Letter to My Future

As I have watched my parents relationship fracture and crumble, I have seen the man my father truly is.  As the lies are exposed and the rose colored glasses are removed, I wonder if I will ever be able to trust a man fully again.  How do I continue to believe in love when my example of love is broken?  Somehow I still have hope that someone is out there for me, and if they are, I have a few things to say to them.   

Hello,

I am not sure if you are out there looking for me, or if we have already met.  Maybe you are still sowing your wild oats, and that is ok.  When we make our way to each other I want you to be ready.  We won’t be young and stupid or trapping each other.  I want us to choose each other.  I want you to see my flaws with open eyes and love me because I am not perfect, not in spite of it.   

Be forewarned, I come with baggage.  I have spent my life being an afterthought for the men in my life, neglected and ignored.  Make me a priority, because you will always be my priority.  Hold my hand when we are walking through a crowd so that I never feel lost.  Never hush me or try to dampen my light because you never want me to feel small. Learn the small things about me, like how I take my coffee or what I want on my hamburger.  Those small everyday things are more important than the big romantic gestures to me.  I would rather you really know me than have the big social media worthy moments.

Accept my eccentricity, they are what make me interesting and who I am.  It took me a long time to not hide behind pearls, a southern accent , and a smile.  I am not ashamed of my fandoms, or all the cat pictures on my phone.  Embrace the things that bring me joy, even if you don’t understand them.  I will always embrace the things that make you you.  Make an effort to get to know my friends; they are my chosen family and aren’t going anywhere.     

It doesn’t all fall on you.  I promise to tell you how I feel instead of internalizing things.  I will listen and pay attention to you, because what you say matters to me.  Laughter will be something I strive for with you every day because I want you to be my best friend. I know we have both been independent for a long time and will respect that we need our own space.  I never want us to lose who we are as individuals just because we are together as a couple.     

I am waiting for you because I know our love will be worth it.  I won’t settle for someone else out of fear you might not come or impatience that you are taking too long.  Actually, I will never let fear or insecurities drive our relationship.  I have watched what fear of being alone can do to a marriage over 38 years.  We will not be my parents. I will remember you are not my father.  

While I wait, I will let life happen, but know I am ready when you are.  

Until we find each other,

H   

Perfect Storm of Sadness

I am sad.  I am sad for a whole host of reasons.  I am sad because I am sleeping with someone I could actually really see myself with, but I am too scared to ask for anything more than occasional sex.  I am sad because M sent me a booty call text that made me so angry I could scream, and the fact that it made me feel something so extreme makes me sad.  I am sad because I finally told Bee how she makes me feel inadequate and she didn’t at all comprehend it, and now I feel like I am losing one of my oldest friends.  I am sad because maybe no matter how much self discovery I go through, I will still just be a girl seeking the approval of other people: of men, of friends, of anyone and everyone who might just for a second solidify that I am real and solid and worth something.  Maybe no matter how strong of a woman I have become there are moments when I am just a sad broken girl.

Sad and broken are the perfect words to describe how I feel in this moment.  All of this comes on the heels of things that should make me feel empowered.  I have a man who I enjoy having sex with and he enjoys having sex with me, and that should be empowering, to enjoy my body.  Instead I find myself just wishing Evan would want more from me than just my body.  I told him that the intimacy of staying the night with someone is just as important to me as sex, so he gave me that.  He stayed, he engulfed me in his arms, gently pressing his lips to my forehead.  He talked to me about real parts of his life.  I mistook him giving me what I told him I needed for him actually caring.  He cares about fulfilling my needs, not because he is falling In love with me, but it is what lovers do, they scratch an itch.  The problem with receiving intimacy from someone who doesn’t want to be with you is intimacy fosters feelings.  

So, here I am sad that I have contracted feelings for my fuck buddy and M has to go and text me.  We had been at a going away party for one of our friends, and I will admit I looked great, but losing 26lbs will do that for you!  M leaves early and while I am still sitting at the bar with our friends drinking cheap beer and debating the merits of everyone taking a fireball shot, my phone buzzes.  There it was, “Hey.”  It sat right below the message from January where he said “You are a pretty girl, I just can’t do this.”  That “Hey” was a punch in the gut.  What the actual fuck?  He has no right to text me.  He couldn’t even try to have a conversation with me for the 4 hours we were in the same room, but he thinks a drunk “Hey” is appropriate?  I have been such an adult about our whole situation, and he goes and does something as childish as testing the waters with a booty text.  I wanted so badly to text and ask if he was serious, but our friends talked me off the ledge.  I didn’t respond, and that should make me feel empowered.   

The worst part is since that text I have been so angry!  I have wanted to yell at him, tell him that he was the one that chose not to be with me, so he will never have the right to text me.  To scream that he needs to grow up, if not for himself than for his friends that have to constantly apologize for his shitty behavior.  More than anything I want to yell at myself for wanting to yell at all.  I have spent the last 6 months figuring out how not to care about M.  I tried to give him my heart and he didn’t want it.  He doesn’t get to want or have any other part of me, not even my anger.  

As I try to decipher my feelings for two guys that don’t want my heart just my body, I am also trying to decide what to do about my friendship with one of my oldest friends.  Bee and I have been friends for almost a decade.  There are very few memories about college that don’t have her in them.  I love her truly, but loving her and being her friend has not always been easy.  When we are one on one, Bee is the best friend that she knows how to be.  When we are in public, around other people, I have often felt like Bee’s sidekick.  Over the years, I have often felt like she acted like she didn’t know why I was hanging around when we were around people who didn’t know us that well.  Or that she wouldn’t stand up for me if it would affect the time she was having.  Maybe it has always been in my head, but I have, especially since we graduated college, felt uncomfortable and like I had to prove my worthiness.  I don’t believe Bee has any idea that she does this, but that still doesn’t make it right.  Just because she is the best friend that she knows how to be does not mean she is a good friend.  

After a recent wedding of one of our college friends, I actually stood up for myself and told Bee how I felt. After sending that message, instead of feeling empowered, I felt like I was going to throw up.  It took her a week to respond, and when she did, it was just hours before I left the country for 4 days I didn’t know how to process the novel she sent.  For the past month I have been putting it off.  Starting message after message, but never truly knowing what to say.  Am I ok with losing her?  Losing the one person who knows all my college secrets, heartbreaks, and triumphs?  Am I willing to settle for less than the kind of friendship I know I deserve?  How do you say I love you but you are a shitty friend without having to rehash every moment that they made you feel less important than they are?  I don’t know what to say, and it makes me sad.  

Sadness scares me.  Sadness is the slippery slope to that dark and twist place that I fight so hard to avoid.  But sadness is a part of life, and I know that.  I just wish I wasn’t smack in the middle of the perfect storm of sadness.  

Goodbye, Hello: the Apartment Transition

As I sat in my studio apartment for the very last night, I was overwhelmed with emotion.  As ecstatic as I was for bedroom walls, a dishwasher, and a fireplace, there was a tinge of sadness.  That was the apartment where I feel like I finally became an adult.  I overcame my fear of living alone.  Living alone doesn’t have to mean you are lonely.  For three years that shoebox of an apartment became my sanctuary from the shitty days at work, the heartbreaks, and the missteps. I accepted jobs sitting in that room.  I kissed boys who I thought were right, and ones I knew were wrong in that room.  There were plenty of single girl Saturdays, wine nights, visits from friends that all took place in that small little room. Those 500 square feet made up my home; they brought me into adulthood.   

Now, weeks later, I sit in my new home that doesn’t quite feel mine yet, even though there are touches of me everywhere.  I am still figuring out where things should go and finding a routine.  This is a real adult apartment, with color on the walls, and more than one room.  It makes my tiny studio feel like it was a dorm room pretending to be an adult apartment.  I look around my new living room and think of all the things that will happen in this room.  What big life moments will this apartment witness?  How many times will my life change inside these walls?

It frightens me a little to think that this is the place where I will finish out my 20s.  As my 29th birthday slowly approaches I am having to reconcile the fact that some of my dreams for my 20s won’t come true.  It is hard to believe that I was the 20 year-old who dreamed of being 30, and now I dread it.  I said goodbye to the life plan I made in college at 25, but now I am having to accept that my hopes I made at 25 or 26 are now slipping away.  I accept the wins I have achieved.  I celebrate every raise, every time I do something fun that married friends couldn’t do with the same ease.  I am celebrating this apartment, but a little part of me knows that this is another home for one.  A space with no room for anyone else.  I fill up every nook and cranny.  I can’t visualize anyone else in the space with me.  Does that mean I have resolved to be alone?  Does that scare me or am I accepting my mother’s opinion that I have become too hard to share my life with someone else?  

I know I am supposed to be so happy sitting in this living room full of pretty new things, but part of me just sees what this place isn’t.  It is an adult’s home, not that of someone who does wild spontaneous things, but not that of someone with the responsibility of sharing their life with another human.  It is a home of someone somewhere in between.  Maybe I need to fill it with my friends for it finally feel like home, for me to feel the joy I am supposed to feel, to remind me of how full my life is.