Positively Scarred

“You aren’t going to find the ‘right’ person now, babe. You’ve still got way too much work to do on yourself. Your options are to date no one, or to keep dating with the purpose of learning, not falling.”

A very wise friend of mine said the above quote to me a few months ago relating to a bad dating experience I had. “Bad” as in it just ended on bad terms and I was launched into an episode of self-loathing that lasted a few weeks. More recently, I haven’t been in the mindset to put myself back out there and date. I’ve found myself having fun being single, doing things by myself, taking times to do things for myself.

I gave myself a mani/pedi last week just because I found my nail polishes and nail files. And it felt nice to just do that for myself. To not have to impress anybody. I didn’t wear makeup for a month because I chose not to and didn’t care. But hearing my friends’ stories about their dates and significant others, made me miss going out to dinner, movies, coffee, or to play pool. So when I got asked on a date, I was excited.

So tonight I will put on makeup, wear cute shoes, don a smile and enjoy an evening out with someone who I find to be an interesting and entertaining person. And I’ll keep in mind that I’m doing this for myself, for the experience, and for the company of a really cool person. And if, in the future, this turns out to be something more… then I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. For now, it’s about the moment, not about the future.

With New Years Eve celebrations upon us, and this being my 100th post, I’ve decided to end the year by talking about forgiveness. The world itself means “the act or process of forgiving, or being forgiven.” But it’s not just a word, it’s a feeling. When you forgive someone who has wronged you, or are forgiven by someone you have wronged, you feel an overwhelming sense of calmness. It radiates in your soul. At least, for me anyway.

If you ask anyone I associate with off of the Internet, they’ll tell you I’m a big fan of forgiveness. Sometimes it takes me a while to actually come out and apologize, or to accept someone’s apology, but I don’t hold grudges… That’s not my style and definitely not who I am.

So if you’ve been keeping up, either here or on Twitter, then you already know about my car accident that happened earlier this year. (Repeating the details is irrelevant to this post, so if you’re curious you can scroll back through the archives.) I was coerced into leaving that night, I didn’t want to. My then-boyfriend had me convinced everything would be alright, but I shouldn’t have ignored the feeling in the pit of my stomach. It seems as though I have trouble actually listening to my body when it tells me something is wrong because I had the same feeling a few months after the accident about my relationship and it turns out those feelings were correct, too. But that is neither here nor there. The point I’m trying to make is that my then-boyfriend is partially to blame, though I was the one who ultimately made the decision to get behind the wheel that night.

I struggled a lot, especially after the break up, to accept the fact that I couldn’t change the circumstances and that I just needed to move forward with my life as normally as I possibly could after all that had happened. I wasn’t willing to forgive him at first, nor was I willing to forgive myself. But then something happened: I woke up on Christmas and I thought about everything, long and hard. I realized that even though the series of events that lead up to this point was, in fact, unfortunate, I am alive. And then I forgave him. And I forgave myself. And that has made all the difference in the world because I finally feel at peace with things I have been dealing with for eight months now.

A subsequent event that happened post-breakup has now gotten me seeking out forgiveness of someone who I have wronged. I’m not ready to talk about all the details and share the truth of what happened, but I’ll say this: The person did not deserve me mistreating him. I was caught at a very awkward, very emotionally confusing time in my life and I took my pain out on him. I was reckless.

An accidental friend request on Facebook lead to him accepting that request and then a text conversation occurred. I hadn’t meant for it to happen this way, but the fact that he was being nice and talking to me like a normal human being instead of someone who broke his heart lead me to ask something I’ve been wanting since I hurt him: I asked for forgiveness. I haven’t received any confirmation at all about if he has, or will ever, forgive me, but I’m content with the sheer fact that I got it off my chest. I beat myself up for over a month and participated in some brutal self-loathing. I’m at peace with how things have turned up, but I’m still waiting on forgiveness that would mean so much to me. Someday maybe I’ll get it… Someday maybe he will understand that the person I was to him isn’t who I really am and that he just caught me at the most unexpected time. He caught me in a bout of recklessness and I shouldn’t have pursued a romantic relationship with him. And for that, I am sorry.

Consequently this caused a rift between myself and new friends I was making. I hope that the new year brings new chances for me to prove I’m a different person than who they met initially, and that they can forgive me for hurting their friend.

Forgiveness is a funny thing… Because you can say “I’m sorry” and although you mean it, the person who you say it to can brush it off nonchalantly, “It’s okay.” But truly forgiving someone doesn’t mean just saying “It’s okay.”  You have to look within yourself and come to terms with the wrongdoings of yourself and others before you ask or accept forgiveness.

Tomorrow begins a new year. I feel like I’m starting over on a clean slate, even though I will be bringing some things from 2011 with me into 2012. I hope that 2012 brings me more hope, kindness, and forgiveness than I could have ever imagined. I hope it brings me more good times with new (and old) friends.

And for you, whoever you are, I hope that the new year brings the same for you, as well. I also hope that maybe you’ll take the time before the clock strikes midnight to forgive someone, or ask for forgiveness. Because, really, what could be better than going into 2012 with your soul being uplifted?

I hope that everyone has a wonderful New Years, and that you celebrate it with people you love and care about. Be safe, because it’s a crazy world out there, you know.

I’ll see you in 2012.

I’ll be the first to admit that most of my friendships begin on the Internet. I do have friends in the ‘real world’ but I hold my internet friendships in high regards. Very rarely do these Internet friendships manifest themselves in person, but when they do, I cherish them because this person knows me on a different level than my ‘real world’ friends. So when Internet meets ‘real world,’ it excites me.

I’ve had the chance to meet people from the Internet in person and although at one point in time it was a scary thing, it’s perfectly natural these days, or so I’d like to believe.

I can’t tell you who I first met from the Internet. It may have been a boy who lived 45 minutes away and happened to be in Merced. He’d randomly found me on MySpace. I was 17 or 18 then. We don’t talk anymore.

Or it could have been any random local who added me on MySpace. Or it could have been one of three people from IRC who I had the chance to meet in person. I’m just simply not sure. But, I digress…

I’ve made long-lasting friendships. Most recently there have been two people from Twitter who I have met in person. I like them. They get me on a different level than most people. One is Snake, who I happened to be able to meet randomly in person last New Years Eve. (New Years Day, really, because it was already after midnight.)  It turns out her brother was friends with people in the same group of people I was, at the time, a part of. It was a very random, serendipitous meeting. I like to think that it was fate. We followed each other and would reply to each other on Twitter but I never thought that this would be someone who would come to mean so much to me. We often tweet or text each other, and sometimes you can find us on Twitter having full conversations in just Internet memes and GIFs.

We’re two peas in a pod, albeit different, damn near opposite peas, but we mesh well together and it’s hard to believe that we’ve only known each other just about a year because it just feels like so much longer. I enjoy her company, be it in person or through text. And her support throughout my life-changing journey and subsequent quarter life crisis has been amazing. I still have yet to thank her for the time she came to my hospital room at some ungodly hour in the morning. She let me sleep, and when I awoke she showered me with goodies and a [melted] green tea frap.

The other Twitter friendship that has manifested itself in real life is that with Saladbits. Snake and I both met her in the ‘real world’ together when the three of us met for a sushi date. Shortly after that, we met again for another sushi date, this time incorporating Snake’s brother who Saladbits developed a very cute fangirl crush on. After that, we didn’t hang out, but numbers were exchanged (or maybe that was before our meetup?) and then Halloween and I hung out with her and her two Gay BFFs. Then a couple weeks ago we had a slumber party that consisted of a lot of rambling, awesome conversation, a lot of beer and cigarettes, and music. This weekend we’re having another slumber party that will consist of movies, Jameson, cigarettes, and a lot more rambling conversations and music. I’ve really grown comfortable around her and we’ve talked about a lot of things: our dating history, music, life in general… We’ve got a good connection and I hope that she feels the same.

Another awesome Internet-to-reality friendship is with Nisha. We met over 7 years ago on IRC. She lived in Finland at the time, and it seemed like I would never get to meet her, but then she moved to the United States and on a vacation she popped into my little town and we finally got to meet. And there were no awkward moments and it was just like we’d known each other in person for years. I love her and appreciate her being in my life. She’s just as adorable and amazing in person as she is on the Internet. We WILL meet again in person and I have no doubt that it will be just as fun, amazing, and lovely as the first time.

I don’t want these Internet-to-reality friendships to take away from the people who I have yet to meet.

I met Mazzy on Tumblr during my first go-around (this is my third Tumblr account I’ve had in roughly 2 years). She has been such an amazing friend to me and I have no doubt that we will meet in person when our schedules and wallets allow it. She has become a staple in my life, a soulmate. Her wisdom, wit, humor, and simply being a gorgeous person, inside and out, draw me to her. We have video chatted (once) and texted and Facebooked and Tumblr’d and AIM’d and I believe we’ve built a friendship that will stand the test of time and technology.

There are also other awesome people out there, but there’s simply not enough words to explain what everyone means to me. I have developed lasting relationships thanks to the Internet and I’m forever grateful for the people that have come into my life because of it.

This blog became more of my personal story than I intended. I intended to write about what happens when these sort of relationships occur and how the transition to real life is sometimes very smooth and worthwhile, and how other times it’s not so much. But instead, I’ll leave it as it is.

If I didn’t mention you, don’t fret. You are all important to me, whoever you are. And if we ever meet in person I will greet you the same way I would greet an old friend: with a hug and a smile. My Internet relationships are very important to me because although I may retain some anonymity, I will share my innermost thoughts with you because regardless of our distance, you’re not just text on a computer screen. You’re a human being and you are real.

(Note: I don’t “hate” any bands, but there are bands I refuse to listen to or rarely ever listen to… this is one of them.)

I was 17 when I had my first real relationship. I remember when we first met: It was a sunny April day and my friend and I decided to hit up the mall, as teenagers do. We entered in from the food court and the first stop we made was in the arcade. In this period of time, the game Dance Dance Revolution was insanely huge. My friend played it, and I’d play a game every once in a while, on easy, to the same songs every time.

Anyway, so we walked in to the arcade and were almost immediately approached by someone my friend knew. We got introduced and hung out a bit, then we went on our way. The guy who worked at the arcade (met him, too) later friend requested me on MySpace (that should tell you how long ago this was), and I accepted. We made plans to hang out, at the mall, that following weekend. He was nice, but I wasn’t attracted to him. I decided to just go anyway. He said he had to get a ride so he was bringing his friend… Cool, no problem.

So I showed up and lo and behold, the friend that the arcade guy brought with him was the same guy I was introduced to by my friend in the arcade. Later, he friend requested me on MySpace as well and we began chatting. We really got to know each other the first couple of weeks and then one day we went to Jamba Juice. We got our drinks and before we sat down he said, “I’ll be right back” and dashed off to the restroom… with his drink. I was baffled but let it go. When he came back, he sat across from me and we just chatted.

He kept motioning to the bottom of his cup, and after several moments I came out of my oblivious state and looked at the bottom of his cup to see he had written, “will you be my girlfriend” with red Sharpie.

It was the cutest way I’d ever been asked out.

The one thing I grew to love about him was his passion for a band that I absolutely couldn’t stand.

Metallica. Ugh.

As I stated in a previous post, I’ve never really been single more than a few months at any given particular time. This means I’ve always been in a serious relationship or casually dating someone every year during the holidays. I’ve always had someone to spend New Years Eve and share a New Years Kiss with… I’ve always had someone to exchange gifts with… I’ve always had someone to curl up next to on the couch and watch holiday themed movies with…

So now that I don’t have that, I’m torn between happy and depressed. Happy because, of course, I need to learn to be by myself and to spend time on my own, without a significant other. Depressed because I’ve always enjoyed the holidays. I enjoy driving around and looking at Christmas lights, curling up by the fire, sipping holiday drinks at Starbucks, snuggling under a mountain of blankets, and just sharing my holiday cheer with another person.

And for a split second, I thought maybe I’d have someone to partake in all my yuletide merriment, but then that turned out to be a false hope.

I don’t find myself feeling holly jolly and I just want to get through this season without wanting to strangle people wearing their Santa hats or reindeer sweaters.

I think the only thing I can do at this point is to try and find my Christmas spirit. I’ll partake in the festivities and I’ll play some reindeer games, but I’m probably going to end up crying into my hot cocoa.

Can we just fast forward? Let’s skip Valentine’s day, too, because if I’m this much of a crybaby at Christmas, then I’m going to be the epitome of Forever Alone at Valentine’s Day.

If you’re following me on Twitter, then you probably have seen my tweets of self-loathing and whining. My short-lived relationship ended. The details are neither here nor there, and all I’ll say is it wasn’t meant to be and was likely to end anyway.

I will say this: I was falling. Hard. It’d been just under three months since we started seeing each other. At first I was shy about my feelings, then started warming up. I fell head over heels, or so the saying goes.

I’m trying to get back into the mentality of being single, of not having someone around, and having new/going back to old routines. In the short time we were dating, I’d only seen him once a week because of distance and his work schedule. I really looked forward to our dates each week and I’m really going to miss that time with him.

But when it’s not right, it’s not right. I’m not angry at all, just sad. I deleted him from my phone contacts and from Facebook because, in all honesty, I can’t deal with seeing his posts and I certainly can’t be tempted to contact him. Maybe one day we’ll be friends again or something. I don’t know.

All I know is that now, I’m going back to my original plan of just being single. Alone. For a while. Until I can recover from rejection and get over things that have happened to me, not just recently but in all of my dating history. So, in the meantime, I will stick close to home. I won’t pursue dating. I’ll surround myself with positive people, with books, with coffee and movies, with whatever I want at that moment.

And I won’t be lonely. I will use this time to learn about myself. To expand my interests. To learn to love myself.

And when I’m ready, I’ll try again. But for now, living simple and being alone is for the best.

It’s been a while since I posted anything of real substance, anything that meant something. Mostly because I’ve been getting stuck: not exactly writer’s block because I know what I can say or should say or want to say, but the words just don’t flow naturally. So here I am, at 1:30AM, carrying something worth writing about.

A little back story: I kind of went a little batshit insane Tuesday and was mad at the world. Not to mention I woke up to several missed calls and texts from various people and it just annoyed the fuck out of me. I posted a big “fuck off, fuck you” status on Facebook, which I later took down. I just needed to be by myself. In this whole process, however, I ended up [most likely] fucking up a good thing I had going.

My actions sent up red flags. I was accused of being bipolar. “Go get checked out,” he told me, “Same thing happened with a girl I dated once. She said the same stuff and sure enough she blew a fuse.” I was more upset at the fact that he was comparing me to someone who is NOT me than the fact that he was accusing me of having a disorder that I do not have. I’ve been to various doctor’s and I’ve only ever been diagnosed with panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and depression. I’m embarrassed by my actions and for how I handled myself. And I told him so.

Hoping for things to be fixed, I apologized profusely. I just wanted to be past all of this. I explained about the anxiety and depression. Apologized more. I told him to not compare me, because comparing makes things more difficult, and by comparing you’re pretty much telling me that YOU can’t get past something. He said he’s afraid of it happening again, me going postal and being angry at the world. I’ll admit, I get mad. I get mad at myself, at situations, at people, but I’m usually way more composed than I was Tuesday.

Trying to sympathize and relate to what he was telling me, I told him that I, too, am afraid. I’m afraid he will begin to exhibit behavior like my ex. But I trust that he won’t. I hope that he won’t. That I’m willing to give it a shot even though it scares me. I told him that if you can’t go thinking something is going to happen continuously because it happened with a previous person. That you have to trust that this could be different. I ended the spiel with, “If your gut is telling you something is wrong here, that this is not right, then go with that feeling. I’ll understand. I’ll be upset, but I will understand.”

“I’ll sleep on it.”

And then the conversation was over.

At first I was freaking out, because what if I really am bipolar and it’s just been overlooked all these years? Should I make a doctor’s appointment? Do I need to talk to my mom about it? This all basically lead to a self-evaluative crisis: I’m worried I’m not good enough for him. I’m intimidated. I’m afraid.

Things were put into perspective when a friend said, “If you never get upset, if you never get exalted, if you never get depressed, if you never feel real emotion? THEN you’re a motherfucker with a problem. Feeling real things isn’t a disorder, failing to feel real things is.”

And they’re completely right. Why should I feel so horrible about FEELING? About having emotion? When I was on medication for my “issues,” I didn’t feel ANYTHING. I was a stone. I was lifeless. I felt but I didn’t FEEL. I laughed but it was hollow. I smiled but it was empty, like a face painted on a porcelain doll. I was numb. I hated it… So I’m not going to feel bad that I had emotion or that I felt something. Or that I feel a variety of emotions in any given situation(s). I’m human. Part of being human is having emotions. Isn’t that was separates us from animals?

I admit, yes, I shouldn’t have reacted how I did. I should have composed myself more… I know this, I understand this, and I’m going to work on this.

If he decides that dating me is not a good idea for him, then I’m perfectly fine with that. I will probably cry and feel upset. But I’m human and it’s alright for me to feel that way.

(Note: I took a long time to get to this day in the 30 Day Challenge because I want these posts to be well thought out and meaningful. I know all the words to a lot of songs so it was hard to choose just one. At any rate, here we go…)

I wish someone would have taught me that love hurts. That it’s an internal pain that only time heals when it’s lost. That it is not sunshine and rainbows and flowers and kisses. It is hard work, and times get tough, especially when you (or your partner) are not mentally or emotionally ready to be in a relationship. I wish someone would have told me that. I wish there was an indicator. Something to say, “This person says they’re ready, but they’re not really.”

I wish someone would have told me that before I invested time, energy, and emotion into someone who failed me. Someone who ended up not being the picturesque person I thought he was. Someone who shattered the lifestyle I wanted. I wish I could say he felt remorse, that he begged at my feet, that he called and text messaged me incessantly asking for forgiveness, but the truth is… it just ended. Abruptly. And we went our separate ways, like the other never existed.

The hardest part of letting him go was knowing I should have left him a lot sooner than I did. I ignored my gut feelings, again, when I should have been listening to them.

I have a more realistic outlook on love now.

Love is not a fairytale. There is no knight in shining armor. There is no white horse.

I understand that you were worried about your precious wood table being ruined when I spilled your cranberry Sierra Mist, but did you really have to yell at me and embarrass me?

I KNOW your cup was sitting there. Logic says a piece of flimsy cardboard should not be able to knock over a full glass if it just touches it. It’s not my fault.

Then you come into my room and get mad because I say I don’t want the last taco. I’m upset and irritated now because you hurt my feelings.

WORDS. FUCKING. HURT.