I’m not saying goodbye; Don’t take it like I am.

 

Have you ever hugged someone goodbye and as you walk away, you realize that this is the last time you will ever see that person again?  Well this occurrence is happening more often than I would like it to in the last few years.  I’m not sure if I am more connected with the people who I have to say these goodbyes to, or whether I have never actually had to say goodbyes like these…

I am not talking about ‘Goodbye forever because we didn’t work out’ kinda goodbyes; I am talking about the goodbyes where you have a good friend moving away, or a certain class or convention (or whatever) is ending and everyone is going back to their homes and their lives.

I hadn’t realized how many people, whom I love dearly, I’ve had to give one last, big hug because I won’t be seeing them for years to come, or ever again even.  Maybe I am just realizing this because I haven’t stayed in contact as much as I had hoped; or the other person hasn’t reciprocated the contact I had wished they would. 

Take for example, today.  I finally was able to see a friend who I haven’t seen in over a year.  And this girl is no ordinary “friend”; she is one of my best friends.  I can talk to this girl, quite literally, about everything.  There are no off-limit topics between us.  We don’t have to tip-toe around subjects like religion or politics, even though we don’t always see eye-to-eye.  She accepts me regardless of what I believe and won’t tell me I’m wrong in what I think, or that I’ve been educated in the incorrect manner; nor would I ever think about telling her the like.  We can sit and talk for hours about current events, boy drama, school, conspiracy theories, soccer, and clouds; deep or shallow, we cover it. 

I read this quote somewhere recently that said something along the lines that, ‘A true friend, no matter the time or space that separated them, can start talking as if they were never parted at all.’  And let me tell you, this is what my friend and I share to the n^th degree.  Of course we spewed hopeful wishes that we could be together longer; but tampering with school charter buses isn’t exactly the smartest (or legalist) task to take on in less than 20 minutes.  Regardless of that fun banter about getting to ‘just hang out’ longer, it was as if we saw each other on a daily basis like we use to.  There was no awkward silence because we aren’t for sure if the other is still dating so-and-so, and we didn’t have slightly unpleasant feelings that I’ve sometimes felt when catching up with merely an old acquaintance; I mine as well have been living with her this whole time!

All I dream about is the day I can get out of this hell-hole I call Tucson; but after realizing how shitty it is to lose relationships with some of the people that I have, it makes my decision harder to want to leave.  I have no doubt my relationship with my family will stay relatively close, because I am already super-glued to them anyway.  However, I’m starting to feel the fear of losing certain friends if I decide to leave…  I know leaving is best for me; I’m just not sure if everyone else I care about will see it this way.  And I’ve already painfully learned, time and time again, that I can only hold on so hard before the other person just lets go.

Pictured above (save the last picture): Are girls I have either lost some form of communication with.  These are girls who I wouldn’t feel that awkwardness around, if given the chance to see them again.

You’ll open your eyes

1. I wish you didn’t live an hour away.
2. Gah. I love you guys.
3. I don’t think I can go.
4. You make me laugh… In the good kinda way.
5. If you lie to everyone else, I’d be daft to believe you when you say you don’t lie to me.
6. I’m not letting it hurt when I stop loving you.
7. You’re still my best friend.
8. You told me tonight you were always jealous of me; I’ve always been jealous of you.
9. I value your insight.
10. If you want to improve the situation, then stop saying it will never get better.
11. Don’t expect another chance.
12. I didn’t realize how much I missed you till we were together for the day.
13. It hit me on New Year’s that I hadn’t seen you in a year; I cried.
14. I know you’re out there; even when I tell everyone else you don’t exist.

I still love you.

Have you ever realized you spend WAY too many of your thoughts on a person who doesn’t even realize you still are on this Earth?  I’m sure you just shook your head yes and in the off-chance you didn’t, then screw you.  Not literally of course, but figuratively.  Anyway. Recently I have realized I very much spend way too much time dwelling on my perfect little Disney love-story, with my perfect Mr. Prince Charming.  However, I have lived long enough (contrary to some’s beliefs) to know that’s not how it works.  I know I won’t have the perfect life and all that ride off into the sunset while a rainbow unveils itself over-head happily-ever-after bull; but I do want at least a happy and fulfilled life and an ending scene where I am walking hand-in-hand with my prince, who possibly plays soccer, or has a lovely southern draw; but either way I will walk hand-in-hand with him and I will feel just peachy because I know he loves me and I love him.

But what is wrong with my dream? Love.  I’ve never been in love and honestly, I really only think I’ve known, maybe, 2 people in my age bracket who have actually loved their partner.  So how am I suppose to find this true love?  Or just romantic love in general?  Will I learn it from a book?  Can I learn it from a book is the better question I think…  I mean I’ve read quite my share of romance novels to know that butterfly-gooey- feeling is love; but the one person I feel I actually felt that for, literally took my heart from my chest, slowly hacked at it with a stick he found on the ground until it was in parts and then decided to let his dogs chew at it before he decided to let me have half of it back.  So I guess my real problem is how I look at love. 

Let me be 100% straight with you: I’m not exactly sure I believe in “love.”  *Gasp!* A young woman who doesn’t believe in love?! Yeah well pick up your jaw.  I’m going to be 20 in 66 days and I have never even come close to being kissed.  Never have even come close to the situation where a guy would want to kiss me!  And I don’t necessarily think I’m Victoria’s Secret material, but damn, I’m not bag-over-the-head either.  I’ve had countless guy friends tell me I’d be the perfect girlfriend; I’m chill, play video games, sarcastic, fun, I listen, not a bad behind, but oh no! Heaven forbid me be the girl for any of them.  Now granted, there were only 3 out of all those guys who actually led me on a wild love hunt, but the rest felt I was the sexy sister.  What the hell is a sexy sister?  Isn’t that considered incest?  Gross.  But anyway….

Those 3 previously mentioned guys are as follows.  (names changed for obvious reasons)  Greg.  Tony.  Mike.  So Greg I had known for a looooong time and we were close but he didn’t live where I did and this led to that and he claimed he couldn’t let me like him because it wasn’t good for me, blah blah blah.  But turns out, as a couple of months back, he walks a line that isn’t quite as straight as it was back then… So! Then comes Tony.  I had known Tony for basically all my life and we were best friends during jr high, but then came sophomore year of high school.  So we had been talking as more than friends and I knew he was shy (and even though it went against my old-school nature) I ask him out.  Yeah well big surprise, he says no.  That one hurt.  That one hurt real good.  But his story has more to come later… After Tony came Mike.  Mike I had only known for a couple years and he hurt me bad too; however, over time I have realized he’s changed so much I don’t even know where I was coming from just 3 short years ago.

So Tony.  Gah tony.  If you have yet to figure this out, Tony holds 80% of that first statement up there back at the beginning.  [The other 20% is dedicated to someone who really doesn't deserve it because I (stupidly might I add) got sucked back into him when I realized how long it took him to get over me. All the while he had led me to believe he was over me way before I even tried to get over him]  But anyway; Tony.  So yeah.  I just can’t seem to fully disconnect from him.  Maybe it’s because he has told me, in the past, that he really really regrets not saying yes to me all that time ago.  Yeah well no shit.  I regret you saying no too.  So I, in an attempt to stay true to myself, (entirely different story, too long to add here) I told him that I wasn’t going to give him a hard time about him not maning up anymore.  I wasn’t going to give him a hard time (even though I am very sarcastic in nature) anymore because I didn’t want to do that to him.  Well that is where I messed up.  By trying to prove to myself I didn’t still care for him as more than a friend, I entirely overlooked the fact I was doing it to make it easier on him.  WTF right?  Right.  Yeah well super long story shortened, I have now let him move on by telling him I only think of him as a friend and I think I’ve made the biggest regret thus far in my 20 years.  Ironic huh?  Hah.  So here I am now just daydreaming about the endless possibilities of our “perfect” relationship while he’s off dating this cute girl who I think is perfect for him.  BLAH. BLAH. BLAH.  And the really messed up part is I don’t even think we’d work out in the end.  Like if he wanted to be with me and I said yeah I’ll be with you, I don’t know if we’d make it a long time… I mean in all honesty, I think I just tell myself that to make it easier, but still; I just can’t get what I think we would be out of my head; and that’s half the problem.  Other than the subtle hints he may kinda still have non-friend feelings for me, I am afraid I have put relationships (especially this one) too high on the amazingness meter.  So I’ve kinda worked myself into a suck situation. 

Whatever.  And now, thanks to my 20 years of 100% squeaky clean celibacy (not entirely chosen) I am asking myself all those stupid questions.  Am I not pretty enough?  Am I too bitchy?  Is my sarcasm too much?  Am I not the perfect size?  Is my smile to ugly?  Do I really repulse every guy on planet Earth so damn much that I haven’t even appealed to one my entire life to even want to try and kiss me?!  That last one is the one that dwells in my mind every single time I see a couple together.  Every.  Single.  Time.  It’s quite the downer.  And I’m already a realist, so this makes everything way harder.  And the worst part isn’t even that entirely! It’s all the utterly ridiculousness that my friends (or others) let utter out of their mouths:

• I wish I could go back to never been kissed days.
• Guys just don’t have te courage to talk to a girl who is so independent.
• It’s fun being single. I wish I was.
• And my favorite: It’ll happen for you, just give it time.

Honestly. Screw time.  [I wanted to use a four-letter F word but chose not to btw] I hate that I have never been kissed.  I hate that I have become so afraid of intimacy it is now another wall I’ve put up to keep people out.  I hate the people who tell me single life is better, because if it’s just so damn dandy then they wouldn’t be in a relationship.  I hate that stupid shit that girls will spew to their friends on why a guy doesn’t want to be with them.  It is, in fact, this easy: If he says he doesn’t like you, he doesn’t.  If he doesn’t call (or text) it’s because he doesn’t want to.  It’s not that hard.  But oh no! ‘You’ve never been in a relationship so you wouldn’t know what he’s thinking when he doesn’t call!!’ Yeah well you’ve only had seriously screwed up relationships and I’m pretty damn positive you’re not him so you really have no idea.  I believe that whole little speal in that move, He’s just not that into you.  Like honestly, if a guy does not want to talk to me, suuckks (lol) it’s not the end of the damn world like it seems to be to other people.  If I  can feel that way, so can guys.  I feel that might be some of the problem.  You know, the “alpha male” trys to seduce his female and then the female just walks up and says she likes him; not exactly how the book was written.  But regardless, I’m not going to change even if that is the problem. 

So to sum up my crazy-long random rant, (I really have no doubt in this next statement): I really think I am meant to be single forever.  And you know, as much as it is my worse fear, I am slowly getting use to the idea.  Now tell me who’s the mental patient, eh? Hah.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m too obnoxious, or that guys really think I’m too forward, or that I won’t play any stupid games, but I am starting to not even care.  Yeah I would like to know how it is to be loved, but I guess I’ll have to love my independence and get use to it since that’s what I’m expecting my future to hold. 

[I know that ending was unfinished and rather bleak, but I wanted you to understand the sense that washes over me when I am asked 'If I've found anyone yet?!']

I’ve come to realize…

I didn’t appreciate being able to bend my knee enough.

Majoring in psychology may be scarier than I originally thought.

I really do hate one thing in life: Math.

I wouldn’t mind doing a traveling food show like Anthony Bourdain.

I really miss a few of my friends; the ones I don’t talk to anymore. The ones I’m tired of being hurt by.

He is definitely going to age gorgeously.

My little-big brother is, and will always be, my best friend.

I wish I was really really good at Call of Duty.

I’m glad I wear my seatbelt.

Bad bruises turn nasty colors. REAL nasty colors.

I wish I was a little kid again.

I wish I could restart high school.

I missed out on a lot of memories with a certain best non-family friend by being dumb.

But I’ve come to realize I don’t think any stupid fights will keep us apart again.

I wish I could drive to El Paso in less than 30 minutes.

I think it’d be way bad a** to be a good boxer.

My brother’s dog has to be officially handicapped.

Everything happens for a Reason

Every meeting, every action; whether at the time it is known why what happened, happened. There is a reason for it.

Whether it be meeting some stranger at a camp and becoming close friends.

To be stuck in a place you’ve been your whole life; only to realize your happier then every one else you know who’s leaving.

To be able to walk through the darkness to turn on the light, even though you know somethings standing right under it, waiting.

Spending every night alone and looking and then right when you give up someone finally decides to come looking for you.

Or even being able to deal with Goodbyes better then everyone else.