Seven Years Later

Seven years ago, I started this blog as an ambitious 24 year-old one year into my career in Washington DC, and in love with a boy with a girlfriend.  Fast forward to now,  I am a 31 year-old single cat mom living in Charlotte, NC.  It has been almost a year since I moved to Charlotte.  Countless times I have begun to write about this huge life change, to write about the catalyst for the change, and the struggle of starting my life over in a new place at 30 but couldn’t find the words.  As often as I have shared the most intimate parts of my life with all of you, this was just something I felt I needed to be mine and mine alone.

It was just two short months from the day I first contemplated leaving DC to the day I drove away for a new job in Charlotte.  It was like I blinked, and I had changed my whole life without really processing everything I was leaving behind.  Although the move has been good for me, and there were really reasons for it, leaving DC felt like leaving a part of me behind.  It was like I split my heart in two and when I went home at night I would cry for that part of me. There was a time when I believed that DC was the love of my life and there was no way I would ever live anywhere else.  It was as if DC was woven into the fiber of the adult I became there and I never really knew. 

How can this be Capitol Confessions if I am no longer in the Capitol?  If I am honest I stopped being that Harper a long time ago.  Harper Waverly is an alter ego I don’t recognize anymore. She is the pen name I chose when writing as myself was impossible.  As I have discovered new hobbies, new sources of happiness, I have lost other parts of myself.  It seems impossible to be everything all at once, to fit in all the boxes and please all the people from each aspect of my life.  I am an Ole Miss Sorority girl, a southern debutante, a political junky, a Harry Potter fangirl, a true Whovian, a professional in corporate America, a pop-culture addict, an Anglophile, a Comic-Con goer, and a cosplayer. 
 
In the past year I have done things I never thought I would do; maybe because outside of DC the pressures as someone who could run for office someday have lifted.  I have had dramatic moments that have lead to high highs and very low lows.  How do I articulate all the joy and pain of the past year of my life, because I don’t think I can do it justice? The words to describe the devastating gaping hole that leaving Chloe, my best friend, my person, left inside of me and the struggle we went through to find our new normal.  Meeting new people who finally made Charlotte feel more like a home and less like a mistake. Having a clandestine affair in an empty ballroom of an Atlanta hotel at 4am the last night of DragonCon (I really should tell you all that story sometime).  A relationship with real promise ruined by a broken condom and a trip to buy Plan B because it made things very heavy way too soon, and the havoc it reaped on my body (both the Plan B and the loss). 

I have no idea how to put a year worth of life changing events, crippling depression, unbridled indulgence, creative expression, new friendship, and intense loneliness into a few paragraphs.  Over that year I have found my place in Charlotte; I have created a home I am proud of and accumulated a family that supports me at every turn. 

I might not know how to share the time that has past since I last wrote,  but I do want to share all that is to come.  Thank you for reading and being a part of my journey over the past 7 years. I hope you will continue on this roller coaster with me as I navigate friendships, career, and dating as a 30-something in the South. 

A Final Attempt

I guess Dressgate was totally worth it since I have never had so many compliments on a dress in my life.  I felt pretty, and that was exactly what I was going for.  Taste of The South was such a fun event, although I still can’t feel my toes.  It was wonderful to see so many people that I rarely run into anymore.  There is one person who I still can’t decide how I feel about running into, Liam (The Many Loves of my Life, Strangers Now?).  

It’s been two years since I've seen Liam, yet he looks exactly the same, he looks good.  Boy always has looked good in a suit, and in a tux dear god!  It’s funny how seeing someone can trig things you haven't felt or thought about in quite a while.  I can’t remember the last time Liam had crossed my mind, but the moment I saw him I had a knot in the pit of my stomach.  I don’t know if it is because I will always have feelings for him, or if I just have never known what went wrong with us, but seeing him throws off my equilibrium.  

After a few cocktails I decided that I looked too good not to take this opportunity to talk to him.  Shoving my throbbing feet back in my heels I threw caution to the wind and went and said hello.  He was nice, cordial, asking several times if I was well.  We said let’s get drinks and catch up sometime and that was it.  I had done it, probably a little drunker than I should have, but at least I had talked to him.  

Although I am proud of myself for talking to him, I have not been able to shake him from my thoughts.  Liam and how our friendship abruptly ended with no explanation is one of my life’s mysteries.  I decided that I would email him.  Just a quick good to see you.  Glad to know you are well.  Let’s grab a drink some time.  Short and sweet and cordial, like our run in at TOTS.    

Sometimes you do things not because you expect something in return, but for yourself.  You need to know you did everything to try to possibly save something that once meant so much to you. That is what that email was for me. It was my attempt for him to get to know the woman I have become, and to find out what kind of man he has become. Four years ago I was a girl trying to figure out what it meant to be an adult. I was idealistic, believing that life could be as simple as falling into the job I always wanted and meet an amazing boy all at the same time.  I had yet to take off the rose colored glass that I wore to look at the world.  

Liam was the light in that world that was starting to be so much different that I had dreamed.  He was more kind to me than any boy had ever been in all my life, and truly no one has been as kind since.  I was used to being called fat, and written off by the guys I went to college with.  When Liam would tell me I looked pretty his eyes showed that he was sincere.  The way they would twinkle and the corners of his mouth would curl into the hint of a smile always gave his thoughts away.  Seeing him I felt like I was that 23 year old girl all over again, looking for that twinkle and that hint of a smile.  But I am not that girl, I am so much better.  I am a woman that seeks approval in myself, not others.  I know who I am, what I want, and that I am the only one that can get it for myself.  

I don’t know that I can ever truly express how much Liam meant to me back then, what he represented, or how hard I would fight for him in my life if it was a possibility.  That is what my email was, one more attempt to fight, just so I can know I did.  Liam won’t respond, I knew that when I sent it.  The final decision about our friendship was made by him long ago.  I guess I was just holding on to a tiny glimmer of hope that he might have forgive whatever it was that destroyed our friendship.  Now I know that any hope for that is gone.  Maybe now my heart won’t flutter if I see him, maybe now I can finally let go.  

Goodbye Forever

I once wrote that with D, it wasn’t goodbye forever, just goodbye for now.  That may have been the case then, but is certainly is not the case now.  The time has finally come, the limit has been reached, and I can’t keep holding onto something that was never really there.

The reality is he went back to his girlfriend.  He went back to her and never told me, leaving me to keep hoping that one day, we would end up together.  Every time we would talk and I asked how life was, he never once told me they were together again.  It was as if he wanted to lead me on, to continue to receive my flirty attention.  I had to see on Facebook that they were still “in a relationship” and then to ask one of his friends if they got back together.  I knew the answer when I asked the question, but I needed it to be confirmed, I needed to hear someone say it.  

I wanted to cry, to throw up, but I was at work.  I had 4 hours left in the day and I had to hold it together as best I could.  I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t throw up, and I couldn’t drink, so I did the only other thing left.  I ate.  I went to the cafe downstairs and got greasy, nasty, super bad-for-me food, and I ate my feelings, even though I still felt sick to my stomach.  Focus on the french fries, focus on the ketchup, don’t focus on the fact that he lied to me.  A lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless.  

He is a selfish son of a bitch who was too much of a coward to tell me the truth, to tell me that he doesn’t want me, that I will never be able to be her.  We can’t be friends after this, not that we ever really were.  I told myself I got a few days, a few days to cry and be sad and learn how to breathe again.  Because, in that moment, it felt like a elephant was sitting on my chest, holding me down, causing this uncontrollable pain yet intense emptiness.

I somehow made it to 5pm with the anticipation of drinking wine until I threw up.  Chloe and Meg were coming over, so I did a frantic clean-up of my apartment, which held off my break down.  As I threw the 10 pairs of shoes I had collected from around my apartment into my closet, I lost it.  My back found the wall and the deep heaving sobs came rushing over me.  Between the rattles in my chest, I couldn’t hold back the “Why?s” and the “How could he?s”.  I once again found myself absolutely torn apart by a man, no not a man - a boy, who didn’t deserve my tears.   

I thought he was a good man, an honest man.  I thought that his intentions were never to hurt me.  I saw a kindness in him, a warmth that I had never seen in a man before.  Now, I think I saw what I wanted to see.  I built him up to be someone so much better that he really is, than he ever can be.  I stood up for him and risked friendships for him, and at the end of the day, he couldn't even tell me the truth.  But what was I expecting?  He lied to me when we first met, when he kissed me before he told me about his girlfriend.  I was too quick to forget that.        

I don’t know his reasons, and at this point they are mute.  He gave up his opportunity to tell me, to explain.  I don’t need to hear that she is the love of his life, or they have been together so long that he owes it to her to try.  Maybe she has decided to move to DC and make that sacrifice for him.  Or maybe, just maybe, he is going to move to be with her.  That would be the best thing that could ever happen to me.  If he left, and I never saw him again, then maybe I could heal.  

The part of me that still loves him hates the idea of never see him again, hates that this really is the end of what I thought could have been my great romance.  The much larger part of me that hates him can’t imagine seeing his face right now, can’t imagine not yelling at him if I did.  Then there is the small part of me that actually has found some reason.  This part of me knows not seeing him is the only way I will ever truly move on.  After a year and half of falling for him, falling deeper into a web of unrequited love, I am ready to come up for air.  

D will probably never read this, even though he has every opportunity to do so, just like he had every opportunity to tell me the truth.  Even though he will never read this I am going to take this opportunity to say goodbye.  

D,

This is really goodbye, no pleas that we are supposed to be friends can keep me this time.  Friends don’t lie to each other.  Friends don’t make each other feel like this.  I don’t regret loving you, some might say I should, but I don’t.  Every person you love teaches you something, helps you become who you are meant to be.  I wish you could have loved me back, again, I know I shouldn’t, but I really do.  I wish with all of my heart that you could have loved me, could have wanted more with me.  I want you to be happy, but much more than that, I want to be happy!  I deserve people in my life that contribute to my happiness, and that isn’t you.  I don’t need you, and one day soon I won’t want you anymore either.  One day you will be a distant memory, and I hope for that day with all of my being.  But, for now, I will have to settle for saying goodbye to you forever.  ~ H

      

Happy Blog Anniversary!

A year ago, I started this blog looking for an outlet, a safe place to write.  Most of the time it has been just that, my safe haven from the sad reality that is often my personal life.  I have told you about my heartaches and my sexscapades, my insecurities and my triophant moments.  

So for those of you just joining us, let me reintroduce myself.  My name is Harper, and I am a 25 year old southern transplant living in the Nation’s Capital.  I am a curvy blonde with a love for Zumba and a true disdain for diets, even though I am always on one.    I have a wonderful job that I love, that challenges me, and where I can see a bright future.  I live in a studio apartment the size of a shoebox in a great location, but it is my shoe box and my sanity is worth ever overpriced penny.  My love life is always in some state of disarray and currently I am nursing a freshly broken heart.  

I have found myself at several cross roads over the past year.  After losing my job, I had to decide what career path I wanted to take, and really whether or not I would stay in DC.  Staying here was an easy decision, my life is here now.  The career path that ended up laying itself out in front of me could not be more perfect.  It combines all my passions and talents.  It is as if every shitty thing I went though at my old job was to prepare me for this, to help me appreciate it when work is good.   

I chose to move out of my fabulous 2 bedroom apartment with a private rooftop to live alone in a studio.  I wasn’t scared of being lonely anymore, because I had learned over the 2 years prior just because you weren’t physically alone didn’t mean you couldn’t be lonely.  It was worse to live in an apartment with someone who didn’t even like you than to be all alone.  

I have had ups and downs with friendships that I thought were unshakeable.  I barely speak to some people who I thought would be bridesmaids in my wedding someday.  I have met new people who feel like they have been a part of my life forever, and rekindled friendships with people who actually have.  Friendship is a tricky thing, and each one is very different and with it’s own limits.  I still battle with knowing when to hold on and when to let go.   

I also chose to give my heart to someone who didn’t deserve it, who didn’t want it in the first place.  I told someone that I loved him, and I know now, even though I should have always known, that he will never love me back.  Just because I should have known doesn’t make it hurt any less.  It was my choice to put myself out there, my choice to ignore my friends’ concerns, because I thought I knew him better than they did, I thought it was worth the risk.  Maybe it was.  Now, I don’t have to wonder, if I would have put myself out there, would he have chosen me.  I don’t have any regrets.  Does it hurt like hell? Yes.  Do I wish I could have avoided that? Of course.  But do I regret loving him? I can’t - I shouldn’t, and I won’t.  Love is even trickier than friendship and is completely nonsensical.  

I believe we learn something from every person that comes in and out of our lives.  Even if that lesson is some people are just complete assholes.  Each person helps mold you a little, helps you grow into who you are supposed to be.  We just have to look for the lesson.  For me, writing this blog has helped me find those lessons, helped me sort out the craziness that is my life.        

So who am I? I am a semi-disaster of a woman with a great job, awesome apartment, and a broken heart.  Why should you keep reading?  Disaster will ensue - hilarious, relatable disaster.  It always does.    

Thank You for being a Friend ...

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to be a better friend.  When writing that, I didn’t know that I would lose a friend this year.  Over a week ago, a dear friend of mine from college left this earth.  He took his own life.  It is something I will never understand, but I am choosing to find some good in this tragedy.  It was a wake up call to appreciate the people in my life more, reach out more, and never take anyone for granted.  

Friendships, relationships of any kind, take work to maintain.  Picking up the phone, sending a text, email, facebook message or gchat, and planning a get-together are all things that take just a short amount of time and make all the difference in the world.  I vow to work to enrich my friendships.  

Tell the people in your life you love them.  My mother, to this day, does not hang up the phone, say goodnight or goodbye without telling me she loves me.  If you feel it, you should say it; because you never know if you will get another chance to do so.  It is something I don’t tell my friends enough, so here it goes.  

To the loves of my life: Chloe, Katie, Bee, BethAnn, Vivian, Skylar, Mary, Lisa, Connor, Claire, Tori, Betsy, May, Farah, and Elle thank you for being there for me.  Thank you for putting up with my neuroses, chattiness, and overall drama-filled life.  Each of you bring something different into my life and without you, neither my life, nor I, would be the same.  As our friendships continue to grow and change, I truly hope that we grow together and not apart.  

Thank you for sharing your lives with me, for challenging me, for supporting me, and for making me laugh.  It is a true honor to be able to call each of you my friend.  

The Parts I Left Out ...

When I told all of you about the many loves of my life, I left a few details out.  Since I described the heart wrenching details of the men that both had my heart and broke it, I have felt guilty.  The guilt is not because I shared them with you, but leaving out a few details about two of them.  

In the summer of 2011 Adam married, who I believe to be, a very lovely girl.  She does look a little like me though, a much thinner, more wholesome version of me.  It’s hard for me to admit that the person that I loved, maybe more than anyone else ever in my life, is married and very happy with someone else.  The day Facebook told me Adam was engaged was easily one of the top 10 hardest days of my life.  I try to remember him as the fun-loving future lawyer, who loved bourbon and 80’s cover bands.  Now he is a pastor, just like his father always wanted him to be.  The Adam I knew and loved only exists in my memories.  The pain of that maybe worse than anything else.  

Then there is the truth about Bryan.  When I wrote the earlier post, I knew Bryan was engaged.  I didn’t know that this past weekend, he got married.  Facebook, that beautiful beast, flooded me with pictures of the happiest day of Bryan’s life.  The hope that, by the time we tied the knot to our significant others, we would be reconciled is moot now.  We will never be more than two people that used to care about each other, and are now just friends on Facebook simply because not being so would be rude.  

Two of the men with whom I have been in love have since found the true loves of their lives.  These two have made the ultimate commitment to another human being, whereas I can’t seem to find a boyfriend. That is the part that I left out, the part that makes my lost loves seem more tragic, the part that makes the end of our stories so final. 

The Many Loves of My Life ...

While watching an episode of a bad 90s WB show, one of the characters posed a question that really got me thinking.  The question was, “How many times have you been in love?”.  My wheels started to turn.  For me, that is not an easy question to answer.  There are several people I thought I loved at the time, and maybe I did, but looking back, I am not sure it was really love.  For the sake of an entertaining blog post, I have decided to share with you the many boys I have loved.  

Daniel: The High School Boyfriend
Daniel was my first, and actually only, boyfriend.  We dated for two years.  I was a 15 year-old freshman, and he was a junior from a different school.  I will never forget how his shaggy hair flipped out from under his baseball cap and how hot I thought I was in my no-pocket jeans the night we met.  His goofy smile made me giddy, and I lived for the moments we would dance in the moonlight next to his pickup truck.  I wish I could remember the first time we said “I Love you”, especially since he was the first boy to whom I had ever said the words.  Spring of his senior year, things began to fall apart.  The thought of him at college and me tying him to our small town was overwhelming.  I broke my first love’s heart while sitting in my childhood living room on a Wednesday afternoon.  Maybe that is why every other person I have ever loved has broken mine.

You never really stop loving the first person you give your heart to.  Post-college I had the opportunity to fall in love with my first love all over again.  Daniel and I talked all through college, but when I graduated it became more frequent.  I got to know the man he had become and I loved everything about him.  When I told him how I felt, my move to DC was looming.  I would have stayed for him, but he didn’t ask me to.  I got to feel what he felt when I broke his heart.  

Caleb: The Summer Romance turned Long Distance Whatever
Caleb was the first boy to ever tell me I was beautiful.  We met at church camp the summer before my freshman year of high school.  I was a camper, and he was an older lifeguard.  His clear blue eyes and swoopy blonde hair had me weak at the knees. After dancing with me at the farewell dance, we exchanged addresses and emails.  (This was before I had a cell phone.)  We would chat on AIM.  I started to date Daniel, so we talked less.  The following summer, Daniel and I had broken up, and I returned to camp to be a Counselor-in-Training.  After 2 flirtatious weeks of “giving us a shot”, Caleb ended things when I left camp.  We continued to talk, and flirt on and off for the rest of high school.  

Caleb and I were famous for our big fights.  Our mutual friends knew we were a train wreck together, but we couldn’t seem to stay away from each other.  There are very few people that I have encountered that could make me feel so euphoric and then so broken.  My freshman year of college, in the middle of a tornado watch, I drove to spend the night with him.  I finally got to kiss that first boy that called me beautiful.  Everything about it was wrong; it felt so cheap.  After what seemed like real romance over the years, it just ended when I drove away.  I thought I loved Caleb, and I think that I did in the way that an unjaded heart can.  Caleb and I were the definition of complicated, and he was the beginning of my vicious pattern.  

Bryan: The “I Love You” Friend
My first week of college, I was out with the girls from my dorm, and an older boy bought us drinks.  That older boy got my number and invited me to a party at his house.  Bryan’s blue eyes and charming ways were two of the main reasons he was the first boy I kissed in college.  He quickly decided that one of my dorm friends was more his style but insisted on us staying friends.  She didn’t last in either of our lives.  Bryan lived with a group of boys that became family to me.  I slept on their couch after parties, or sometimes they would even give up their beds.  Every crisis that came up, Bryan was my shoulder to cry on.  My feelings for him were constantly changing.  I would think I had things figured out - know our friendship was the most important thing - and he would get drunk and get jealous.  We would have these heart-wrenching fights that he would not remember the next day, but I would be stuck with the battle wounds.  

The first party after Christmas break, I said something, that in the few seconds before his response, I thought would ruin everything.  When “I love you” slipped out, I never expected him to say “I love you too”, but he did.  That was not the last time.  He started ending our phone conversations by telling me he loved me, and I would say it back.  When he would screw up, he thought “I Love you” was a get out of jail free card.  I convinced myself our love for each other was the same, and that denial was a heavy burden.

When I told him I was in love with him a year and a half later, I couldn’t believe that he was shocked.  The fight we had that night had atomic bomb level destruction.   I was tired of him saying he wanted a girl just like me when he could just have me. Or when he was jealous, and said that I was one of the coolest girls he knew, but I just wasn’t “dating material”.  His promise that this wouldn’t ruin us, and that we would talk about it sober were lies.  I always knew that we were never meant to be together, but I couldn’t help the fact that I loved him.The night I told Bryan I was in love with him was the last real conversation we have ever had.  My belief that we would figure things out and he would always be a part of my life was false.       

Adam: The Friend with Emotional Benefits
The day that the rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed cutie sat on my row in my Comparative Politics class, I could not contain myself.  The fact that we did a class project by rows that day was like a gift from the gods.  I was outwardly determined to stay friends with Adam, regardless of how attracted to him I was, but internally, of course, I hoped he would fall for me.  I don’t remember why we started texting and calling each other, probably something to do with class.  When I asked him to Halloween date party, I said it was as just friends.  I gave him a set of 5 rules, 2 of which were: Don’t try to kiss me and Do not fall in love with me.  We drank and danced, and were both hot messes when we got off the bus.  I was determined to go to a frat party across campus, so he walked me there.  After his attempts to hold my hand, I told him he didn’t care about me, and I knew he would rather be there with my best friend.  I will never forget sitting on the steps of the English department and his answer: “If I didn’t care about you, we would be in my car on the way to my place.  If I wanted to be with Bee, then I would be sitting next to her.”  He wiped my drunken tears and as we got up and started walking he stopped and kissed me. This kiss was brief and very hazy; I even pretended not to remember it.  I think that was the biggest mistake I have ever made.  

After that date party, we began texting and calling almost daily.  I would pick his drunk ass up from the bar on a Tuesday, and he would tell me how much his sisters would love me.  We liked all the same things and even stayed up watching election results together.  Emotionally, we were dependent on each other, but were never physical.  We had plans to visit each other over the Christmas holidays, and my dad even got him a ticket to go to a professional football game with my family.  I felt like I had met the person that I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.  Looking at him, I could see our future and I wanted nothing more in the world.  

Christmas formal rolled around, and Adam agreed to be my date, even though he had an offer to go to the SEC Football Championship.  I just knew that this was going to be the night that changed everything, and it was.  We were sitting in a booth taking a break from dancing, when a sorority sister said “Y’all are such a cute couple.”  He told her we were just friends.  I looked at him and said, “Are we really ‘just friends’?”, and his answer was like a million daggers to my heart.  “Yes, we are just friends.  I only want to be friends.”  It was if someone had ripped my chest open and removed a part of me.  I couldn’t breathe.  The rest of that night is a blur of tears, strong drinks, and more pain than I care to share.  

We tried to be friends after that, but Adam was a constant contradiction.  In hindsight, I think he was trying to disappoint me.  Being me, I laid it all on the line, in writing.  I pointed out all the things he did that screamed the opposite of “just friends”, and I left our future up to him.  It was 46 days from that email to the day I ran into him on campus.  He later told me that he didn’t know how to express his feelings, to put it on the line the way I did.  He didn’t regret anything about the time he spent with me, but he did regret hurting me.  When you think you have met the love of your life, and they chose not to love you back, it forms a hole inside of you - one that you never know if you can ever fill again.  

Liam: The Forbidden Co-Worker
A week after I started my first real-world job, my first batch of interns started.  In that batch, there was one boy, a beautiful, well dressed, blond boy with kind blue eyes.  Liam had a smile that could light up the whole world.  We quickly became friends, g-chatting and grabbing drinks after work.  He would do the sweetest things for me, like surprise me with a milkshake when I was having a bad day.  I knew, as long as he was my intern, nothing could ever happen, AND he had just been through a terrible breakup.  He would listen to me vent about things in the office, and I would give him advice on how to deal with his ex.  I was falling head over heels for him, but I just knew there was no way he reciprocated those feelings.  When my parents came to town, he talked to them while they waited for me and told them he knew that we would always be a part of each other’s lives.  With every conversation, every sweet comment, every time he told me I looked pretty, I slipped deeper into the black hole that is unrequited love.  

One night, we were out with a big group of friends, and his roommate said something that I wish I could go back and un-hear.  He told me that Liam really cared about me.  I replied that I knew that he valued our friendship.  Michael said, “No Harper, he really cares about you.  He doesn’t need as much time to move on as you think.  Don’t wait forever.”  I let that give me a glimmer of hope that one day, when we didn’t work together, things would be different.  After a trip to the Kentucky Derby with a big group of our friends, I realized I would never live up to his ex.  Even if the way he looked at me made my heart melt, or the fact that he wanted to know my opinion on everything, made me weak.  Being friends meant he would always be in my life.    

I think back on all the girls I encouraged him to take on dates.  Forcing myself to suppress my feelings and acting as just his friend was my inner turmoil.  I told myself that having him as a friend was better than losing him.  Yet, I lost him anyway.  He shut me out, leaving me to sit in an office with him everyday and not know his thoughts.  It felt like a thousand needles being shoved into my heart slowly, over and over again.  I still don’t know why he stopped talking to me, and I have asked him more times than I can count.  Loving him was one of the most painful things I have ever endured.  Losing him nearly broke me beyond compare.  He has been gone from my office for over a year. I never see him.  I have done my best to move on, but I still wonder if someday he might love me too.  


I have loved more than some people will in a lifetime and felt pain that some will never know.  I have been very open with my heart, but the people I gave it to have been very reckless with it.  I don’t regret the fact that I have fallen hard and fast several times in my life.  I am a passionate person, and it is a very big part of what makes me me.  I do not love as easily as I once did, and that is likely a result of all the times I have loved, only to have my heart broken in return.  Every one of these boys taught me something about myself and about people.  I am stronger because of them.  One day the real, great love of my life will decide to show up, and when he does, I will realize that yes, I had loved, but there is no love like reciprocated love. 

Crash

I am starting to think that trying to date in this city is a big waste of time.  People in this city do not fall in love because they want to.  They crash right into it.  

Everyone is so busy with their careers that no one even looks up.  It is the city that epitomizes “work hard and play harder.”  People party like they are in college and date the same way too.  By that I mean they do not date.  You meet someone at a bar, exchange business cards or they get your number, and never use it.  They think to themselves, “I’m young.  Someone will come along later, after I am settled in my career.”   If you are not going to somehow help their career or they are going to get instant gratification, it is not worth it.  

For some people, this is a hard reality.  You get lonely and long for physical contact with another human being.  You decide to let a boy walk you home from the bar.  You kiss him on your doorstep.  Ok, maybe you let him push you up against the door and entangle yourselves for a good hour.  You might even wake your roommate up because you keep ringing the doorbell.  However, no matter how many times he asks, you do not let him in.  Maybe it’s because you know he is never going to let you in.  He is not looking for a connection; he is looking to get laid.  

Any successful couple in this city either met somewhere else, or they crashed into each other.  It was literally something that they could not avoid. Some of them started out as what they assumed would be a one night stand.  Some of them were dating other people when they met.  Some of them even worked together and had secret affairs.  These are the great love stories of our time.  Love isn’t what people are looking for; it is what they crash into Lost-style.  The plane is our careers, and out of nowhere, we end up crashing on this bat-shit crazy island called love.  There is no escaping it.  

The people in this city that want love, that want to have a connection with someone, struggle. You can try the online dating thing, but most people on there are just looking to get laid.  Work, sex, and alcohol are the things DC thrives off of.  Maybe that is everywhere, or maybe it’s our generation.  Until we crash into love, we are stuck.  

I wish that all of you make your big crash soon.