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. 

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   

Four Years, How Far We Have Come

Four years ago, I said hello to the blogosphere, not quite sure where this would go or what I would be willing to share.  I liked writing, and I knew that it was something I really felt like I needed to take the time to develop.  I thought I would write witty posts about the things I was obsessed with, or jazz up the stories about my drunken nights to entertain.  I wrote those things, but I also began to write about the boys who would pop up in my life.  Some of it was sexscapades, but I also began to write about my heartbreaks, the twisted relationships that, good or bad, were beginning to shape me.  I began to pour my soul out every time I took to the keys.  Soon, I couldn’t decipher how I really felt until I was able to write about it.  

I surprised myself with how much I was willing to share.  When I would begin to write, my heart would open, my words didn’t filter, I said things I wouldn’t have the courage to say out loud.  I shared my sordid inappropriate, unhealthy, non-relationship with D.  It was on this page that I admitted to myself and all of you that I loved D, and it was on this page I finally let go, let him go.  

When my life turned dark and twisty, I wrote about my depression.  I wrote about going to therapy, and the things I did to work my way out of the dark hole  I had found myself in.  This blog became a place of self-discovery.  Even if I had to learn the same lesson over and over again, I found it cathartic.  As friendships crumbled and other grew I could write about it all here.  Even if no one was out there reading it, it was the process of writing that mattered.  Putting words together, yielding them into something worth reading or that can make people feel holds a certain power.   

Over the years I have had moments in my life when it was difficult to find the words.  When I lost people I loved to suicide and cancer, the grief was too much, too big to fit on a page.  If I am honest, it was something I had to own by myself for a while before I could share it.  Putting how I felt about losing my grandfather into a post just made it feel so definite, so much smaller than the feeling that engulfed me.  I also couldn’t bring myself to write about anything else, until I wrote about such a huge moment I couldn’t write about what else was happening in my life either.

My self-image, my confidence in who I am has faltered over the years.  It’s a struggle I have had since I was young, and it took a lot to share that with all of you, to write about eating disorders, bullying, and my own self-hatred.  I felt it was important, to share my struggles in case someone else might be going through something similar.  Something I have learned is, for people like me, loving yourself is a daily battle.  You have to take the world one day at a time.  Body image is much more of an inward struggle than an outward one.  

I am a mess.  I have always been a mess, but after 4 years of writing about all the moments that contribute to the making of me, I am a much more self-aware mess.    

Who am I now?  I am a strong Southern woman who is fastly approaching 29 (Eeek, panic!).  I work very hard at a job I like, even when it stresses me out to the point of tears (about once a week).  My family and friends are the most important thing in my life.  I would do anything for the people I care about, I mean like the person you call if you had a dead body to get rid of type of friend.  I make mistakes, lots of them, especially where men are concerned.  I want people to like me, a habit that I am trying desperately to break, but it is true I like to be liked.  I am not particularly funny, at least not on purpose.  I am a huge nerd!  I fangirl over all the things: Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, all the superhero shows.  That is probably because I am passionate, I love with all that I am, I feel very deeply.  All I want is what I what I think most people want out of life: to be happy and to be loved.

I want to say thank you for reading my melodramatic ramblings.  It has been a rollercoaster of emotions over the past four years, and I appreciate you taking the time to read what I have to say, and for allowing me to find my voice.  

2016: The Year of Harper

How I ended 2015, and how I have started 2016 feel like opposites.  Although I had an amazing New Years Eve with my single girl-friends, there was a part of me that was deeply sad.  We got dressed up, went to an amazing long dinner, and spent midnight watch the ball drop drinking champagne and playing Cards Against Humanity. But I guess there was a part of me that couldn’t get Christmas Eve out of my mind.  

Christmas Eve is supposed to be a joyous night, and it started off that way.  I shouldn’t have gone out to the bar with my brother after our family dinner.  I should have stayed in and watched Hallmark Movies with my mom, in the safe spot on the couch in my childhood home.  Instead, I went to the same dive bar I used to sneak into before I was 21, hoping to see old friends and let nostalgia comfort me.  Instead I encountered judgement and an icy reception from people who never left our small town.  So I drank more than I probably should have.  With that, the feels I had been pushing down for months came bubbling to the surface.  

See, in 2015 I kissed one person, just one.  I walked away from him, let’s call him M, because I cared more than he did.  He started it, he kissed me, but the hard part is he didn’t really mean it.  M wanted someone who was ok with being an afterthought in his life, and all I want is someone that wants to make me, and our relationship, a priority.  I tried to stay away, not to flirt when we were at the same parties, but for some reason I just seemed to like him more.  The more I tried not to care the more I seemed to.  His face, his weird laugh, they just made my heart flutter despite myself.  I knew our lives were in very different places, but there was just this part of me that could see what it would be like down the road when things fell into place.  That is probably why the night I accepted my new job he was who I wanted to spend it with; although I told myself it was because I just didn’t want to be alone, that the moment was too big to not share it.  

When I showed up to a Halloween party a month later and saw him kissing his new girlfriend, I fell apart.  I always thought the reason we weren’t together was because he didn’t want to commit to anyone.  Apparently he just didn’t want to commit to me.  I cried myself to sleep that night.  I allowed myself to be sad for one day and then pushed it all deep down, pretending that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t matter to me.  It was easy enough to keep my emotions in check, I have a lot of practice at it.  That is, until he texted me the week before Christmas.

I had been very cold with M every time he texted, hoping that playing hard to get would make him want more from me.  The problem is it just made me miss him more.  That is exactly what I was feeling on Christmas Eve, add wine and you get a text that never should have been sent.  “I miss you.”  Something about me felt desperate to know if he felt anything for me.  I couldn't start another year waiting around on him, hoping he would wake up and realize he wanted to be with me.  His response was not what I hoped for.  He “is all over the map” and doesn’t know what he wants.  I, in true Harper fashion, felt like I had to lay it all out on the table, like it would make a difference to send some romcom declaration.  I told him, “ I want someone who really cares about me and wants to be a part of my life.  If that isn’t you then I will move on.  But know that this is it with me.  This is me giving you another shot before I move on.  But for the record I have always wished it was you.”         

This lead to the 2 shots of Fireball, and making my brother take me home.  We fought in the car about how I pick jerks, and he doesn’t understand why I fall so hard.  The irony is on the walk from the car to my front steps I did fall hard, flat on my face.  Bleeding and bawling like a baby, I sat in my mom’s bathroom telling her I didn’t understand why he didn’t love me while she doctored my scrapes.  I said something out loud in that I hadn’t fully realized until that moment.  I just don’t know how many times I can keep starting over like this.  I don’t know what is left of my heart, it has just been broken so many times.  

When M said he thought we should talk about my feelings in person a few days later, I was too proud to take the opportunity.  I told him I didn’t think it was necessary.  Maybe that was a mistake, but in that moment I just couldn’t sit in front of another man while they told me it was them not me or whatever version of that conversation he planned on having with me.     

As the ball dropped and 2015 officially ended I couldn’t help but wonder who M was kissing at midnight.  Although I was in a room with 3 of my very best friends, doing the things we love to do, I wasn’t completely there.  I was deep within myself trying to both mourn what will never be and heal my own heart.   

At Chloe’s famous New Year’s Brunch on the 2nd, on hour 9 or 10 of drinking I texted one more time.  Then said sorry I shouldn’t be texting.  Having a man tell you to do what is best for you, and “you are a pretty girl”  somehow makes it all sting worse.  Like being pretty is a consolation prize for someone rejecting your heart.  Crying in Chloe’s bathroom I felt like such a fool.  I decided in that moment that in 2016 I didn’t want to be foolish anymore.  

So here we are 15 days into 2016, and so far it is going pretty well.  I got a raise.  I have found a new 1 bedroom apartment in the most adorable building on Capitol Hill..  I joined Weight Watchers, and have already lost 8 pounds.  Couch to 5k is kicking my ass, but I haven’t given up yet.  2016 is going to be the year of Harper.  I am going to get healthy and feel good about my body.  Instead of working to find a boyfriend, I am going to focus on my job.  The opportunity I have with my new job is amazing, and I want to make sure I make the most of it.  

Of course my heart is still hurting, but instead of letting it bleed into every part of my life, I am trying to leave it in 2015.  I am looking at what I had with M as personal progress.  I spent 2015 trying to make things work with one person instead of running around kissing anyone who would kiss back.  M didn’t have a girlfriend, and he wasn’t ruthless with me.  Just because things didn’t work with us doesn’t mean he isn’t a good man.  With time, my heart will heal, but I don’t plan on giving it to anyone anytime soon.  2016 isn’t about love for me, at least not romantic love.  2016 is about loving the things I already have, the people that already make my life so full.  I might have ended 2015 heartbroken, but I am starting 2016 full of hope and love.        

Train Wreck?

I just saw Train Wreck, and of course Amy Schumer nailed it on the head.  When you get past all the awkward, gut-wrenching humor, there was a layer to the story that was kind of a wakeup call for me.  I might not be as extreme as Amy’s character is, but I have spent a lot of time hiding behind booze, sex, and self deprecating humor.  Two years ago I was in a boozy, angry, sad downward spiral.  I may have fought my way out of it with therapy and antidepressants, but that doesn’t mean that those tendencies aren’t there, lingering under the surface.  

I turned 28 last week, and although I pretended to be happy about it, said things like “age is just a number” and all the other things you say when you are aging with grace, deep down it bothered me.  Not because the number itself but the fact that I still don’t have anyone to go home with at the end of the night.  I know, I’m still young, blah blah blah.  It’s the fact that I am honestly starting to believe that there isn’t anyone out there for me.  Not everybody gets a happy ending.  I know, I eat lunch with 2 amazing women in their 60s who never got married.  Just because we want something doesn’t mean we get it, or that we deserve it.    

Maybe it’s the fact that I like inappropriate men.  I like men who are a little too good looking, or a little bit of an asshole, or are in my friend circles.  I find something wrong with every man  who actually likes me or I self-destruct.  I just hear the voices of every guy that has ever said anything negative about me playing over and over again in my head.  If I was fat 20lbs ago, why would anyone want me now?  I used to use sex to try to prove to myself that I was desirable, but now that I am not getting laid, I just feel worse.  It’s kind of like another Amy Schumer skit “Last F***able Day”.  Have I, at 28, seen my last Fuckable day?  Am I no longer desirable to men?  I remind myself that I want so much more than sex, I want someone who will actually love and respect me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be wanted.  

The last guy I liked, and I did, I really liked him - I still like him -  I walked away from because I knew it would never work.  He doesn’t have his shit together; he may never have his shit together.  He wanted a hookup buddy, and I want a boyfriend.  He wore cargo shorts and is younger than me, things I could have overlooked if I thought there really was potential for us to be something.  I know he isn’t what I ultimately want, and that is why I put a stop to it before I got in too deep.  I have not relapsed with him; I have stayed strong.  But there is that voice, the one that says well, at least he wanted you, that just comes up every time I am a little drunk and very very lonely.  

I am lonely.  I know I shouldn’t be, but I am.  How do you stop being lonely?  I have amazing friends who I talk to all the time and am content with my companionship, but there is a different type of lonely.  I am not talking about being horny either.  I am talking about when you just have a shit day, and all you really want is to curl up on the couch with someone while they stroke your hair and tell you everything is ok.  I am talking about when you are nervous about walking in a crowded room so they place their hand on the small of your back.  Or when they can tell something has upset you so they squeeze your hand to remind you that they are there.  I also want the opportunity to be that person for someone, to support someone in the way that only a significant other really can.    

I believe you should be a complete person all on your own, but there can be that person who complements you perfectly, who brings out the best in you.  I sure know that I have found several people who have brought out the worst in me over the years, and I have seen some of my friends find that much desired balanced relationship.  But there is a part of me that has hardened, that is beginning to believe that maybe, just maybe, I am the kind of person who ends up alone.  In a dating world where it is so easy to just keep swiping instead of exploring the potential of someone, how do you really find love?  

Is my lack of love because I spent too much time partying and hooking up, sometimes just to prove that I could.  Did this high school prude become overly sexual to the point of forever loneliness?  Although I feel like I have really gotten my life together, not settling for less than the relationship I really want, and not hooking up with some guy out of need for validation, am I still a train wreck?  Deep down am I still one drunken hookup away from self-destructing?  Can you be too damaged to find real love?         

Amy Schumer’s character found someone she wanted to try with, like every rom-com, ending up with the guy.  Can you be a recovered trainwreck and still end up alone?  

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.  

DC, Love of My Life

Four years ago, I packed my bags and got on a plane to DC.  With no job lined up and just a spot on a practical stranger’s futon in their studio apartment, I was scared and exhilarated.  Politics had been my dream from a young age, and DC is the center of the political universe.  I was coming from small town Mississippi with no experience with public transportation, and where walking places was unheard of.  My parents gave me until the first of the year to find a job with a paycheck, or it was back to Mississippi I would go.  Whenever asked what is the most terrifying experience of my life, I would answer moving to Washington, DC.  It truly was a leap of faith, and one I am so glad I made.    

Luckily I wasn’t completely alone.  I had a few friends from college here, and most importantly Connor.  I don’t know that I have ever told him this, but I don’t think I would have moved here if he hadn’t already started grad school here.  Connor let me crash on his couch for 2 weeks before I decided to make the move.  He encouraged me to take the plunge; he made big city seem manageable, and for that, I will be forever thankful.  

Things quickly began to fall into place after stepping off the plane.  I got an unpaid internship at a campaign committee, and volunteered as much as possible.  I was making friends and work connections, and feeling more and more comfortable by the day.  Needless to say I made my parents’ deadline for a paycheck, and have been lucky to have several amazing opportunities over the past 4 years.  That doesn’t mean that every moment has been a cakewalk, and I have had my doubts about my career and DC in general.  But even when homesickness is settling in during the 6 months between trips to Mississippi, there is something about DC that always feels right.  

DC is my longest relationship.  This city has been my challenger, my best friend, my comfort zone, and the love of my life.  Choosing to move to DC certainly wasn’t the easiest decision, especially when I had options to stay closer to home.  DC meant I thought I was capable of more than those small options were.  DC meant I was making the dreams I had been talking about since I was 14 a reality.  DC has brought amazing people into my life to support me, to teach me, and to grow with me.  DC has also had its low points, friends who weren’t really friends, emotionally abusive workplaces and relationships, and a sea of self doubt because of it all.  Every time things got hard and I thought about going back to Mississippi, I realized something quite unexpected.  Mississippi will always be the home where I grew up, but DC is the home that I have built.  I am a Mississippian, a Washingtonian, and proud to call them both home.    

It is hard to believe that 4 years have passed since I got on that plane in Jackson full of hope and determination.  I am a much wiser version of myself now, and looking back there are some things I would have done differently.  But all in all I am proud of the person I have become, of the people I surround myself with, and the life I have built for myself.  

It has been a hell of a ride DC, and I think I am staying for a while.  I mean you don’t just walk away from the love of your life now do you?

Tinder Failure

I have come to a conclusion that is undeniably sad - I am bad at online dating.  I, Harper Waverly, am a Tinder failure.  I do not know how people develop real life relationships based off of a profile with all the best pictures of themselves and an unrealistic assessment of how many times they drink/work-out a week.  In person I dazzle, but via dating app, I am a complete flop.  

I don’t know how to be witty without being too flirty, to show interest without coming off as only wanting to hook up.  Part of the dilemma is the pervy mindset of the opposite sex when they message me on said dating apps.  When trying not to give the wrong impression, I fear I come off as boring.  It’s disheartening to try to get to know someone before deciding to meet up, and be met with radio silence. It’s important to figure out where you are from, whether you went to college, and if you’re basically a normal human being and not a serial killer.

Some of it might be that I really don’t know how to be flirty without being sexy (See Bombshell), especially in messages.  Maybe that says something about me as a person, and the types of guys I attract.  I also believe that guys push the envelope with curvy women because many of them expect us to have lower self-esteem, and therefore have lower standards.  I could show you several examples of the same guy asking a thinner girl on a date and a curvy girl to his bed.  Also, it’s unbelievable how stupid some guys will talk to two girls at one time when the girls are in each others’ pictures.              

If one more guy starts off with “DTF?”, I might explode.  I guess it is men just playing the odds, but in all honesty, I don’t know what self-respecting girl actually responds to that.  Maybe it is just me, but if you really want to “make my panties drop” then take me to drinks or dinner and engage me in meaningful conversation.  Ask questions about me, and at least pretend to care about the answers.  In short, be a man, not some douchy boy-man-lazy-pervert whose idea of making an effort is sending an uber.  

I know many of you are probably thinking, come on it’s Tinder what do you expect.  And some of you are probably wanting to remind me of my own Tinder Adventures, but my mindset has changed.   But I am asking how else am I suppose to meet someone?  Match.com?  I tried that, and men are just as shallow there, so I threw away money for 6 months with no dates.  The old fashioned way?  Well, if you can explain to me how this even relates to our society today then sure I would give it a shot.  I know happy couples who met through Tinder. Apparently it worked for them, so why not me?  

As bad as I am at Tinder, I am going to keep trying.  Why you ask?  Well, I don’t really have any other option do I?  I will never meet anyone if I don’t put myself out there.  Getting a match is a bit of a confidence boost, even if 90% of my matches never talk to me.  At the very least I have seen some of the most hilarious/ disturbing pick up lines, of which I have screenshots for future entertainment.  A friend of mine put it best when she said, “It feels like we have two options, Tinder or dying alone.”  So, Tinder it is   

Relief

Reaching a goal that you never thought was achievable is one of the best feelings in the world.  Whether it is running a marathon, I mean if that’s your thing (aka you're crazy), or something more personal, it is a sense of triumph.  Last week I was able to spend a whole night in the same room with D and not feel a thing.  I didn’t feel jealous, or wonder what he was thinking.  I didn’t give a damn that he was there and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it ruin my good time.  The moment when I saw him and my heart didn’t skip a beat, and my breath didn’t flee me brought the most gratifying sense of relief.  That was the moment that once and for all I knew, without a doubt, that I don’t love him anymore.   

The thing about love is that it doesn’t just go away because you want it to.  The opposite of love isn’t hate either.  Loving and hating both mean you care.  Apathy is the real opposite of love, the ideal when looking to move on.  My heart stopped hurting a while ago. It hasn’t hurt to breathe when I think about him, and tears haven’t filled my eyes if he happens to cross my mind.  A little part of me thought that was just because I never had to see him,.  I worried that just being in a room with him would make me slip, that my addiction to his attention wasn't gone but just dormant under the surface.  But when I looked at him, all I felt was relief.  I don't love him, and I don’t even hate him.  I just don’t care what he thinks or what he does, as long as he doesn’t talk to me.  

Don’t get me wrong, I still think D is a terrible person, and I hate the things he put me through, but I don’t care enough about him to hate him.  I believe that some day, in one way or another, we all pay for the terrible things that we do.  I also know that I wouldn’t be who I am without struggling through that particular relationship in my life.   I honestly never thought I would get to this place.  I never knew that I would find a way to let all of the angst and tortured part of heart that belonged to him fall away.  It happened, and not because I found some magic combination of heart healing things.  It happened because I started to fill my life with people, activities, and things that made me happy.  Doing things that made me laugh pushed away the tears and the negative thoughts.  With every laugh or good memory made I missed him and hated him a little less.  If you fill your life with real pure love and joy, there eventually isn’t room for the rest.  

I guess I just want anyone out there who can’t see the light at the end of their dark and twisty emotional tunnel, that it is there.  You just have to fill your life with amazing people and positive things and have hope that one day you will feel relief when you realize you don’t care anymore either.        

No More Wedding Blues

I have dreamed about my wedding my entire life.  I would play bride by wearing my flower girl dress from my uncle’s wedding.  I would buy old wedding dresses at garage sales and consignment shops for my dress-up box.  When my grandmother was sick she would buy bridal magazines and we would flip through, cutting out the gowns we loved.  I have been a flower girl twice, a junior bridesmaid once, and a bridesmaid four times so far in my life.  I love weddings, and I have had mine planned since I was probably 7, though many of the details have changed along the years (puffy sleeves and tiaras had to be nixed).  I had no doubt in my mind that I would get married someday - because that is what you do.  You fall in love, get married, and have lots of babies; at least that is what I was always told.

When I went to, or was in a wedding I would think about when I get married … but now I think about IF I get married.  The idea of meeting someone, falling in love, and getting married used to seem just so natural to me, since family members, friends and the hundreds of characters in movies made it seem so seamlessly effortless.  Now, as an adult, I see people on Facebook getting engaged and married and I think “How does that actually happen?”.  I mean it, how do people find love, or how does love decide who is worthy enough to have it.  What makes someone lovable?  

I have shed my delusions that I will 100% get married some day.  Trust me, this has been a hard pill to swallow.  Unlike what I was told as a girl, not everyone gets a chance to be a bride and that is ok.  Not everyone finds the love of their life, or at least not everyone gets to marry them.  Not getting married is not life ending, because I would rather be single than marry someone just to get married.  I don’t want to be the kind of woman that gets a little older and settles for a relationship that is lacking something just to be in a relationship.  I never want to have to give an ultimatum to receive a proposal.  IF I get married, I want it to be to my partner and equal on every level, someone who cannot imagine going a day without me in their life.         

I like to think I was raised to want more than just a husband.  I think my mother sometimes regrets telling me I don’t need a man to be happy because she just assumed that one would fall in love with me anyway.  Now that I am 27, she is worried she was wrong.  She sees the people I grew up with moving back to our small southern town, getting married, and having babies.  What she doesn’t see is that I chose a different path.  I chose the big city, the career, the path less traveled by the women where I am from.  I have built a life for myself that not only doesn’t revolve around a man, it doesn’t even have a man in it.  Arguably I have built a life that might not even have room for a man, but that is an entirely different post.  The truth is, I have built a life that I love, with people that I love.  It hasn’t been easy, and I haven’t always been happy, but that is life, and especially for someone who struggles with depression.

Yes, I sometimes get lonely and crave the physical attention of a man.  Yes, my hopeless romanticism sometimes gets the best of me.  Yes, I sometimes panic that love will never find me, meaning I will never have the opportunity to be a mother.  The thought of never getting the opportunity to shop for a wedding dress with my mother or having that dance with my dad at my wedding makes me sad.  Thinking that I might never know the look the love of my life has on his face the moment he sees me walking down the aisle breaks my heart.  But, at the end of the day, if I never get married I will be ok.  Don’t mistake me, I want all of those things, sometimes so bad it hurts, but if they aren’t in the cards for me I will do more than survive, I will thrive.    

I believe, and maybe it’s because I come from the girl power generation, that your fiends can be the loves of your life.  Maybe it is because of the Spice Girls, Now and Then, and Sex and the City that my real friends are my family, my soul mates.  If I marry or if I am an old spinster Chloe will still be my perfect dinner companion and the most important opinion; Lisa will still keep me grounded in my southern roots; Connor will always help me defuse my mother; BethAnn will still be able to talk me down; May and Farah will always be there to make me laugh; and Bee will always be there to remind me of how far I have come.  On other occasions I have told you about The Many Loves of My Life, but the real loves of my life are those listed above.  They are the people that know my every flaw and love me more because of them.  They know what I look like when I ugly cry; that I get a lazy eye when I am really drunk; that hanger is no laughing matter; and that my confidence is so easily shattered.  

I might never get the chance to say “I Do!” to some dashing man who loves me.  I might never get to put on a beautiful white gown and walk down the aisle.  I might not ever know what it is like to hold a child of my own in my arms.  That doesn’t mean that my life is not valid, that I can’t be happy, and that I haven’t really lived.  I know passion, I know success, I know loyalty, I know love, and I can not think of anything that could make a life more valid, more fulfilling than a life with those things.        

The Good Out Weighs the Bad

Some days, you just like the way your dress fits, or the way your hair is laying.  Some days, you just feel 100% comfortable in your own skin.  These days are few and far between for me, especially during bathing suit season, but today is one of those days.  Maybe it is the fact that a cute boy from Tinder asked me out on a date.  Maybe it is how completely comfortable I am in my new job, and that happiness is spilling over.  Maybe it is the fact that I am feeling so blessed by the amazing friends I have surrounded myself with.  Friends that believe in judgement-free, unconditional support.  

More likely than not it is the cute boy.  Let’s call him Mr. South America, since he spends half his time there for work.  He is cute, taller than me when I wear heels, and constantly tells me how pretty I am.  I think most men underestimate the power of a compliment as simple as telling a girl you think she is pretty or beautiful.  “God, you're gorgeous” at random will make a girl melt, at least this girl.  Mr. South America and I met for late drinks and the chemistry was there immediately.  He made me laugh, so basically he found the two ways to melt my ever hardening heart, appeal to my vanity and my sense of humor. I broke my rule and let him kiss me in the bar, and stay the night on a first date.  Our sleepover was tame, clothed, and limited to making out and cuddling.  He only got the invite because we drank too much for him to drive home.  He wants to see me again when he gets back from South America in 2 weeks, and that excites me.  

I need it, a good date, a guy that actually wants to spend time with me, someone that makes it easier to love myself.  The creeps, users, and heartbreakers have been in full force lately.  There is the Facebook Messenger, who, after not seeing me for over a year, thinks I will just invite him over to have sex.  Which is even worse than the Saturday Morning Texter.  I am not 22 anymore.  I want more than a booty call.  It isn’t that I want more from either of them, just in general, I want more than that.  I don’t want a boy that makes me feel like the only thing I am good for is my ass or my nice rack.  Yes, maybe it is my own fault that one of them thinks his messages are ok.  Over the years when the loneliness is all consuming and the text arrives, the need to be touched overcomes my need for something more.  I have even been the instigator, sending a text or two of my own.  I have let it go on for so long, probably because once upon a time, I had feelings for him.  Once upon a time, I thought he and I could have had something real.         

The worst is Mr. Martini, who definitely deserves a martini thrown in his face.  I don’t begrudge him for meeting someone else that he is “head over heels for,” but I do begrudge him telling me in a text message.  I loathe him for acting interested, when he never really was.  I wish I could have back the hours of texting about movies, tv, and everything else we have in common.  It isn’t that he broke my heart, but more that he reminded me that I am too often the girl before “THE Girl.”  

I don’t know that things with Mr. South America are going to work out.  But I do know that he has already treated me with more respect than the above listed three.  Instead of feeding on my insecurities, he reminds me of my beauty.  I don’t need a boy telling me I am pretty to know I am pretty, but it sure helps to not have one pointing out your flaws.  My life is great, and today I am appreciating the good.  As frustrated as I get with all the boy drama, I know that its is the assholes, creeps, and heartbreakers that help me know when something is truly good.         

Social Pariah or Self Confident

You can’t hide forever.  Eventually there is going to be that thing you can’t run from anymore.  I have the sneaking suspicion that my running days are over.  Whether it’s from Hadley or D, or both, I am not entirely sure.  This weekend, while rocking a sexy red cocktail dress, I was informed that I am a social pariah.  I was aware that it was a possibility, but to hear it out loud was a different thing altogether.       

I thought it would bother me more, to know that people are practically getting shunned for talking to me.  It is actually kind of liberating.  I don’t have to care, and I know I shouldn’t anyway.  I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of, I did nothing wrong.  For the first time in maybe forever I feel comfortable in my own skin.  I don’t feel the need to please other people if it means doing something that I don’t want to do.    

As for D, I know it is my choice to go back to that weekly social gathering for the last month it ever exists.  It has been almost a year since we have been in that rather small room together.  I think I can handle it, but tonight will be the test.  It is bigger than him, it is a place I used to call home, my Cheers, closing down.  My heart is still racing out of anxiety, out of fear of what I might feel.  He is not worth my time and it isn’t about him.  Still, I can’t help but be nervous.  For over a year we have been skillfully avoiding each other. I can’t hide forever.  Not from D, not from Hadley, not from the fear of irrelevance.  

Maybe that is why I enjoy the idea that I am a social pariah, the idea that being despised is better than being unnoticed.  I know I am better than that, have come to far to fall into that trap again.  I don’t need to be liked, but I don’t need to be hated or even noticed to be happy either.  As long as I am being myself, it doesn’t matter if people acknowledge me.  The people who are worth my time will like me for me, be there no matter what, and won’t be scared off by other peoples’ feelings about me.  But to be true to myself I also have to stop making my decisions based on who may or may not be somewhere.  My decisions are my own, not affected by anyone.  I will not be controlled by fear, I will not hide, and I will not be weak just because someone expects me to be.  

Over the last 8 months I have become the strongest version of myself.  I look in the mirror and don’t just see my flaws, or the extra pounds I want to lose.  I find the features that I love about myself.  I love mouth, the cupids bow of my top lip and the poutiness of my bottom lip.  I love the way my blue eyes give away exactly what I am feeling if someone cares enough to notice.  I love the natural arch in my lower back right above bubble butt.  I love my strong calves and the way they look in my sky high heels.

I now also really believe that I deserve more from men than what I have settled for in the past.  I believe I deserve to be asked out on a date, and have made it a requirement before I will even kiss someone.  Before I always wanted more, to be treated better, but I never demanded it. It is ok to weed out the frogs because I am not 22 anymore.  I don’t need to find a prince, but it is not too much to ask for someone that wants know how my day was.  Standards show that I love myself, and that I deserve someone else’s love.  

Loving myself is not easy, it is a constant struggle that I don’t always win.  I still am too quick to judge myself, but then I realize that the only person that hurts is me.  When I think I look fat in a dress instead of thinking it is unflattering that is just me giving into my insecurities.  No one is perfect, I am far from it myself, but even with my flaws I am a much better version of myself.  Social pariah or not, I am finally starting to see myself as a person of worth.  

Chosen Family

I read an article on Buzzfeed today about why gay men love The Golden Girls.  There were a lot of fascinating points to why gay men relate to the show, but one that resonated with me in particular is the idea of the “Chosen Family”.  These women were not only friends; they became family to one another - a family that each of them constructed for themselves.  As a single career woman in my mid-twenties living 17 hours from my biological family, I have also developed a chosen family.  

I think several of the most unforgettable television shows are those that create this idea that friends are your family: loyal, caring, irreplaceable, and ever so slightly crazy.  Think about Will and Grace, Friends, Sex and The City: these are shows that helped shape the way generations look at friendship.  They are the standard to which much of our society judges true friendship, and the blueprints to creating a chosen family of their own.   

I am a person who is loyal to a fault.  I build a lot of walls around myself, and if I let you in and trust you completely, then you can expect my unadulterated friendship, you are now family.  These are the people that pour you another glass of wine and hide your keys when you lose your job.  The people who text you during your mutually adored shows, edit your blog posts, and gchat you at work all day.  These are the people who would punch your cheating ex in the nose if they ever run into them again, or at least say they would on a regular bases.  The people who can make you laugh with a look, and don’t flinch when you burst into tears for no apparent reason.  These are the people that know all your physical and emotional scars and love you because of them, instead of inspite of them.  This is a chosen family.  

I take great care to construct the best possible chosen family.  To let the right people in, but when you depend on someone you are always leaving the door open for disappointment.   When someone you love hurts you, it never gets easier.  When it is a friend, a member of your chosen family, the cut runs deeper.  This is the person with whom you are supposed to be in the trenches of life, not the person that hits you with a grenade leaving you bloody and broken.  The thing about family, even the chosen kind, is that you love each other enough to get past the things that have wounded you, at least you should be able to.  A chosen family member, unlike a biological one, always has a moment when they prove they are family.  There is a test of your friendship and sometimes you realize they weren’t family at all.  It is the people that will weather the storm with you who deserve the designation, the one who knows you, what will hurt you, and when you don’t mean the terrible things that you said.  Those are deserving, the elite, the chosen ones.  

When someone says a member of your family is a jackass, and it might be true, but they are your jackass and no one else gets to call them that!  In my case, I am everyone’s over dramatic “emotional time bomb,” but my family will stick up for me because I am their ticking time bomb.   No one gets to talk shit about your family but you, end of story.  

I love my chosen family!  The people that have been to the bottom of the bottle and back with me.  I would not have survived my 3 ½ years in DC without them, and I know I can not survive moving forward without them by my side either!  To Chloe, Lisa, Elle, and Conner: thank you for being my chosen family, for seeing me and loving me at my worst, for accepting my eccentric ways, and knowing that I am always just a phone call away.  I love each of you more than you will ever know!          

Perfect?

The moment that someone leans in and kisses you for the first time is a moment of pure unadulterated romance. I am not talking about the boy that drunkenly, sloppily kisses you after a tequila shot. I am talking about the guy that walks you home just to make sure you get there safe. When that guy leans in and gives you a chaste kiss on the lips your heart skips a beat. The sounds of a mellow indie rock love song play in your head.  Every first kiss like that seems like possibly the beginning.  

Unfortunately not every kiss is the beginning, and not every romantic moment is part of a greater romance.  Sometimes a moment is just that: fleeting, insignificant, and forgettable.  Romance can be falsely manufactured for a boy’s own purpose.  Hope can be given as a means to an end.  

When the other shoe drops and the moments of pure ecstasy are revealed as purely moments of convenience, your heart breaks.  Not because you were in love, but it breaks that the possibility of love is no longer there.  Being disappointed by someone you have pined over, been sweet talked by, can make another tiny piece of your heart harden.  How long until your whole heart is cold and hard?  

My heart breaks because I am just as far from finding a relationship, a partner, love than I was a week ago, maybe even further away.  Maybe it is because I don’t know how to reconcile the romantic side of me with the sensual side.  How do I be the bombshell with a heart?  If I am one, they want the other.  I don’t know how to shake my sense of inadequacy when every corner I turn, I am being told I am not good enough for something or someone.  All I want in life is to be not just enough for someone, but to be someone’s own idea of perfect.  

I have spent so much of my life trying to please everyone, to be perfect and put together, hiding behind makeup and clothes.  I will never be perfect, because the reality is I am a mess.  But there is someone out there that will think that my neurotic, obsessive, nerdy tendencies make me their own idea of perfect.  

Besides, that guy, that I believe is looking for me too, I have to learn to see myself as MY OWN idea of perfect.  I have to love my curves and the fact that my hair will never grow long.  I have to adore the fact that one of my eyes gets droopy when I have had too much to drink, and that my left knee will always hurt when it rains.   I have to stop chastising myself for not being what I think I should be.  There are some things about myself I can never change, and those are the things that make me unique, the things that make me Harper.

Instead of trying to be what I think will attract romance, I need to be me.  Maybe then, instead of a fleeting moment, I will find my great romance.