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. 

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.  

How to be Friends

As time passes and I end up having to be in a room with M, more and more I wonder why it hasn’t gotten any easier.  I don’t still want to be with him; I am not even that attracted to him anymore, but for some reason, it still makes me anxious.  I don’t talk to him at all these happy hours, bridal showers, and birthday parties.  I am not rude, and I don’t avoid him per se.  I just don’t have direct conversation with him.  I am beginning to wonder if it is ever possible to be friends with someone who rejects you so directly.  

The thing about M is that I never thought about him romantically until he kissed me.  After he kissed me, I began to think, “oh ok, I could see this working”.  He wasn’t the kind of guy I typically would have pursued.  He wears cargo shorts, and prefers basketball over football, and if I am really honest, he isn’t pretty enough.  I didn’t love the way he kissed me, but I didn’t hate it either.  All in all, M was someone who didn’t immediately make my heart flutter and the sun shine.  But I thought maybe that was a good thing.  Maybe that is how it should really be, instead of the manic intense disasters that all my other past relationships have been.  So I gave him a shot; I started envisioning a very comfortable life with him, and then I really began to care about him.  In all reality, I think I convinced myself to fall for him.  I convinced myself he was what I wanted.   

Do you know what happens when your backup plan chooses not to be with you?  The person you convinced yourself to fall for just can’t be with you.  A part of you breaks.  Not because they broke you, but because you broke yourself.  You convinced yourself this person would never hurt you, that they were safe, they were worth it.  Then you realize you can’t even keep the kind of safe guy who should worship the ground you walk on, the kind of guy who you would never love with unabashed passion but love enough to have a comfortable happy life.  

It might not hurt so much if you didn’t have to see him.  Being in a room with someone who blatantly said you are not enough for them is like a continuous panic attack.  You look at them, and you hear the words all over again.  It is like someone constantly screaming in your head, “YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH!”  No matter how much you really don’t want him anymore, it is a constant reminder of your failure, your inadequacy.   

Although deep down I know that it was him.  M is a child, and our friends let him get away with too much.  He doesn’t grow up because no one makes him.  I am adult and he is a child.  I wanted something real, and he wanted a fuck buddy.  I should have moved on on my own accord.  I liked having someone though, I wasn’t ready to have no one again.  I didn’t want to start over for the thousandth time.  

Maybe that voice will fade with time, when I meet someone new.  When I have found someone who actually wants me, all of me, not just when they are bored or drunk.  Maybe it will fade when I don’t feel like everyone is watching to see how we are going to act together.  Sometimes it feels like all our friends are waiting for me to have a meltdown or get mad at M or drunk cry.  I mean sometimes I do drunk cry about the situation, but in the privacy of my own home or to Layson.  

I don’t know that I will ever be able to be friends with M.  I know everyone expects me to, and I will always be civil, but I can not see the day that I will be M’s friend.  Maybe as I get older I am too jaded to pretend.  Maybe I am hard like my mother says.  But really it boils down to this, if I offer you all of me and you reject it. you don’t get to have any of me.  

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.  

Does everyone deserve a 2nd chance?

I am looking at a disarming email from someone I had long filed away, closing off my heart to both the friendship and the heartbreak that I associated with them.  I find myself wondering if there such a thing as letting too much time pass, or damage beyond repair.  This email does not beg for forgiveness or ask for another chance, instead it’s exactly the kind of thing she would have sent when we were the best of friends.  Maybe it is her olive branch.  The question is what will I do with it.  

I know I have said this many times but I will say it again - my friends are like family to me.  I love and I trust with all my heart.  When I let someone in, I share all of me, and, in many ways, I blindly trust that the people I truly let in will never intentionally do anything to hurt me.  So when someone that I have grown to see as one of my best friends hurts me the way this person did, I don’t know if amends can ever be made.  People who don’t know the specifics might think that our falling out was over a boy, and yes there was a boy involved, but our friendship didn’t end over a boy.  Our friendship ended over her blatant disrespect for my feelings, over broken trust, and over her lack of respect for my need for time and space.  

I never thought I would be sitting here contemplating accepting a very small gesture that seems to be a start in making amends.  If I am honest, I never contemplated it because I never thought she would ever reach out.  Now that I am in this position - I don’t know what I should do.  Do I ignore it?  Do I respond?  Do I even want to open the door, even just a sliver, to reconciling?   

Some cuts run too deep, some things are unforgivable, I just don’t know if this is one of those things.  Could I trust her again?  Could I even fake a smile and be civil with someone that in so many ways broke my heart?  

I’m just not sure.  

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?

Teddy Does London

My dear friend Ted, or as Elle, Lisa, and I like to call him Teddy Boo Boo Boo Boo, has just packed his bags and is headed to the most amazing city on earth. London!  Ok, so I have never been, but it is the place where 85% of my dreams take place.  For those of you who don’t know, I am absolutely, positively obsessed with EVERYTHING British!  Teddy has been making me insanely jealous with all of his amazing pictures from his morning runs.  Well, ok not the running part, we all know I don’t run, just the being in London part.    

Teddy did not do the proper research before hopping the pond, and is asking for suggestions on places to see and things to do.  So, I thought I would make Teddy a list of British things he needs to do, see, taste, and watch in order to immerse himself in the culture.  Of course, go to all the amazing museums, and the typical tourist stuff like riding the London Eye, touring Tower of London, and trying to make a palace guard laugh, but these are the random things that you might not have thought of.     

1. Go to Selfridges!  Selfridges, also known as Selfridge & Co., is a chain of high end department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge (a bad ass American). The flagship store on London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK (after Harrods) and opened 15 March 1909.

      

2. While you're at it, watch Mr. Selfridge!  That way you know why Selfridges is so freaking cool!  I mean Jeremy Piven!!  
3. The Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens.  This can be found in the true classic film Hook.  Teddy, this is a must see for every lost boy!    

4. Have Afternoon Tea.  The British Empire was built on the principle that everything stops for afternoon tea.  I even found you a very masculine place to enjoy this time-honored British tradition, the Reform Social & Grille!    
5. Hit some historic Pubs.  Here is a great list with helpful reviews!  Prove to the Brits that you can get boozy with the best of them!  Oh, and don’t forget the fish and chips!    
6. For God sake WATCH DOCTOR WHO!  I have only been telling you this for months, but maybe now you relieve how important it is to have a favorite Doctor! At the very least you will understand Lisa’s and my references.  (PS. Bow Ties are cool!)

7. Go to TONS of shows on the West End!  Think Broadway but with stars like David Tennant, Matt Smith (people you would know if you watched Doctor Who) and amazing original shows!!  It’s not just the great theater that you can catch here, also look for new bands and DJs playing free shows trying to catch their big break.  
8. Be in the Audience for a recording of a BBC show!  It is free and frankly pretty cool!  You can see what is taping soon and apply for your free tickets!  I highly recommend the Graham Norton Show if you can!  I would give you a $100 if you told a story for the Red Chair.  Also, just watch the Graham Norton Show every week!!  You will thank me.      
9. Hear people speak their minds at Speakers’ Corner.  At the north-east tip of Hyde Park near Marble Arch, Speakers' Corner is where anybody and everybody can jump on an old crate and voice their opinion every Sunday.  Teddy, since you won’t be able to argue politics with us at Happy Hour this might be a perfect spot for you to debate!  
10. Go to the races, a polo match or some other function where the pretty girl on your arm is wearing an amazing, yet silly hat.  I vote for polo because that seems more British!  

Of course there are a million other nerdy things I would do, like go to Kings Crossing and take my picture at platform 9 ¾, but I left those off because I am saving them for my visit!  Wouldn’t want Teddy to have to do them twice.  

More than just Teddy being in my dream city, I am jealous of this amazing life adventure he is getting to have.  Moving to a new city, a new country, with so many possibilities in front of you must be exhilarating!  Sometimes I think I started my career too soon, that I didn’t give myself time to explore the world, and now I won’t be able to until I am old and too tired to.  Well, thanks to Teddy I will be going on at least one adventure.  I am making my way to jolly old England this Spring whether Teddy wants me to or not. :)   Cheers!

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.        

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!          

2014

I know we are a few weeks into 2014, but it is never too late to tell you about my New Years Eve, New Years resolutions, and my outlook on 2014.  

I could not have dreamt up a better way to start 2014.  Ok maybe there could have been a few slight improvements, like a New Years kiss, but seriously, my New Years Eve was practically perfect!

Elle, Hadley, my new and wonderful friend Layson, and I got all dolled up in sequins and headed to a wonderful four course meal at Lavanga.  The food was spectacular, and the company superb!  We laughed, stuffed our faces, and mocked the 60 year-old women with cleavage for days.  After our delicious meal we snuck into a private, open bar party at our favorite bar.  We made friends, got boys to buy us shots, hung out with all our favorite bartenders, and overall had an amazing time!  We could not have planned a more perfect night with friends.  Hadley kept finding boys willing to give up their party hats until we all had one.  

I want 2014 to be the year of Harper.  I plan to do things that I like, things that make me happy, and things that better me.  So, here are some promises I have made or goals I have set for myself.

- Read 52 books this year.  That is a book a week.  I spend an hour on the metro everyday, and have started reading during my lunch hour.  There is no reason why I can’t find the time to read a book a week.  

- Lose weight.  I know what you are thinking.  This is every typical woman’s resolution.  What makes this different than years before is why I want to.  I want to feel good about myself.  I don’t want to lose weight to win some boy, I want to do it to like the way I look in clothes.  I know there is nothing wrong with being a 14/16, but I would like to be able to go into any store in a mall and find something that fits me nicely.  I have started Weight Watchers, and have already lost 5lbs.   

- Spend my money on big moments instead of nights at the bar.  I would rather save up so I can have the memories of something like Taste of the South than spend all my money at my neighborhood bar doing the same thing every week.  I am too young to give up on living.

- Leave the past in the past.  I have to stop carrying around all my past heartbreak and let myself move on.  As long as I hold onto the past I will never be able to have a future.

-  Be confident in my own decisions.  I need to make decisions and not second guess them.  

- Spend time with true friends.  I want to continue to develop my friendships with the people that are always there for me.  It isn’t the quantity of friends you have, it is the quality of your friendships that matter.

- Have fun!

The year of Harper has so many other goals and objectives, but no need to bore you with them all.  I am really looking forward to what 2014 has to offer.  The best part of the New Year is the idea that you can start fresh, eliminate bad habits, learn from your mistakes - with that comes the ability to change..  So, even though this is a few weeks late, I hope you also have plans for yourself in 2014.  If not, it is never too late!