Dear Soon-To-Be 32-Year-Old Me…

Dear Me;

Since you’re not one for making New Year’s resolutions, how about birthday promises? I know you’ve never done this before, but why not try something new! And it can become a yearly tradition…if you like it, that is…

Promise you’ll be kinder to yourself. No more thinking that you’re stupid when mistakes are made. No more internal insults directed at yourself when something goes wrong. And no more dwelling on how you could do things differently over situations that are beyond your control and in the past. Instead, just sigh, learn, and move on. Also, bring those “failed” baking experiments to work – your coworkers will eat anything (as proven time and time again)!

Promise yourself that you’ll only dip your toes into negativity. No one is 100% positive all the time, but try to be. No more jumping into the river of bad vibes, no more letting bad energy consume or overwhelm you, no more drowning in the negative to the point where you feel that you can’t surface. If you REALLY need to get negative, promise yourself ankle-deep and no further.

Promise to do more things that make you happy! You know how you don’t like talking to that one person? Don’t feel obligated to converse with them anymore. They can probably tell the conversation is forced anyway.

Promise you’ll stop comparing your life track to the ones of others, despite whatever pressures from whoever. Their life track is just that – their own. Your life track is your own. Things will happen when they’re meant to happen. Seriously.

Promise you’ll be around for your birthday next year. Promise you’ll make it to 33. It might seem impossible to do at times, but you’ve made it this far…And this also means to stop canceling your doctor appointments!

But most importantly – promise to love yourself everyday. You’re an amazing lady and you’re the only one like you. Among your talents, you can cook and bake! And make people smile. So make yourself smile too. You’re worth it!

Happy soon to be birthday,
Me.

Create A Word.

There needs to be a word invented for something that I can’t quite explain.

It’s that thing that you have when you meet someone and you feel an instant connection to them. And the more you talk to them, the more you seem to grow a need them. It’s deeper than a friendship…Kinda like a crush, except it’s more meaningful than that, yet it’s not a relationship where you would call the other person your boyfriend or girlfriend. You tell them things you can’t tell anyone else, you can talk to them about anything without feeling like you’ll be rejected or judged…

It’s the type of connection where there’s no word and there’s no labels, yet that’s perfectly fine with the both of you…

There needs to be a word for that.

Because when I say, “My friend, ______.” it feels like I’m selling them short.

They’re more than that.

And they deserve a word that’s just for them.

Online Dating Is Not For Me.

It only took me about a month to figure out, thankfully. Online dating is just something not for me. While it’s great for many people, I just can’t get into it.

For the first month, I was active. I emailed guys who seemed interesting, I wrote back to people who wrote to me, I browsed the site to see who caught my interest.

After a month, I think the newness and excitement wore off for me. It just seemed weird to sit there and look through a bunch of profiles, like browsing a catalog where you find that most of what you see isn’t to your liking.

I still have my account, but I don’t bother browsing or looking. If someone messages me, I reply…And most of the time, I’ve found that I’m not interested.

I’m not in a rush to find someone and I’m perfectly fine with being single. I just sort of wanted to see what it was like, to experience and to say that I’ve done it.

Adventures In Online Dating.

I’ve decided to give online dating a whirl.  Seeing as my last two attempts at dating someone I met face to face resulted in failures, on no fault of my own aside from shitty luck, what’s the worst that could happen?

Looking back at my dating life, it’s been pretty dismal…And a majority of my friends agree that I seem to have I seem to have the worst luck when it comes down to dating. My luck is so bad that they’re already starting to come up with “fun ways” on how the guy from my first date will be flawed (one bet married and secretly dating)…There’s one friend who’s holding out that everything will be nice and fine and normal with no catch. In either case, if this whole online dating thing doesn’t work out, then I’ll be right back where I am right now in my life – not dating.

One of my friends and I agreed…If it all goes to shit and my horrible luck in dating strikes again on this adventure, I’ll have even MORE stories that we all can laugh about later.

I decided to dip my toes into online dating several months back by joining a free site. Several waffling choices of deactivating and reactivating my account, I finally decided to delete my profile for good.

Why?

1) I got at least two messages a day from no-picture-profile creeps asking about my feet/toes. Or even worse – asking for pictures of my feet/toes.

2) The constant “yooooooooooooooo guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurl!!! hit me uuuuuuuup!!!!!” …I can only assume they have a sticky keyboard and I do NOT want to know how, why, or from what….

3) The lack of basic grammar. I know I’m not perfect and people make mistakes…But for fuck’s sake, know the difference between “your” and “you’re” or stop typing on the internet. And spell check is helpful, I promise!

4) On my final days on the site, I saw a profile of a guy who was into classic music. So I asked him if he had any recommendations for upcoming symphonies – not even asking him to go with me. I get a message back a couple hours later with him FREAKING out, saying he just got out of a long term relationship and he thought he was ready to date, but he isn’t and he’s sorry to do this, but he’s deleting his account, but here’s a link to the show he’d recommend me seeing.  …What…

Those are the reason why I upgraded to a paid site. I’m committed to it for at least six months. I figured that if I paid for it, I should at least attempt to stick it out. I’m four days in and not one person asked about my feet, much to my delight. Nothing against my feet, but I think that I have a much better personality and hold better conversations than they do.

I’ve also noticed a great increase in the ability to use English in the written form. I seriously shouldn’t be thrilled by this fact, but I am. I spend more time reading about a person on their profile…instead of clenching my jaw and mentally correcting every error before I rage quit and flip my laptop.

A trend I’ve noticed so far…does everyone who joins online dating sites have to be into hiking? I mean, seriously…Did I miss the memo for this requirement? Every profile I’ve looked at so far has had at least ONE hiking picture and it’s listed as an interest. If I don’t get any dates, can I blame it on not liking hiking due to my sun sensitivity and fear of heights?

I know to be careful with online dating…

I know not to financially help out people (scammers)…

I know not to let myself get murdered…

Yet, here I am…I’m going to try. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous about this whole thing…And putting myself out there.

I Know Not Your Sorrows.

“Breathe deep and easy, swallow this pride.
Stare at my shaking hands through bone-dry, blood-shot eyes.”

The morning after my birthday, I woke up and was going through my emails. There was one from an exboyfriend.

This particular boyfriend and I were together for 3 years. It wasn’t all smooth sailing – there were a lot of rough spots, he had dumped me and we had gotten back together again more than a couple of times. But there was a lot of fun times. He ended it in January of 2011 with the words of, “I can’t see myself marrying you.” and “My feelings for you changed to one more like a friendship than a relationship.” So we parted ways in a non-dramatic fashion and figured we could be adults about this and still be friends. Yet as time went on, we ended up back together in an unlabeled thing. And it continued, but I wasn’t his girlfriend. It was sort of maddening.

I took a month vacation, to San Francisco…To get away, to get my head together, to think things through without influences. And during that trip, I interviewed, I prepped, and I made the choice. To benefit my career path, for my SANITY, to break the sickening cycle…I decided to move. I decided to uproot my life from the only place I had ever known as home….I had figured if me and this guy were meant to be together, it would somehow work out despite my choice to put half an ocean of distance between us.

So, I moved. He came out for a visit several months later for a few days. It was nice, but as time drug on…Despite the talks, despite everything…I came to the realization that he wasn’t going to move to be with me, that when he ended things…That his feelings really HAD changed, that he really didn’t want a relationship with me anymore, and that we both were just falling back on what was familiar to us.

Months had passed, us barely talking…And then it came to the point where he was asking for me back. At this point, I had moved on. I had accept that we weren’t meant to be in a relationship together. MY feelings had changed. And I realized I no longer wanted to be in a relationship with him. I came to that decision through some of what he said to me when we did get a chance to talk, my own thinking, and the fact that he had never done anything to show that he really wanted to be with me.

This past February, he called me to have another talk – a last ditch effort to ask for me back, to get back together. And again, I had told him no – that I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him. Of course he didn’t take it very well…Rejection always hurts. So when that phone call with him ended, he said that he wouldn’t contact me for a while because he just needed time to get over the pain and hurt.

“I have traveled in darkness, for what seems like days.
I crawled from the sink-holes, collapsed under this weight.”

Back to the email from him.

It was paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs long.

There was no pleasantries, no asking how I was, no birthday wish.

From the beginning to end, it was just a dialogue about how his life wasn’t going to great, how he’s not doing well, how he’s been hurt by me, how he’s resorted to alcohol to cope with things, him being over-dramatic by talking in absolutes and ultimatums.

It just screamed: Fuck you and what you’re going through. Here’s my burdens and issues and here’s how my life sucks. Oh, and your birthday? Despite knowing you for five years, I’m not going to mention it – at all. And the way it ended just heaped an enormous amount of guilt on my shoulders, nevermind putting me in a tough situation.

If I replied to him, I know it would be unproductive and nothing would be resolved. We’d just go through the cycle of talking about everything, getting hurt and having tears, with nothing changing in the end result.

If I ignored it, then he would say that I wanted nothing to do with him…and whatever happened after that would be all my fault, somehow…Because I made the choice not to talk to him.

I know I shouldn’t let it get to me…I know I should let it roll off my back. But it still hurts.

I’m not entirely sure what he’s going through. And he doesn’t know what I’m going through.

But I think it’s time to cut the ties, what little we have remaining.

“I know not your sorrow, but I know mine…”
But Tonight We Dance – Rise Against

Annoying.

You know what’s annoying?

When someone you haven’t talked for a long period of time – someone you don’t really consider a friend, but you talk to them once in a while – contacts you and says that they need to talk to you about something…And then they never talk to you. Or when they DO talk to you, it’s superficial things. And they never seem to have the time to talk to you about whatever it was they really wanted to talk about. So you’re left wondering what the hell they wanted to say.

Or when you don’t feel like talking about something with someone, but they keep pressing the issue…As if harassing you non-stop will make you want to open up about things. And they can’t figure out that if they back up for just a bit, maybe you’ll open up to them once you’re not trying to defend yourself from the constant pressure of them demanding to talk.

Or the fact that someone is getting a sort of sick satisfaction knowing that your life has gone to shit for the moment and that things are a chaotic swirl of drama that seems never ending. And you know they’re not around to help you, support you, or wish you well. They certainly aren’t hoping things turn out for the better. They’re just waiting for more drama so they can get out their popcorn and laugh at you.

I just hope these people in my life figure out how to communicate a touch better. Because it would make all of our lives a wee bit easier.

Emotional Roller Coaster.

There are ups and there are downs. That’s the fact of life.

Recently in my life, there seems to have been a lot more downs than ups. But I’m holding onto the hope and faith that somehow, life will even out with a fuckton of ups to make up for this.

The way things ended with Buddy was…slightly traumatic. It was a complete mind-fuck and I still don’t think I have everything in my head sorted out from that.

I think I’m just baffled at the scope of things, and the aftermath, and how things continue to snowball. I just want it to stop, I want it to be done, I want it to be over.

But my mind dwells on things, my mind thinks on things, it questions all the details and creates questions I’ll never know the answers to.

Things are blurring and meshing together in my head.

I’m having a hard time distinguishing if I actually miss Buddy, if I miss the person he presented to me, or if I’m mourning the loss of the ideals of what could have been with him.

In all honesty, I just want someone to hold me as I cry my face off, as I cry my eyes out…Not the pretty kind of crying, but the ugly kind…With the shouting and wailing and snot and slobber and tears. The kind of crying where it feels as if you’re going to turn inside out from it all.

But I don’t have anyone close enough.

So I hold myself.

Try to self-soothe.

And hope that the ups are coming sooner rather than later.

Short Lived Adventure.

The Adventures of Buddy and Pixie were short-lived, as things have ended between us. 

There are certain tidbits of information you should tell someone you’re dating, before they become your new girlfriend. And when that information is found out from a third party, the new girlfriend might be feeling a bit devastated. 

I’m not quite ready yet to go into details on who came forward with what information…But being lied to is not really the best way for a foundation of a relationship to start. And without that? There’s no relationship.

I sat on the information for a few days, going back and forth about what I wanted to do. But the third party kept harassing me. For my safety, I ended things via a text message – which is so horrible of me to do and I feel oh so guilty about it.

Then I remembered that the dude lied to me….And I don’t feel quite as bad.

A Beginning.

It was in the beginning of February that I wrote this blog entry, talking about a stranger that kept smiling at me on BART…And how I passed him a note, telling him to find me on Facebook. Then a few days later, I wrote this entry about how he found me on Facebook, how we got to talking, how we went out for coffee and hit it off really well.

—-

Well now, I’m writing this entry to say that he is officially my boyfriend. Though many of my friends have claimed that he was my boyfriend a while ago after several more dates. To me, you’re not in a relationship until it has been stated and agreed upon – that way there’s no room for confusion or some bullshit about “you never told me we were exclusive.”

One of the highlights from our conversation was after I asked him if he wanted to slap a label on this and make it all official, he was like, “Yeah I do! I like you enough to make you my girlfriend.” And I don’t know why, but that makes me grin from ear to ear.

In either case, this guy is totally awesome. He’s a hard worker, genuine, super nice, up-front, handsome, honest, and has an amazing sense of humor. We have a lot of similar interests. He’s also very comfortable to be around. I don’t know how to explain it except that I feel absolutely comfortable around him.

Part of me still feels like this is something out of a movie, as if things like this don’t happen in real life. I mean, I didn’t know this guy at all. And he kept smiling at me on BART. And I hand him a note to let him know who I was and how he could find me on Facebook. And it’s working out so well between us so far! I mean, out of all the creepy people and things I’ve experienced on public transit, this has to be the nicest and best story by far.

So, we’ll see how things go….As the adventures of Pixie and Buddy begins, I’m just going to take things one day at a time.

The Beggar.

There are a lot of beggars in downtown San Francisco. Every day when I go to work, I encounter at least five of them from my walk from the BART station to my work building. I follow what my gut says when it comes to giving beggars money. If they’re doing something musical at the BART station? They get two or three bucks.  If it’s a random person with a sign? I give some change or a dollar. Today, on my way into work, I had an experience that I think will stick with me for the rest of my life.

When I left home today, at the same time I usually do to get to work by 11am, I guess I had a lot of extra pep in my step because I got to the BART station by my house 15 minutes before the train I usually takes arrive…And that means I got into downtown about an hour before I started work. I usually get off at the Embarcadero BART station, but decided to go one more further into downtown and get off at the Montgomery BART station. My plan was to walk up Sansome Street and stop off at a bubble tea place on my way into work.

After several blocks, I noticed a very elderly lady outside of a coffee shop, leaning against a planter. She only had her hand out, and she wasn’t saying very much. It looked like she could barely stand. In my wallet, the last of my cash before payday, I had a five dollar bill and a twenty dollar bill.

I followed my gut.

And I gave the old woman the twenty dollars.

Immediately, she grabbed my hand (not the money – MY HAND) , in both of her own. And she held it so tight and she started crying and saying ‘thank you’ in Chinese over and over again. Tears are streaming down her cheeks and she nearly falls to her knees as she thanked me over and over again.

I wrapped my free arm around her and gave her a tight hug and I told her good luck. She kept holding onto my hand tightly, shaking it with both of her own hands and it wasn’t until I pulled my hand out of her own that she took the money and placed it into her pocket.

Handing her a tissue from my pocket, I watched as she dabbed at her eyes, such a large, grateful smile on her lips. I waved to her, she gave me a small bow, and I walked off. When I was a block away, I turned back and looked. She was still watching me and she gave me a wave before she turned and walked off in the opposite direction.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever see her again. If I do, though, I won’t hesitate to give her more money because it was quite clear that she was very appreciative of it…Unlike a lot of the other beggars I’ve encountered before.