think-of-kissing-anyone-else-kind of kiss.  

I want too much.  I want what I can’t have.  I am all in knots.  If just passing Liam on the metro can make me this big of a mess, I don’t even want to know what having a conversation with him would do.  Maybe I will never find out.  It has been so long already, maybe our lives will never cross paths again.  We are probably just supposed to be faces in the crowd to one another, a distant memory of what once was.  

Young, Wild, and Free

As summer approaches and the air gets warmer I find myself more likely to take risks. To let go of my inhibitions and accept the fact that although I am not 21 anymore I am still young, I can still be wild, and I am free.  I can flirt with a 22 year old if I want to.  I can close the neighborhood bar with my friends on the weekends and not feel bad.  I can drink beer in peoples backyards and enjoy the beautiful weather.    

For the first time in a long time I don’t feel the pressures of getting older weighing heavily on me.  I don’t feel the pressure to get married looming over my head.  I feel like it is ok to be 25 (almost 26) and not settled down.  Don’t get me wrong, I am an adult with a great job and a clean, well kept apartment.  I just now know that I don’t have to be sad that I haven’t found my soulmate.  That it is ok to look forward to beach trips that will revel college spring breaks; spiked watermelons and boozey popsicles: and Sunday-fun-days with the “Family.”

With Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, passed us I have decided to make my summer check list.  These are the things I want to do or should do, because it is too soon to give up on being fun.

 

• Make a Flabongo … don’t know what that is? Let me show you!

 

• Get a wonderful golden tan!
• Enjoy wonderful Boozy Watermelons every chance I get!

• Make tons of Summer Play List for all different reasons: Beach Mix, Dance Mix, Backyard Mix, Pool Mix, Bar Mix … I want all the music!
• Grill out as much as possible and grill everything!  Whole meals from the Grill!
  
• Have a summer fling!  I mean a fun, care-free romance with someone that will never make it once the rays of summer fade.  I want something exciting, simple, and great while it lasts.  
• Go on lots of adventures …. anything from White Water Rafting, tubing down a river, hiking (not likely), and I don’t know just ADVENTURES!!!!
• Do a power hour with my friends!  I haven’t done one of these since college, but what says young and wild like this crazy drinking game?  (we won’t discuss the Hangovers and how not young they make me feel afterwards)
• Make lasting memories!  I want this summer to be one for the record books, one that I will tell my kids about someday (when they are like 30).  

Let the epic summer begin!  It is time for me to stop acting like my life is already over, and start living it!  

What Does Forever Look Like?

The thing about moving on, truly moving on, the- “I don’t give a shit about you anymore” and meaning it-moving on, is realizing that their face is not going to be the one you will spend the rest of your life with.  All the thoughts, plans, and dreams you had about your lives together are irrelevant.  You have to start over, and this leaves me with so many questions.   

What will my forever look like? Will he be tall and broad, or my height, standing eye to eye? Will his eyes be kind or sultry, brown or blue?  Will he be a bookworm or a jock? Will his hair be short or something I can run my fingers through? Where will we meet? Maybe I already know him. Will our first kiss be sweet and tender or drunk and sloppy? Will we be the kind of couple who holds hands just so we can be touching or the kind who keep our hands to ourselves in public?  Will we fight just to be able to make up? Whose place will we stay more, his or mine? Will we be a couple that loves to hit the town or the kind that likes quiet nights at home?

I also have so many hopes for what he, what we, will be like.  I hope he touches my face when he kisses me. I hope he thinks I look equally as beautiful in a t shirt or all dolled up. I hope he will be adventurous with me both in and out of the bedroom. I hope he will challenge me to be the best version of myself.  I hope he will stand up for me when I need it, but know when I have my battles under control. I hope we can trust each other, and I mean real, unconditional trust. I hope we are supportive of each other, both our careers and our dreams.  I hope he won't mind if I write about him, us, my thoughts on it all.  I hope he gets along with my brother, and understands with me, you also get my family.  I hope that we become friends with each other's friends, but most importantly be each other's best friend.  

I want all the stages in between where I am now and consuming love.  I want the sparkling eye contact when you first meet.  The giddy feeling when he texts you for the first time.  I want the first date jitters and the heat of a truly great first kiss.  You know, the kind of kiss that makes you weak in the knees, that makes you need to stabilize yourself on whatever is available, but mainly just hold on to him, never wanting to let go.  I want one of those kisses that is so great that years later you still think back on that particular kiss, that moment that you lost yourself in someone else.  I want the butterflies, my heart beating too fast feeling the first time he calls you his girlfriend, and the all consuming relief and joy the first time he says, “I love you.”  

I have questions, hopes, and wants for my life and the person I someday choose to share it with.  There is no way of knowing when or where we will meet, but maybe that is the fun part.  I sometimes become so cynical and jaded when it comes to love, but at heart, I am a hopeless romantic.  I do believe there is someone out there for me, someone wonderful who isn’t going to make me jump through hoops to be with them.  

I may question how it is all going to play out and hope for a lot of things, but there are some things I know without a doubt.  The person that I will spend forever with will be kind, understanding, and brave.  He won’t run away from love, or hide from possibility.  He will never make me feel inadequate.  I know my forever will be better than my past.