My brother got married on Saturday. It was the most beautiful, most wonderful wedding I have ever been a part of. The boy who said he understood how the girl worked because of the way I am, married the girl who realized she loved him after he told her he couldn’t just be her friend. And after 5 years together they had the most perfect wedding and the most perfect reception and the most perfect day I could ever have imagined for them.
And my new sister was truly the most beautiful bride.
It doesn’t take much to make me laugh. I laughed when racing Stephanie on the treadmill last night and at her elliptical fear this morning. I laugh at corny jokes and air guitar. I laugh at the sound of other people laughing and at things that even make me angry. I laugh thanks to The Onion daily and sometimes at our governor.
And I laughed a LOT watching this:
The past few days I’ve been working out with one of my good girl friends at a gym she’s considering joining, via our 7 day free trial passes. Our conversations would go like such:
Stephanie: “Pick you up at 5:45 am?”
Me: “Um, no.”
Stephanie: “I will never speak to you again.”
Me: “Whatever. Fine.”
OR
Stephanie: “Don’t you want to join the gym with me!?”
Me: “Do you know how expensive that gym is? I already have a membership. At the cheap gym.”
Stephanie: “BUT ISN’T IT MORE FUN WORKING OUT WITH ME!?”
Me: “We will revisit this issue come October.”
Then this morning I recieved the following email:
Oh great, now I get to spend some quality time with the Department of Consumer Affairs trying to get a refund. (And get to cringe every time I reread the above email and see the word “thru” and the glaringly misplaced commas.)
My dad sent me an email today asking me if I was okay. My response? “No.” He then asked me why and I proceeded to list every little thing that was bothering me. To which he listed responses such as to my “Mom is driving me crazy” a ”get over it” and to my “I’m sick of you being so busy with work” he gave an “always busy.”
One part of my list included that I don’t have shoes. For my brother’s wedding. Which is, oh, a week from Saturday. This fact alone has been causing me some distress and is a small factor in my already planned out visit to South Park Mall in Charlotte for some needed shopping on Sunday.
This afternoon, though, Mom called asking if the shoes had to be sandals. Then she began describing silver peep toes – exactly what I’ve been wanting – that she was looking at and how she’d tried them on and they had our size and she was in line buying them for me. And I totally started to forget about how I ended my phone conversation with her yesterday in tears.
“I believe the most difficult situation you can ever be faced with is deciding whether you should just move on or hold on a little tighter. Move on, and maybe you’ll lose a chance at the best thing that could have ever happened, or hold on, and have the possibility of one day being the biggest disaster ever created.” (via 52 hearts.)
Pacing really doesn’t do it for me. Walking around, waiting for something to happen? For my life to come together and to fall into place? For me to be noticed by the woman at the meat counter or by my mom in a positive way or by a friend that has successfully pushed me away? Yea, pacing doesn’t really help me.
When I’m not rollerblading or thinking about rollerblading or placing unnecessary orders on Amazon for books that I don’t need because I have bookshelves full of books I haven’t read and then freaking out about the fact that I didn’t have to insert a credit card number because there was apparently already one in there and OH MY GOSH I do not know which one it used but that’s okay because it was a lot easier than wandering around Barnes and Noble like I did at lunch and only finding one on the list of books I was looking for, I am pretty sure I’m doing other things. And pacing is not one of them.
Sometimes I’m cursing myself. Sometimes I’m crying hysterically over things I just can’t fix. Sometimes? Sometimes I am turning down perfectly nice date invitations from perfectly nice guys because I just don’t feel it. Feel what, you might ask? It. That something. That thing I’m looking for that’s keeping me busy and preventing me from pacing because I’m just so preoccupied.
Sometimes I’m skimming my toes across the lake water, ass parked on the dock, beer in hand, laughing at the stories filling the night air, and still thinking I’m a little bit lonely. But pacing I am not.
Sometimes I’m still wondering how things happened, even when I realize the why part. Even when I’m sitting in the copy room at work talking to Work Mom and thinking aloud AHA! I GET IT NOW. I thought I did before, but I definitely do now. I know why it hurt. I know why she hates me. I know. Sometimes I cry even more. I may check my inbox over and over, but I do not pace.
But sometimes? Other times? I’m just sitting around thinking, you know what? I live a pretty charmed life. I have a brother that sent me a text message Sunday night, out of the blue, that simply said, “Love you sis. Hope you had a good weekend.”
I have a friend that every day without fail sends me an email. And if I don’t respond? She sends me another. And if I’m upset? She acknowledges it. And if I need her? Like call her freaking out I AM HAVING A LIFE CRISIS AND ONLY BEER WILL HELP need her? She drops everything.
I have a person that every time she has heard a song by The Fray in the past 4 days has sent me a text message telling me. Saying it’s a sign. Saying she misses me and she needs to come see me and soon.
And maybe what I wouldn’t have is a date for this year’s prom, but that’s okay. Because I’m okay. And my friends? They’re all going to be okay too. Because if they start pacing, I just my trip them with my rollerblades.
“I’m never going to beg somebody to love me,” Tabitha Tindale.
“You don’t leave the people you love alone.” grey’s anatomy.
There is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of these loveable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they’re often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really, want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else. (Chuck Klosterman.)
The roommate and I decided last night that we were going to start 2009 over again. You know, because it hasn’t been going exactly the way either of us really wanted it to.
Talk less, listen more. I do find myself listening. A lot. To the roommate. To my mom and my dad. To my brothers. To my friends. I find myself listening and making trips to visit with the people that want me around and tell me so. And I have found that in the first month of the year, I have made a really good effort to spend time with the people that seem to care about me. But I’m still talking. Damn it. I’m still frustrated with things and sharing that frustration in what sometimes comes off as my hopes to get closer to the people I open up to. (Some warped idea I came up with in my college days. Be open and honest and people will love you, I had thought. Bullshit, I now know.) Thursday night around midnight I received a text message from a [gossip mongrel] friend I’d seen earlier in the evening. I was asleep at the time. “So what’s going on in your love life, Special K?” he asked. I woke up the next morning to it and all I could think was, “Whatever it is it’s none of your bidness dude.” And so I didn’t respond. And I wished I’d never answered that question from anyone in the past month at all. None of your beeswax, people. And I don’t care if that response is r-u-d-e.
Run, run, run. Um. Let it be known that every time I do get in a running groove I inflict injury on myself. This is an ongoing thing since high school. And it is really freaking awesome, let me tell you. I then have to wait a week and see if it heals, and then sometimes I have to wait another week, and then I have to start all over again. And then, you know, there are weeks like last week when I NEVER EVEN LEFT THE OFFICE. “Kristin, have you been running?” Dad asked me yesterday. “WHEN!?” was my response.
Be a happier person. Yea, dude, I am not a happy person. And that, in itself, makes me sad. Which is kind of ironic, methinks. At lunch on Saturday one of my best friends from college looked at me across the table as we caught up on the past 6 months since we’d last seen one another and she said to me, “You don’t look happy, Kristin.” Yea, sad. Because I feel like I’m doing everything I can and I don’t know what else to do. I’m on the go, I’m keeping busy, I’m learning the ropes of work and responsibility and maintaining friendships to the best of my ability and yet I can’t find happiness. I WANT TO KNOW WHY, damn it. I am honestly asking all of you. Why?
Save more money. Shut your trap with the emails, J.Crew. I am only human. I am no Bella Swan with self control.
Read 100 books. To the best of my calculations, in order to catch up I will need to read approximately 11.5 books in the month of February alone. One book every 2 days? Psshit.
So I’m starting 2009 over again. Bear with me.
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I don’t like games.
Well, maybe I like them, but I’m not good at them. All of them. And I do like winning so this is a disappointing concept.
Like Cranium. I am, surprisingly good at that.
But Scrabble? Even with my affection for words? I always end up crutching on Mom.
The Last Word? Good at that. Like, make my brother mad good.
But basketball, um, had us looking good in our pink uniforms and that was pretty much it. We called ourselves the Killer Princesses (of church league bball) and killer we were as I distinctly remember getting confused on the court and heading for the wrong basket once.
Wii Bowling, you ask? I’m boys-punching-couches good. (And I’ve only played 3 times.)
And then there’s the dating game. Yea, that. Nah, not so good. Because sometimes, when I think about someone, it’s hard to resist wanting to talk to them or to see them. And I guess I, well, should be “playing the game.” But you know what? If they’re not calling even just to say “Hey, I miss you,” obvy they’re not fighting the same battle of resistance. Are they, then, playing said game? And when a person has decided I think I want to be with you when does the being start? Is it not instant? If it’s right, is it not immediate? Immediate and urgent in an I want to be with you and I want to be with you starting the moment I realize it. Can you want to be with someone and just not be ready? Will you ever be ready? (Because if it’s the right person, isn’t it supposed to be right right then?) Is that a line? Or – ooh! – part of the dating game I so don’t get? Or is that just, honestly, their way of saying au revoir?
