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   

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.        

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.  

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.         

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.            

Goodbye 2013 ...

2013, what a tricky lady you turned out to be.  You always kept me guessing, full of beautiful beginnings, tragic endings, and all different forms of the in-betweens. I am not sad to see you go.  I am ready for what 2014 will hold for me, but I would like to look back at what bumps, bruises, and blessings 2013 left me with.  

January brought a new job, a new apartment, and the loss of an old friend.  As exciting as changing career paths was, it was also terrifying!  Looking back, I am very happy with the decision and don’t know that I could be happier doing anything else.  I also love my studio and living alone.  It is my little corner of the world where I can tuck away, let my hair down (or in my case, put it up), and not have to worry about anyone but myself.  Losing J was hard.  I don’t know that I will ever understand why he took his own life.  I felt so much all at once: angry, confused, guilty, numb, destroyed.  I miss him!  I will forever be, in his words, “His fag hag!”

For my 3rd year in DC 2013 actually held a lot of firsts!  First time to go to Vegas, Taste of the South, and Gold Cup; first group trip I ever planned; first joint birthday party; first trip to Miss America.  I feel like I really started living in 2013, more than just going out to the bar (which I did do a lot!), but doing the things that I kept putting off, having real adventures!

I let go of someone I loved and discovered my true feelings for someone else in my life.  I know you all are probably tired of reading about D, and honestly, I am tired of writing about him, but it wouldn’t be a recap of my life in 2013 without mentioning him, what I put myself though b/c of him this year.  

Walking away from D is at the top of the lists of the best things I have ever done for myself, and the hardest things I have ever done.  I think if you love someone, truly love them, you never really stop loving them.  There just comes a point when love isn’t enough to keep you anymore, love doesn’t take away the hurt and lies, or dry the tears.  D hurt me, more than I will ever be able to put into words really.  I have tried so many times to say that he didn’t crush me, not completely, but I don’t know if that is necessarily true.  I think I allowed him to stifle my spark.  In my need to feel special, I allowed him to drain me of everything spectacular about me.  I think my last words to him might be the most perfect words I have ever spoken in a moment, “I want you to be happy, but I want me to be happy more.  You no longer contribute to my happiness.”  I am still angry at him, and I know I probably will be for a long time.  I think more than anything I am angry at myself for letting it go on for so long, and for getting so out of hand.  I let my feelings for him blind me from so many things.  I am glad I took off my rose colored glasses and see him and our former relationship for what it really was.  What it is now is finally over.  It is the past, and I am resolved to leave it there.  

I mentioned that I discovered my true feelings for someone else, and I am only going to touch on this briefly.  This is a part of my life I want to keep to myself, it is more real than anything else I have ever felt and very private.  It is funny how some things sneak up on you though.  They develop, grow, take hold of you without you even realizing it.  They are real, deep, and a part of you.  Loving some people is as natural as breathing.  It doesn’t hurt, their love doesn’t cripple you, it just becomes part of who you are.  These feelings are also inconvenient, inopportune, and even inappropriate.  You can try to put them back in the box deep inside of you from where they came, you can try.  I am trying.  Maybe I missed my moment in time with this person, maybe it is yet to come, but maybe it never will.  

 

2013 you have been a hard year, a great year, but difficult nonetheless.  As I bid farewell, I am starting 2014 with a heart that is at peace.  Instead of looking at my imperfections, I am focusing on what I want out of my life, and what I need to do to get it.  I, through therapy, am finding an inner strength that I never knew I could posses.  I feel hopeful and open to a world of possibilities.  2014, show me what you’ve got!    

Fool

Sometimes, life slithers up when you least expect it and snaps at your heels; it strikes and the venom of that moment’s poison spreads.  I thought I was immune to D, that there was no way he could hurt me anymore.  I was wrong.   

Over a year ago, when D and I sat down in a Starbucks and talked everything out, I asked him a question that was very important to me.  I ask him if he had ever cheated on his girlfriend before me or after me.  He told me no.  He told me it had just been me.  For some reason, this was a comfort; it let me keep up my illusion that D was a good man.  It made me feel special, like there was something about me from which he couldn’t just walk away.  I didn’t see the facts - if I was special, then why didn’t he leave her for me. It doesn’t matter because I wasn’t special at all.  

I found out that he had cheated before, or during, the time we were whatever we were.  I don’t know the timing, but I do know I was not the only one.  He lied to her too.  He strung her along, made her feel special.  I don’t know why I am surprised by his lying to me - he had before.  I had just grown to trust him.  That day we were supposed to be completely honest with each other, laying it all on the table.  He looked me straight in the eyes and told me what he thought I wanted to hear.  Really, I just wanted the truth.  

I realize that I never really knew D, I fell in love with a lie.  I thought that he had so much good in him.  We were two good people that found ourselves in an impossible situation, but really I don’t know if either of us are good.  He isn’t.  There is no good in D at all.  How can he play with so many peoples’ emotions for his own amusement and still have any good in him at all?  He intentionally hurt me, and he intentionally hurts his girlfriend over and over again.  

I feel sorry for her.  She is in a relationship with a stranger who has no regard for her or her feelings.  I used to wish everyday that their relationship would end.  I can’t be that good of a person because I wished that pain on her.  I now wish for the same thing but for different reasons.  I wish for her to be free of D, to move on with her life before it is too late.  No one deserves to be with someone that dishonest.

I really don’t know how to express what I am feeling.  I feel like he ripped my heart out of my chest and crushed it into dust.  I feel so stupid, so very stupid, for ever trusting him, for ever loving him.  Here I am doing the thing I promised I would never do again, crying over D.  My tears aren’t really for him though.  I am crying because I lost myself for a person I never really knew.  I am crying because I was a fool, an absolute and complete fool!  

      

The Run In

Just because I have chosen to forget D doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist (unfortunately).  For the first time since I walked away from him, for the first time since April 23rd, I saw him.  My heart stopped.  It didn’t flutter like it used to; it just paused, waiting for my brain to tell it how to proceed.  

My first thought was that his hair was too shaggy.  Then I averted my eyes.  I didn’t let myself take him in, study his appearance.  I couldn’t let myself look long enough to feel the attraction that I know still lingers.  Even though I tried not to look at him, I could feel his presence.  I didn’t want him there.  The bar was not big enough for both of us, but I wouldn’t leave just because he was there.  I could feel his eyes on me, something I used to crave, but now this attention angers me.  He isn’t allowed to make me feel anxious anymore, he isn’t supposed to unnerve me.      

I was having fun before he walked in.  I was flirting with Bama, laughing with Anna, Hadley, and Katie.  I couldn’t let him faze me.  I wouldn’t let him get in my head because I am done with his games.  I wanted to make him jealous?  No, jealous isn’t the right word, jealousy requires feelings.  I wanted him to see me happy, not so he would want me, but so he would know that I am happy without him.  I wanted him to know he did not wreck me, not completely.  

I used it as an excuse to flirt with Bama.  I recruited him for the mission and we gave D something to watch.  If he was going to stare, the least we could do was give him a show.  We took too many shots, I told Bama I had a crush on him, and I don’t remember what he said back.  I remember the feeling of his touch though.  His hands lingering on my sides, mine on his chest.  They were feelings, moments that I wish I could have had without the pretenses of D.    

Maybe D still affects me more than I am willing to admit, but as long as he didn’t realize it, that is all that mattered that night.  I really don’t want him anymore, and really don’t want him to want me.  I get sad when I think of all the time I wasted chasing him, chasing a shell of a man that only brought me darkness.  I never realized how heavy my feelings for him weighed on my heart until they finally went away.  

No, I didn’t like being in a room with him.  Yes, it made me anxious and uncomfortable.  But then who is ever really comfortable when they are in a room with someone who broke their heart?

Goodbye Forever

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

D,

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

      

The Answer is in Me ...

I am back to where I was in August in a lot of ways, going to the gym instead of my weekly social engagement that involves D.  Trying so desperately to get over him, or the very least, not feel the need to say awkward, dramatic things when I am around him.  To be in a room with him and not feel like he is the only boy I want to talk to would be an improvement on life.  

Can you really stop being attracted to someone?  Can you somehow stop finding things they do charming or endearing when they haven’t given you a reason to?  Every boy for whom I’ve had these feelings in the past exited my life on their own accord.  They didn’t give me a choice in the matter.  They either walked away and never looked back, or did something so unforgivable that I would never find them charming again.  For the first time in my life I am trying to walk away from someone before they wreck me, before they can walk away leaving me broken.  I am tired of being broken.   

I already can see the writing on the wall with D.  I always thought, and he even said once, if things were different, we would have been different.  Now things are different, and we were both right.  Things are different, but not the way I had always hoped for.  It turns out I don’t know how to be around D, not really.  I think the fact that we both know how much I care about him looms like a dark cloud, putting a damper on any idea of possibility.  The excitement that was once there is now anxiety.  For the first time, the question of how he feels hangs, suspended with no answer in sight.  I am choosing to make that my answer.  Instead of waiting around for months in hope that he will choose me, just to be devastated, I am moving on.    

I once said that the answer was in someone new.  I was wrong.  The answer isn’t in a boy distraction, though they don’t hurt.  The answer is in myself.  The answer is in why I would want to be someone’s second choice.  Why I find people that don’t pursue me to be so appealing, when I deserve someone that will go out of their way to be with me, is a question I have to ask myself.  The more I limit my interaction with D, the easier it will be for me to realize these things.  At least that is what I am hoping.  

It is week two, and I wonder if he will even notice that I am not there.  Will he feel relieved?  A part of me knows the answer to that question is yes.  What week, if any, will he start to miss my quirky charm?  These things are unproductive to think about, but it is only week two and I am human.  As the weeks pass, and my body gets stronger from the extra gym time, so will my heart.  

Change is Found in What doesn't Happen too ...

I know I have been MIA so far in 2013.  Life is moving, but I don’t feel like anything is really happening.  That isn’t really true though.  I got promoted to full-time at work.  I literally just got the most perfect job that ever could have been created for me, yet it just didn’t seem like the exciting event that it should have been.  I have begun to realize that it is sometimes not the things that happen, but the things that don’t happen that mean nothing will ever be the same.  

When I started this blog I told all of you about my wonderful group of friends, and how we would send each other hundreds of emails a day.  These girls that I used not be able to go an hour without knowing what they were doing/ thinking/ feeling now don’t email at all.  As we have grown up in the past year, some where along the way we grew apart.  Somehow, it isn’t that they grew apart, but I find myself on the outside.  I don’t know how to put into words how this makes me feel.  I feel inadequate, for a lack of a better word.  This group of girls made me feel, for the first time in my whole, life like I had a real place - like I fit.  Now I feel more like an outsider than I ever have before.  It seems like one part of my life comes together just for another one to fall apart.  

Through this, I have gotten closer to some of my other friends though.  I have more time to spend with Elle and Lisa, who are two of the first people I ever met in DC.  No matter how long it is between the times we hang out, over the years, these girls are always there to pick me up when I am down.  Katie and I have also gotten closer over the past few months.  I may cringe when she says I am like her big sister (only because I try to pretend we are the same age), but I feel a responsibility to look out for her.  I want her to learn from my mistakes.

The one thing I want to write about the most is the one thing I can’t.  You see, I made the decision to give someone the link to the blog, and that means I can’t write anything I wouldn’t want them to read.  Unfortunately, for you readers, that eliminates a lot of things these days.  I will say this, being a friend to someone can sometimes be complicated.  Sometimes your olive branches are taken wrong, and sometimes they just don’t really want your friendship.  When do you decide to give up on someone?  When do the unlimited chances run out?  Because the truth is, even the most forgiving people have their limits, their breaking point.  

I guess my theme of 2013 so far is, when do you fight and when do you let go?  When do you put yourself before needing someone else?  At what point does sacrifice become masochistic?  

I will do my best to post more.  The truth is, everything is better when I write about it.  Although I am not telling you everything, I will give you the song that is my track of the moment.  Maybe it will give y’all a little insight.    Everything Has Changed - Taylor Swift

Netflix Relationship

I think I might be in a relationship with my Netflix account.  It is easier to sit on my couch watching rom-coms, TV dramas, and sci-fi adventures than putting myself out there.  I know I will never meet anyone new this way, but I will also not be able to get hurt.  Watching these shows where the love triangle works out for the protagonist gives false illusions that one day I will get to be with the person I really want.  On all of these shows, the characters make grand proclamations of love or loathing.  These characters give ultimatums, and the people in their TV world actually make a choice.  

I have become attached to my green quilted blanket and the controller to my Playstation 3 because that is better than being attached to the dream that someone in my life who walked away will decide to come back.  It is better than pinning over the gorgeous guy that works down the hall who is not just out of my league, but is playing a completely different sport.  I am rebounding from my rebound with the likes of Pacey Witter on Dawson’s Creek, Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl, and George Tucker on Hart of Dixie.  

I wish I could say that Stefan broke up with me, but the truth is, I just haven’t heard from him in weeks.  When Hurricane Sandy hit he didn’t even check to see if I was okay.  I have friends in different parts of the country that checked on me, but the guy that I have been sharing a bed with for 2 months didn’t even ask if I was okay.  So, instead of going to the bar and meeting some guy who is going to find me forgettable, I have opted to love the men of television, past and present.

Just knowing that someone could dream up a man like Pacey Witter, a loyal man with a heart of gold who will fight for the woman he loves, gives me hope that there may be someone like him in the world.  The idea of a man that dresses like Chuck Bass, and well, frankly loves so deeply that it wrecks him, makes me long for the scheming that it would take to keep him.  Finding a true southern gentleman, like George Tucker, who tries his best to do the honorable thing even if it isn’t easy.  George Tucker walked away from his childhood sweetheart Lemon, because he realized part of his heart belonged to someone else, and that was not fair to Lemon.  

As I lose myself in the television world, I hope to find something that I can’t in my own world.  I am not sure if it is peace of mind or of heart, but I am not sure I am finding it.  Having a relationship with my Netflix account is really me just hiding.  I need to find the courage to start living my life again.  One of the things I have always loved most about myself is the strength to continue to put myself out there no matter how many times I have been hurt by people.  I feel that strength slipping away from me.  I don’t know if I, if my heart, can handle being hurt again.  The next time may be the one that truly breaks me.  So, for now, I will stick to my couch and my Netflix account.  
 
 

Right the First Time

Facebook is a landmine of engagement and wedding pictures from people from all stages of my life.  On any given day, these pictures can evoke many different emotions - joy, jealousy, disgust.  Am I, a known hopeless romantic, turning into a cynic?   

I get the most frustrated when I see someone my age or a little older getting married for the second time.  How did they get not just one , but two people to commit to them?  I know I am ignoring that their first marriage didn’t work, but that first person loved them enough to attempt the greatest leap of faith.  That counts for something in my book.

I only want to get married once.  I want to get it right the first time.  I want to know, without a doubt, that the person I marry is the only person I could ever think of waking up to everyday for the rest of forever.  I know everyone enters marriage with these same hopes.  I do think that some of the people I know have given up on their marriages too easily.  They rushed in or fell prey to an ultimatum, and they weren’t ready.  They didn’t fight to make it work.  Things got hard and they called it quits.  Marriage is not for the faint of heart.  Sharing your life with another person is one of the most difficult things any of us will ever do.  Letting them in to your heart, your mind, and your bathroom is a whole new level of vulnerable.  

I am glad I didn’t get married at 22.  I am not the same person I was then.  It’s not like I had the opportunity to anyway.  Nonetheless, I am glad that is not the path that life took me down.  I needed to know me to be able to share myself with another human being.  My parents got married very young.  Although my parents are still happily married, my mother stressed the need to let myself grow up before I chose to spend my life with someone else.    

I am not sure how one ends up getting married anyway.  I can’t even get a guy to buy me dinner, much less shell out the money for a ring.  I know that it is suppose to go something like: girl meets boy, boy asks out girl, boy and girl date for a while, boy buys a ring, and girl says yes.  My question is, how do you actually make that happen.  How do you get a guy to ask you to dinner?  How do you keep them interested?  

A guy once told me that I have too much personality to keep a guy interested unless I was sleeping with him. I took great offense to that, but part of me wonders if it is true.  Is the reason why I am single the fact that I am too neurotic?  I have always said I don’t settle, but the more I look at the men of my past I realize that is all I have ever done.  I have settled for fucked up, non-relationship relationships.  I have been in love with men who have made it very clear that I will never be their priority, and they will never care about me the way that I deserve.  

I want to get it right the first time, but what if marriage is not in the cards for me?  What if I am not meant to share my life with someone?  I like to think I would make an amazing wife someday.  I have a list of reasons why someone should want to marry me:
1) I am a good cook.
2) I am great with kids.
3) Parents love me.
4) I like sports.
5) I am pretty.

This is not exhaustive but hits the key points.  Aren’t these the things that men are looking for in a person they want to marry?  If not, they should be.  

Part of the problem is that every man I have met, who has been the kind of person that I would want to spend the rest of my life with, has never available.  I want someone that doesn’t mind that I talk A LOT, in fact, they should actually enjoy it.  He should be supportive and encouraging of my writing, and whatever other crazy dream I decide to latch onto.  He should love Christmas and family traditions, and want to make some of our own.  He must love television or at least put up with my extensive television schedule.  I want the small things, the things that are the real make or break points, the things that most people overlook.  To me, these are the things that make a marriage last the test of time.  

So, I am going to keep waiting to meet that person who is willing to take the greatest leap of faith with me.  I will wait as long as it takes because I will get it right the first time.