Blue Moon

This morning I woke up early and had a craving for breakfast from my favorite diner in Jupiter.


I have been ordering the same thing for breakfast since I was six (grits, eggs, bacon, and a biscuit). So, when I woke up this morning I couldn't get that delicious image out of my head. I made the decision and peeled myself out of bed, puts some pants on and threw my hair into a bun. I was out the door in ten minutes and in joyful anticipation of my favorite meal.

Sitting in the diner, in a booth all to myself (Yes people - I'm obviously still single), I didn't feel uncomfortable or alone at all. I had brought my favorite book with me and my notebook in case I got a whim to write. I had already placed my order and went about my business. I finally picked my head up out of my book (and by book I mean iPhone - I had every intention of reading OK) and looked around, I realized that my diner was filled with quite a few men eating alone and couple women having breakfast with a partner.

I was the only women sitting by myself, and based on the looks that my fellow breakfast connoisseurs were shooting me, everyone but me was painfully aware of it.

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So, why is it socially acceptable for men of all ages to eat breakfast alone, but a single twenty-something woman cannot. Certainly not without feeling like the passive observers surrounding her are forming their own assumptions and judgements for her being alone. Did she get stood up? Are her eggs no longer viable (sarcasm - everyone chill)? Is she a bitch, and that's why no one wants to have breakfast?

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I believe that a large piece to that puzzle is that women (as a generalization) are considerably more relational than men (also as a generalization). So, it's perfectly reasonable to intuit that a man sitting alone for a meal is perfectly content, if not, particularly pleased not to be required to hold a conversation for the time being.

On the other end of the spectrum, women live for conversation and relationship. For many women, the idea of sitting down and eating a meal alone is an unbearably lonely concept, for some, even a complete failure on their part.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to imply that I'm completely above all female related predispositions, but I do have a tendency to prefer my own bubble sometimes. I have often escaped friends, past boyfriends, and certainly my family in exchange for my own thoughts and conversations with myself.

So, breakfast alone is, on occasion, a relief for me. It's free from social requirements, conversations that I will undoubtedly have a list of 10+ things I said out of turn, and for a short window of time I don't have to put on whatever cleaned up version of myself that the other person prefers.

I'm not sure if that makes me more masculine or feminine. Either way, I have to admit that I certainly enjoyed being a little subversive this morning. Abiding by social norms is just a little too normal for me.

The Rain in Spain Stay Mainly in the Plain

My great love lives in Spain

For the first month that we spoke I had him listed as "Marine" in my phone so that I could tell the difference between his texts and the texts from two of my exes (they all have the same name - apparently I have thing). 

I, as you can probably guess, met this poor guy on Tinder. He lives near me, but he's in the Marine Corps so he actually lived in North Carolina and was only home for 4th of July. At the time I was mixed up with an older guy that I had an all encompassing crush on. In fact, that same guy left me lonely and sad on the 4th...enter Marine from Tinder. 

He was cute, but he looked like a kid to me. I thought I was so evolved because all of a sudden, older guys were starting to pay attention to me (Tinder will do that to you). In reality, he was twenty-one, which was a year older than me. He flirted with me and I flirted back. He wanted me to let him come over, and now I really wish I had. I spent that night making dinner for just myself, and watching fireworks in my back yard all alone because I wanted the other guy to like me ( I can tell you now, that did not work out). 

We have been talking non-stop for three months. We were just supposed to be friends. I thought he was a kid and it was nice having someone to talk to between my conquests, but somewhere in there I completely fell in love with him. I don't even know how it could have happened because we've been bro's this whole time, and I didn't think it was possible for me to develop feelings for him. But somewhere between his asshole moments of telling me the gross things guys think about girls, and his ex girlfriend problems, and his drunk texts, I fell in love with that idiot. And I'm not even sure he feels the same way or ever will. He hasn't expressed any kind of real feelings toward me, and I don't want to be that girl who continues to pursue a guy even though he makes it quite clear that he "doesn't want a relationship". 

But every single day that we've spoken I have been completely and totally me, and he still texts me the next day. He has made me smile more than anyone ever has, and he's never intimidated by my personality. 

I have thoughts about him coming home from Spain and me meeting him in the airport and running up and hugging him. I have full on made a rom-com scene in my head, and that can only mean one thing: it will never work out the way that I want it to. 

My great love lives in Spain, but... 

I don't think he will ever love me.. 

Goodnight my marine

Demon Blood

I'm so god damn normal when I'm not hormonal!



I think there are plenty of women out there who can totally go there with me. My PMS last ten fucking days and I feel like my entire world is falling apart. I gain weight, I cry, I laugh, I become gratuitously hungry and gratuitously tired, at one point I hate my life and want to die and the next minute I'm horny as shit.


Hormones are a roller-coaster from Hell that you don't ask to get on, and don't get a choice to get off until you wake up one morning with blood dripping down your leg. And I know, I know no one wants to hear that. But guess what, that's truth and that's life right there.  And it's socially unacceptable to talk about because everyone thinks it's so gross. But why is that particularly more gross than any other kind of bodily fluid? We go to blood drives and have people stick needles in us so that we can take the exact same blood out of us that comes out of my hoo-ha every month.

So, guess who's going on birth control so that she can attempt a normal life again? THIS GIRL.


The idea of not becoming clinically depressed for ten days every month sounds like a life changing event. At one point, my mother even considered the idea that I might be slightly manic.. That's how bad it's been people! No wonder I'm single!!

Would you want to put up with a manic depressive girl no matter how badly you want to motor boat her double d's? I think not. It's more trouble than it's actually worth.

So here's to the potential of joining the league of normal human beings again.

Cheers!

White Blank Page

It's been a long ass time since I've been able to write lately. I don't have any song lyrics to go with today's post. Sorry to disappoint. My life has flip flopped all around for awhile. I've learned a lot in a short period of time, and have even more scars to add to the barrel of bullshit.


Being single is a strange feeling for me. I really haven't gone more than a couple months being single since I was fifteen years old. Which, most people would say that five years isn't that long to go without being single, but these last five years have felt like ten years in my space and time. Love found and lost, abuse, wondering what would happen if I just drove my car into the light pole that night and almost doing it, discovering alcohol and trying to keep from using it to cover up my pain.

Probably one of the best memories (sarcasm) so far, is driving to a CVS in the ghetto to buy a pregnancy test by myself, and having the male cashier stare at me like I am way too young to be buying it. Believe me dude, I fucking know, so you can stop staring at me now. I walked to the back of the store and into the women's bathroom. It was dark and damp and the lights in the bathroom were flickering. This was the epitome of a proud moment for me (*even more sarcasm*). I peed on the stick and waited the most excruciatingly painful three minutes of my life.

All alone.

That has seemed to be the theme for quite awhile, but I learned so much through all of this. I woke up this morning and realized that in five months of being single, I really am okay. My life is continuing on, and it's time I be present for it. No more lying about who I am so I can find companionship, no more apologizing for being a hard ass, and no more caring about people who don't love me back. It's time to focus on the continuance of my life.

My step sister just moved close to me. I haven't seen her in ten years... I think it's time I find some closure with my biological father, my hateful stepmother, and reconnect with the sister that always protected me.

I have to figure out how to deal with my life again. 

That's all I have for right now, I guess.

Goodnight Moon...

Cause I’ve been trying way too long
To try and be the perfect song
When our hearts are heavy burdens
We shouldn’t have to bear alone

So goodnight moon and goodnight you
When you’re all that I think about
All that I dream about
How’d I ever breathe without
A goodnight kiss from goodnight you

Goodnight Moon - Go Radio

 

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Hey Hun,


It's one in the morning and I'm laying here thinking about you. I'm praying that you're doing okay. Like, actually okay, not the fake okay that you're so fond of feigning. I miss you and I hope you're not spending too much time talking to your fish or getting lost in your prison of guilt.

Me?

Tonight kinda sucks. Sometimes (and by sometimes I mean: often) I feel so completely alone. I don't have anyone who understands me; the real me. And certainly no one who actually cares how I'm doing. No one to text me in the middle of the night just to check on me. It's always kinda felt like me against the world, and maybe that's a very "poor me" attitude, but I can't remember the last time I felt like anyone really cared what I had to say. Everyone is always waiting for you to ask about them, or find a way to squeeze in their own agendas. Seems like everyone has an agenda, doesn't it?

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Tonight I watched my baby sister on the couch with her boyfriend. She got her wisdom teeth removed today, and she looks so pathetic.

He came over just to bring her ice cream and sit on the couch while she fell asleep next to him for hours. I miss those days so much it hurts. I couldn't even sit and watch the movie with them because it hurt so badly.

Sixteen is such a great age for love. The world hasn't gotten a chance to fuck with you yet. Boys haven't learned to treat you like shit, and girls haven't had to learn the harsh reality that you can't trust anyone; especially not boys.

I wish I could go back.

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I'm just laying here in bed feeling trapped and tired and I feel like my ribcage could collapse at any moment. I'm so sick of laying here paralyzed and sobbing by myself, and I have absolutely no one to call. No one.

I can't even text you, when you're the only person I want right now. Because you have your own crap and I couldn't possibly ask for anything from you. I'm supposed to be there for you, not the other way around.

 But that just means I'm alone again tonight. Again.

That's okay though. There are ways to fix that..

Goodnight.

The Peppermint Milkshake

Have faith in me
Cause there are things that I've seen I don't believe
So cling to what you know and never let go
You should know things aren't always what they seem

I said I'd never let you go, and I never did
I said I'd never let you fall and I always meant it
If you didn't have this chance then I never did
You'll always find me right there, again

Have Faith in Me - ADTR

I don't know what it is about you that makes this so hard to write. Every time I start this (and there have been many) there is a fort that builds itself around my mind and I can't seem to figure my way out of it. 

I actually think the wall comes from the fact that this is one of the most gut-wrenchingly painful things I have ever had to write about. On a number of levels it's like pulling teeth for me to be vulnerable to you, because you're not the only one who's natural instinct is to protect themselves. There is an ache in my chest my and my intestines threaten to grow legs and crawl their way out through my esophagus every time I begin to tell you how much I love you. 

This was always going to be painful for me, but maybe it's best I say it anyway.  

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I was barely seventeen years-old when I met you. At first I didn't think very much of you. I had a boyfriend whom I loved deeply and you were just another supervisor I worked with. 

It was the age of big bows and new glasses, and you called me "Ms. Reynolds". It was the first "real" job I had ever had, and I was so excited to go to work everyday, because for the first time in my life I had a big group of friends to laugh with and talk to. I can see myself in a mirror; so bright eyed and naive. There were so many things I didn't know, and yet I wanted to believe I did. 

There was a day. It wasn't particularly special and you didn't do anything in particular, but I was standing there at the register and the store was slow for the time being. I looked over at you and you met my eyes and smiled and a knot immediately grew in my throat. To this day, I've never really understood why, or what about that moment changed anything for me, but it did (and most of the time I really wish it hadn't). 

I thought you were beautiful. And I know that guys think that is such a "gay" way of being described but I wish I gave a shit. I saw this kid who wanted so badly to be grown up and young at the same time, he was too smart for his own good, and he had already seen so much pain in his life that if you paid attention, you could see it written on his face and in his hands and through his body language. You looked like you had been carrying around a ton of bricks on your back and gravity was starting to catch up with you. 

In a lot of ways, you reminded me so keenly of myself. The pain I felt from the circumstances of my life could be so unbearable sometimes that I would leave the ones I loved and spend the entire night staring at the four walls of my room and cry so hard that it felt like my tears might have actually turned to blood. We both put on a persona; yours was the tough guy playboy who wanted everyone to believe he had his whole life under control, and mine was the little girl cheerleader that suppressed any bad thoughts to the back of my mind so that I could pretend like they didn't exist. I wanted to help you because I couldn't help myself. 

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She walked in and time in the store seemed to slow. As if everything that happened from that moment on played in slow motion right in front of my eyes. I could feel the pain emanating off of you once you went to sit down and you brought her your peppermint milkshake. I knew she didn't deserve it, and whatever was about to happen was going destroy you. It was so completely unfair and I wanted to crawl out of skin to keep it from happening. But I didn't know you that well and it wasn't my place to do anything. So I just sat there praying for you, and you left work. 

I want you to know that I remember that, not because I had a crush on you, but because regardless of what you believe about yourself... you didn't fucking deserve it. 

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You asked me why I love you and what you did to deserve it. Don't you fucking get it? Sometime you don't have to do anything for someone to love you. You don't have to earn it, you don't have to live up to some kind of expectation, you don't have pretend to be something you're not. I adopted you as family a long time ago, and there's nothing you can do about it. 

So go ahead and push me away or don't. Pretend like all I want from you is sex or don't. Feel guilt over not deserving it or don't. It doesn't really matter because I can see the moments of the little boy laying in bed next to me, who's scared of everything and scared of me, and scared of himself. But Hun, I'm not scared at all, and I will always be your friend and I will always be right here whether you want me to be or not. 

The same way I have always been. The same way you can't hide from me. 

The Boston Red Sox

Baby blue staring in the window pane
Just counting drops of rain
Wondering if she's got the guts to take it
Running down her dreams in a dirty dress,
Now her heart's a mess

Praying she'll find a way to make it

So keep on climbing, though the ground might shake
Just keep on reaching though the limb might break
We've come this far, don't you be scared now
'Cause you can learn to fly on the way down

Fly - Maddie and Tae

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 Tonight I was laying there on the car ride home from getting ice cream with my family. 

I was thinking about my life right now, and what it feels like to me. So often I have felt my success ultimately defined by my relationship status. Not to say that I wasn't extremely ambitious outside of my relationship, but I certainly did not feel like my life was complete and happy unless I had a boyfriend. 

I'm single right now, and for the first time in my life I'm actually content to just be me. Nights can be lonely (and sometimes emotional), and there are certainly mornings where I wish I was waking up to a "good morning" text from someone who loves me, but ultimately I have so much more going on in my life that having a boy around seems insignificant by comparison.

 I have so many expectations and goals for my life, and I'm not willing to settle on them; not for anyone. Not for the firefighter, the business man, the artist, or the golfer. I want the freedom to be whoever I want, say whatever I want, and do whatever the fuck I want. 

My life is going to mean something. I know I'm meant to be someone, and right now I just want to figure out who that is or is supposed to be. And maybe that's not a devastating realization to a lot of people, but it was for me. It was a first, and I am stronger for it. 

So whatever life throws at me, I'm ready but not desperate for it. 

I'm a fighter. 

  

Photograph

We keep this love in this photograph
We made these memories for ourselves
Where our eyes are never closing
Our hearts were never broken
Times forever frozen still

 Photograph - Ed Sheeran

It's midnight and I'm back in your hometown.


It's not very far from my house, but it feels like a totally different world. I'm driving down these streets with the windows rolled down, listening to the kind of music you use to hate. I can smell the ocean that's been carried by the warm breeze tonight, almost as if this quiet town is trying to force your memory into my mind. What it doesn't know, is that I came here so I could remember you. It doesn't need to push your memory into my brain. I'm welcoming it in, because I want to miss you tonight.

 Tonight I want to remember what it was like the first night you ever came to my house. You came by to play video games with my brother, but we both knew that you only agreed to it because you wanted to see me. It was the first time I ever sat around to watch boys play video games, and the only reason I did it was so I could stare at you the whole time. As I watched you pull out of the drive that night, I somehow knew that you were going to become a part of me. A very big part.


Tonight I want to remember that day on the beach when you finally asked me to be your girlfriend. It was sunset and we were supposed to be at a church picnic, but we snuck off by ourselves like we often did (and like we did many times after). You brought me out in the water and picked me up and I wrapped my legs around you. I remember we were laughing and kissing; wet salty kisses with your big soft lips that use to envelop mine. We talked and talked and talked; I couldn't tell you what about anymore. I don't even think it really matters. All that mattered was your skin against mine and the way you were looking at me. You finally leaned in close and whispered "Will you be my girlfriend?". That is still one of my fondest memories. I couldn't say yes enough.

Tonight I want to remember what it felt like to be effortlessly in love. Back when life was simple, and the most complicated factor in our relationship was trying to figure out what your high school schedule was, so I knew when I would be getting a text from you during the day. I remember the days and the nights where I never questioned how much you liked me or how much you loved me. Like that was just a given because I trusted you so much, and you still hadn't given me a reason to not.

I need to remember you tonight because if I don't, I might not ever remember what it was like and I might not ever find it again.

So I'll drive by your house, just so I can feel your arms wrapped around me, laying on the floor of your living room watching Netflix and fooling around. I'll walk down this street so I can smell your cologne and hear you tell me about your dreams. I'll sit in my car and cry just so I can feel something again.

Because tonight I want to miss you.

You Need Me, I Don't Need You

Do you ever watch yourself being awful to someone, and consciously make the decision to do it anyway? It's almost an "out of body" experience.. Like, you can watch yourself in slow-motion and you still make the choice to act that way regardless. 



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I'm not quite sure when I learned to manipulate other people. Honestly, (at risk of sounding melodramatic), I think it started when I took on the responsibility of mediating between my two sets of estranged parents. I learned to tell my step-mom whatever it took to satisfy her desire to make me hate my mother, and I told my mom whatever she needed to hear in order for her to be able to sleep at night. Even as a seven year-old, I knew that in order to keep peace between my households everyone needed to hear something.

I became adept at being able to determine what everyone wanted to hear, and then I served it to them in a way that it made it sound like it was my own original thought. It worked really well, and it definitely kept tensions between my sets of parents to a minimum (the minimum was still pretty concentrated).

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Last night I was out with a guy. I like him well enough and he's decently cute, but he's not all that motivated and he doesn't really challenge me intellectually. He reminds me a lot of Eric Matthews from Boy Meets World: adorable but about as deep as a hot tub. That combination of characteristics doesn't exactly mix to concoct the kind of guy I keep around for very long.

It was about nine o'clock at night and were down on the beach. It had just been pouring rain a couple hours before, so the whole world looked new and refreshed. Like all the ugly had been washed away with the hot Florida rain.

We were sitting there on the bench kissing and he was making me laugh because he is such a goofball. He looked down at me (because he's 6"1 and I'm 5"2) and asked if he was the only guy I was involved with. Before I could even respond he included that he really liked me and I was the only girl he was or wanted to be involved with. 

I made the choice to tell him what he wanted to hear. What he wanted to hear was that I was head over heels for him and that there was no one else I could picture myself with. The truth was and is, that I am involved in one way or another with three other guys, not including him.

I watched myself lie to him as if it were a movie playing right on a movie screen right in front of me. As the words were falling out of my mouth, I started questioning who I was all of a sudden that I could lie in order to keep using someone for what they are worth to me right that moment. For all the years that has been done to me, I swore I wouldn't do that to someone else if I could help it..and yet, here I am doing it to this kid (who's not technically a kid, because he's 4 years older than me).

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When did I become capable of doing that to someone? Am I the only one who thinks that's awful? Why do I give a shit about anyone feelings but my own?

I don't want to live my life always doing the most considerate thing for people who don't mean anything to me. But maybe I should.. I don't know.

There never seems to be a right answer to anything anymore.

What Happened to Bullet Proof Weeks in the Fall

So I'll watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep
And I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe
And I keep up with our old friends just to ask them how you are
Hope it's nice where you are

Last Kiss - Taylor Swift

I will never stop being proud of you.


Every time I see your face, and all the new things you're doing, I smile Matthew. You make me proud every day, and we've hardly spoken in over a year. There were and are so many things I have wanted to say to you. Things you don't want to hear, and things I don't have the right to say, but I still wish you could hear them.

I love you with all my heart and soul, and I will never stop loving you. And it makes me so sad that you can't understand that. To you, I gave up on you a long ass time ago.


I know the exact moment that I crushed you. I can still feel it. It aches like a tumor in the back of my skull. That night in the house that didn't belong to either of us. We had drank together for the first time. Something we had said we would never do, but we had both become very different people during the course of our breakup.

We had some beers and took a shower together. You led me back to the bed and we made love. In the truest sense of the phrase. I needed you and I wanted you and I wanted to feel like everything was going to be okay. If we could just be us for that night, I might be able to go on being okay. Feeling your body and your warmth against me, felt like coming home. Your presence filled the gaping oozing wound that was protruding out of my heart. You were the love of my life and the fact that your life went on without me was starting to kill me. I was such a selfish little girl. Matthew, I wish you could know that I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't realize that I was breaking the both of us.

I woke up the next morning and you were laying next to me. All I could think was how beautiful your face was. I mean, really, you were beautiful to me. You were always the boy that I laid on the floor of my garage talking to all night. The first boy I said "I love you" to. You were my everything. Instead of saying those things to you, I told you that I didn't want to get back together with you. Because I focused on the anxiety I felt over explaining to our friends and family that I took you back. I was always trying to be an adult, even when I didn't want to.

But you never had to take any of the responsibility, Matthew. You didn't get it. I got to be the grown-up and think about all the repercussions of our actions, and you got to be the fun, spunky videographer who believed the whole world was all cupcakes, unicorns, and rainbows. Life didn't work that way and I hate you for the fact that I had to take all the responsibility and that you got to hate me for it. Breana, the big bad bitch who had to constantly splash you with an ice cold slap of reality. And then I got blamed for the fact that life isn't fair. Newsflash! It isn't and it's not my fault that I was preparing for the future and you weren't.

It's hilarious how much you got to blame me for. But were you the one in the CVS in the middle of the night, buying a pregnancy test and sitting in the bathroom next to me while I had to anticipate the most horrible 10 seconds of my life? Or how about having to endure the judgmental looks from the store clerk. You didn't even offer to meet me there. You just wanted to talk about my "options" or how it wouldn't have been so bad to have a family at barely nineteen.

Everything was such a mess last year. I still haven't totally recovered from it. I had a picture for how my life should be, and our relationship killed it Matthew, and I'm not exactly sure where it went wrong when I really think about it. All I can come up with are the words to The Fade. "It's a slow fade, when you give yourself away, it's a slow fade when black and white is turned to gray..". Somehow we had a slow fade from a wonderful relationship, to one of the most toxic I could imagine.

So, when I say that I am so proud of you, and truly so happy that you found someone new, I mean it with every cell in my body. You will always be so special to me. You will always be my Matthew in the back of mind. We grew up together, and I discovered so much of who I am with you, and I will always be grateful for that, and for you, and for the pain and the joy.

I love you.

It Won't Be Like This For Long

It won't be like this for long
One day soon that little girl is gonna be all grown up and gone
And this phase is gonna fly by, so he's trying to hold on
'Cause it won't be like this for long
It won't be like this for long

  

It Won't By Like This For Long - Darius Rucker

I took my sixteen year-old sister out to a country bar for line dancing the other night. My sister and I are best friends, and I would do anything and go anywhere for her. So, when she looked at me at the end of a very long Saturday, and asked me to take her dancing...I went straight to the bathroom and started to get ready. I wasn't terribly excited, but she's such a good kid, and if going dancing for a couple of hours with her older sister is really how she wanted to spend her Saturday night, I will take advantage of it every time. We only have so long to be best friends before she'll grow up and go off to school, get married and life will never be the same as it is right in this moment.

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I spent my early years with her, not being the best sister. At sixteen (she was twelve at the time), I got my first boyfriend. My life and my world revolved around him entirely for almost four years. I totally missed out on some of the most important years of Bailey's life because I couldn't see the forest fore' the trees. I thought she was a nuisance that  God had bestowed upon me to give me a lesson in patience and fortitude.

Being the youngest child at a really trying time in our family's history, means that Bailey got the short end of the stick when it came to attention. During her late elementary to middle school years, our oldest brother was trying to jump off the deep at end at every corner and my parent's soul purpose in life was to keep him from drowning. And while that was going on, I wanted to be anywhere but home. So, I spent all my time and energy with my boyfriend. I don't know what Bailey was thinking or feeling or what those years were really like for her. We shared a room, and there wasn't a night that I turned over and asked her how she was doing. When I think about that now, I am astounded with myself.

As I got older and finally took my head out of my ass, I realized I had been totally missing out on a kid that had always been there for me and the one kid who I acted like it was a chore to be around. One day I turned around and she was the beautiful, strong, intelligent and independent little girl who was begging for someone to pay attention to her. From that point on I was set on getting to know my little sister. Part of it was that I was finally single and I needed someone and part of it was that I had realized that I was missing out on her life. Whatever the reason, I'm so glad it happened.

Bailey makes me stronger every day; she is such a tough kid. She has a strength and defiance in her that I wish I could muster up for myself. I always considered myself tough until I got know Bailey; she is a bulldozer and I am mesmerized by her all the time.


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We got to the bar around 8 o'clock and the parking lot was full to the brim with jacked up pick-up trucks and I was giggling at myself. This place was not usually my scene and I was still trying to figure out why I had agreed to, but Bailey was excited and ready to go. We walked through the door, got our underage wristbands and went inside. There were only a few people on the floor, doing dances that Bailey wasn't very familiar with, so we took a seat at the bar and ordered diet cokes (because we're children, and that's all we could order) and watched the dancing. It was mostly some older couples who, you could tell, had been doing this for years. They could practically do these dances in their sleep.

I was completely enamored with the whole scene. It was like something straight out of Hope Floats. Bailey and I just there for a long time watching, commenting, and sometimes laughing at the other spectacles going on around us. Finally, a song came on that Bailey recognized and she dragged me out onto the floor. Bailey knew all of the steps and I was fumbling my way through mimicking her foot work. It was hilarious and I was cracking up the whole night. I'm not half as smooth as I once was, and Bailey looked like she belonged there.

She has a funny way of being able to adapt to any situation she's thrown into. I've yet to find one area where she can't completely take over and fit right in. I believe strongly that God put Bailey in my life as a way of stretching me and pushing me to grow. I will never be as mystifying as Bailey, but she certainly makes me different just with her presence. I'm so blessed to have her as a sister.

Don't ever take your family for granted. There is more to be learned there, than you could ever expect or understand. Let go of your pride - there is a reason that God placed each person in your life. I know that now, better than anyone. 

Lets Talk About Sex Baby

I was barely fourteen when I had my first kiss.

His name was Kyle, he was seventeen and I was pretty sure I was in love with him. We had grown up in small town Georgia and I was his little sister's best friend. I had always looked at Kyle like he hung the moon. In my mind, he was the perfect boy to be with. I loved his family, he believed in Jesus, and we were destined to be together because we had been friends for such a long time. In my mind, my life was going to be like Sweet Home Alabama. I was going to marry Jake.

So, at fourteen years-old, I was determined to get Kyle to kiss me. In my mind, we would sit on the roof of his house, look up at the stars and talk about how much we liked each other. Then, toward the end of the night, he would lean in and gently kiss me on the lips. That's exactly how it happened in my mind, and that's exactly how I thought Kyle would want it to happen too. It would be the perfect first kiss.

In reality, Kyle lead me the upstairs bathroom of his house. It smelled like adolescent boy BO, sulfur water, and urine. Without any romantic build up, he leaned in and kissed me and almost immediately stuck his tongue down my throat. He started to feel me up and then he pulled me to the floor of his unkempt bathroom, sat he on his lap and started to grope and dry hump me. That turned very quickly into him finding a way to get his hand down my shorts. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't really want it and I wasn't even aware of what fingering was until that night (I had to go home and Google it). He never asked me what I was okay with, what I wanted or how I was doing with what was going on. This was the first time I let a boy take advantage of me, and it wouldn't be the last.

The very next boy that kissed me was on my fifteenth birthday. He kissed me on the side of my grandma's house. He put his hand under my bathing suit and forced my hand onto his erect penis even though I said no and forcefully removed my hand. He just forcefully replaced my hand there. It was one of the sloppiest kisses I have ever received. I'm pretty sure his tongue was not only in my mouth but also all over it and around it. It was repulsive. But I let it all happen, and I only had a bigger crush on him after it.

Fast forward about four years and here I am on a date with an older guy. He has a job and a car and I feel so special that he likes me. He says all the right things, and tells me how intentional he wants to be about building a relationship with me. I thought that finally I could have my fairytale.

Well, his version of a fairytale was sitting in the back of his care on our second date, pressuring me into giving him a blowjob. I just wanted him to like me for me. For once in my life, I wanted a guy to be interested in my heart and my mind, and not what I could do for him. But I did anything he wanted me to that night, because I wanted the picture of the fairytale so badly. I still cringe when I think about how awkward it was and how continued to ask me to do things that I didn't want to do, and the things he did to me that I wish I never had to remember.

I wish these were the only memories I had like this, but they're not.

I don't want to give the impression that I was helpless in any of these circumstances. I was a big girl and I made my own decisions and trade-offs. But all throughout these experiences, the main thing I learned, was that beating guys to the topic was the way to never have to feel forced into anything ever again.

So I'll send nudes, I'll incite physicality, and I'll do anything I have to do in order to never feel like a man has that kind of power over me ever again. No one will ever make me feel helpless and empty and sad ever again, because I won't let them. They don't get to be special, and it doesn't get to be their idea anymore. 

Cleaning Out My Closet

I'm sorry baby girl..

I am so sorry that your life isn't exactly the picture of fair. I am so sorry that you don't get the opportunity to love your mom and dad equally. Because in broken homes...there is always a good guy and a bad guy. I know how unfair it is, to have to go back and forth from one home to another. And dad is always mad at mom, and mom is always mad at dad.

I know how hard it is when your stomach starts turning to knots because you're so scared that mom is broken, and that it's your fault. It sucks that you're always looking out for your parents feelings and trying to protect them from each other. It's funny how being the kid of a broken family makes you acutely aware of everyone's feelings and you spend more time trying to take care of them, than yourself. Parent's always think they're the one's trying to protect you, when in reality you work just as hard at taking care of them. It sure makes you grow up faster than you wish you had.

Everyday makes you who you are. You will be tough, you will be vulnerable, and you will yearn for a life your parents couldn't give you. That's probably why you want to be married and have a family so badly. You want what wasn't given to you to begin with. And that's okay.

Already Callin' You Mine

Dear L,


I almost told you I loved you, and I think you could tell I was getting really close. I don't know why in the hell you decided to leave without any explanation after some of the wonderful things you said to me...and the way we looked at each other. I just don't get it, and I've never had anyone walk out on me in this way before.

I guess it really doesn't matter why. It was probably for the best. If I was honest with myself, I couldn't be with you. You were too old, and we didn't believe enough of the same things about life, but our chemistry was undeniable. I would have given up the world for that chemistry...and I was about to. Thank God I didn't get the opportunity.

My only hope is that one day you'll man up enough to give me an explanation. I've already let you go, but I just want to know why. What happened L? We were so good. We had so much fun together. I just want to understand, so that I can figure it in my mind.

Either way, as much as you hurt me with ignoring my texts and phone calls, I don't even really care. What I got to experience with you, will always be worth it. How we were together reminded me that fairy tales really do happen, and that my romantic expectations have been gruesomely low. Thank you so much for the laughs and the cuddles and the kisses and everything else. I will always cherish this past month as one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

You were an adventure.

Somtimes You're the Hammer, Sometimes You're the Nail

I guess you can really tell what my mindset has been lately, by the way I've been writing.

I swear I really am an upbeat person usually, but I guess lately I've been using this blog pretty exclusively for my deep dark dronings.

Recently turning twenty has been kinda difficult. You're a kid but you're not. You have a lot of responsibilities with limited freedoms and for some reason I can't shake this constant sadness that seems to follow me a lot lately. But, I for one, am sick and tired of being sad and choosing to see the negative in my surroundings. It's very nineteen of me, and frankly I'm above it (I hope you can feel the irony emanating off of that sentence).

I wanna talk about something happy - but I'm having a hard time thinking of what..

*To be clear - I sat here on my back porch for about 10 minutes after finishing the above sentence, trying to figure out what to write about. I kinda stream of consciousness write. I'm not a big pre-planner

**Actually, just kidding. I got really indecisive and went to bed instead of finishing this article. Think I'll seek out food before I make any final decisions.

***I have been sitting on this post for, I believe, almost four days now - but I finally decided how to finish it

I arguably grew up in Ocala, Fl. I say arguably because I didn't actually live there after the age of about two, but so much of my life is there, and so much of my family history lives there.

My parents grew up there, my whole family is there, and some of my favorite memories stem from nights on my grandma's farm. Bonfires and laughter, redneck karaoke, and the memories of playing manhunt in the woods with all of my older cousins.

I remember sitting on the counter of my grandma's bathroom while she got ready for church and she let me play with her make up. The moments where I was the only grandkid she would let in the kitchen while she was cooking dinner, because all I wanted to do was talk to her the whole time.

I remember the pain of having to go to my dad's house there every other weekend, and how for some reason, Ocala felt like a much different place when I was with him. I remember the day he showed up at the farm (what I call my grandma's house) after I hadn't seen him for a few years - I was so scared because I didn't recognize until he spoke (booze and drugs have a way of morphing you into a different person).

I wish there was a way for me to be a good enough writer that you could feel what I feel in these memories. I wish you could taste the warm coffee, smell the damp air of the early morning on the farm, and feel strength of the words and life that came out of my grandmothers mouth.

I wish I could walk you through the Orange Park Mall as a high school kid, while I realized how big my world had gotten and how strange it was that time in Ocala seemed to stand still.

I wish that I could make you understand how this place shaped me, and how I am who I am, as a result of what happened there. Even the ugly stuff makes me happy to think about because I wouldn't be me without it. I think I would be so much more shallow and spoiled of a person if it wasn't for my life and what I went through, and the memories I made there.

I'm not sure if this was a happy post, so much as a sentimental one, but I have to let my mind go where it wants to go. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to write something funny again. Oh well!  

Vomit on His Sweater Already - Mom's Spaghetti

I wonder what it must be like to grow up in a house where alcohol wasn't the enemy.


I feel like that's a funny thing to say, and if you didn't grow up with an alcoholic parent or a close friend/family member that abused alcohol, I don't think you could truly grasp the idea of fearing and feverishly detesting a substance.

Growing up, I hated alcohol. With the kind all encompassing hate that most eleven year-old girls would put toward a middle school nemesis or something of that nature. I blamed alcohol for why my dad was a crappy father, and why my childhood was so fucked up. I think it was easier for me to blame the alcohol, than to blame my dad. I wanted to love my dad, and I wanted to believe that he would be good to me if only he wasn't drinking.

Well, of course, I found out later on that drinking or not, BJ (yes, that's my dad's name) was always going to be a shitty father. It wasn't his fault really. My dad was just a kid that never grew up. I don't know a whole lot about him, or how he grew up. I don't know why he turned out the way that he did.

What I do know, the most prominent memory I have of him in my head, is the morning he called my step-mom from jail. He had gotten arrested for cocaine possession the night before. Amy (my step-mom), was storming around the house on the phone with BJ (I guess that was his one phone call), screaming and cursing. So, in true Amy-I don't give a shit about BJ's kids-fashion, she put me on the phone with my dad and screamed for him to tell me why he was in jail. I will never forget that moment. That moment right there, that moment that feels almost frozen in time, was the first moment I ever knew I was being lied to. He got on the phone and said something to the effect of "Hi Baby, I love you so much. Daddy didn't do anything wrong. His friend just lied to him about what he had in the car. I just got lied to baby. Daddy didn't do anything wrong."

Fucking lying bastard.

I'm not really sure what it must do to a kid to know that they are being lied to at such a young age. I really don't know what the repercussions of that moment were on my life. All I know is little me was sad, and scared, and that was possibly the loneliest moment of my life. Being lied to is a lonely feeling. Especially when the person lying is someone you would jump in front of a car for. Someone you would give anything in the world to be able to believe their lie. 

I always have such a problem tying these things up. My life isn't tied or cleaned up yet. So, for now, that's all I have for you. I don't really feel like this story or this portion of my life is a sad one. I know if you're reading this, and you don't know me (and I hope you don't - it's an an anonymous blog for a reason), this could sound like a sob story, but I don't see it that way. This moment helped make me who I am. It made me both strong and weak.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update * 

I realized recently that the very moment I stopped blaming alcohol and realized the issues really lied with my father, was the moment I had my first sip of alcohol.

I went to a party with some co-workers, and I had always promised myself that I would never drink, but I was going through a bit of a hard time and I just wanted to let lose. I had spent my life terrified that if I drank, I would become an alcoholic just like my father. Regardless of that fear, I did what everyone else was doing, and I had some cheap wine. It tasted terrible, but the dizzy sensation I started to detect within myself, was mildly entertaining. So, I had a bit more to drink, and I acted silly, but I was never really drunk. After that night I didn't have a single sip of alcohol for 6 months. Not because I was afraid of it or anything, I just didn't really see the need for it unless I went to another party. That fact was a huge revelation for me.

I didn't mutate into an alcoholic all of a sudden, and I realized that alcohol had no control over my actions. It was in that moment that I came to realize that alcohol wasn't the problem. My dad was.  

Teenagers Scare the Living Shit Out of Me

I want to talk to whoever is out there listening (or more likely: not listening) the way I would talk to a confidant or friend. That's really what this blog is all about. I didn't title it Pointless Dronings of a 20 Something to be ironic.

So, in that spirit, I'm gonna tell you whats on my mind this morning as I lay in bed drinking coffee and contemplating my life (oh the drama).

This morning the idea (*or more accurately: the entity) of insecurity ways heavily in my mind. I like to refer to it as an "entity" more than emotion, because insecurity, of any brand or genre, has the ability to completely envelope you and transform you from the person you once were, into a far less desirable, and thoroughly discontent human being.

Okay, I'm not going to attempt to explain insecurity to you any further. If you are a human being above the age of eleven, you are already well acquainted with the subject. Instead, I shall focus on the core and origins of my own personal self-esteem issues. Who doesn't want to hear about other peoples problems? Am I right?

Job/Job Interviews
I am one of the most confident people you will ever meet (situationally). I have the ability, and the skill sets, to walk into an interview for a job, nail it, and walk out of there with the job. I have done it on more than a few occasions. Nothing about the process concerns me, and I am always convinced that there is no one better than me for the position.

Adults/Public Speaking/Sales
Want me to have a full blown discussion with an adult about politics (or pretty much anything)? I am your girl. There is virtually no adult who could intimidate me out of of a intellectual conversation. Need someone to represent your brand and sell it to every person they come in contact with? Sign me up! Want me to get up and teach a lesson, or give a presentation in front of a huge room of people? I have no problem with that.

These things do not scare me. I do not feel insecurities bubble up inside of me as I consider these things in my mind. I do not lie awake at night wondering if I'll succeed. I am already convinced that I will.

Folks, we have just come to the truly entertaining portion of this program: what I am insecure about.

Girls (*shiver*)
Do not, under any circumstances, put me in a room full of girls alone. Girls scare the living shit out of me. They are, in my mind, the one and only enemy of my life. They are mean, judgmental, high maintenance, and who I am is never good enough for them. My lack of "girlfriends" is one of the most prominent points of insecurity in my life. They are the group I strive the hardest to fit in to, and subsequently, the only group I can never befriend. I usually date these insecurities back to 5th Grade, when every girl in my neighborhood wrote "We hate you Breana" and signed their names to it, on the asphalt outside of my house. Those girls had never spoken to each other a day in their life, until I took my bike around the neighborhood one day and invited them all to play together, because I thought we should all be friends. I guess they agreed. Just not friends with me. 

Boys/Relationships
I use to be one of the most confident girls when it came to boys. I thought I was the shit. I was pretty enough, but mostly I was just smart, confident, and determined. If I saw a boy I liked, I went after him. It really didn't matter who he was. That's how my first relationship came to be. I thought he was perfect. I did anything and everything necessary to get his attention, and it totally worked. We fell in love and dated for three years. Turns out that Matthew loved his porn addiction, more than he loved me. He lied to me over and over and over again for the entire term of our relationship, and I just kept taking him back. What those lies did to my sixteen year-old self, was plant the seed  that I wasn't good enough. I wasn't enough to keep him from lying and I wasn't enough to keep him satisfied. My subsequent relationships taught me the same thing.

The Boy..
And now we come around to the reason I was inspired to write this post today. There's this boy (of course there is - there always is), and I really like him. So, naturally, I am terrified that he is going to become completely bored of me. I am very old fashioned and conservative. Basically that means, I am not going to sleep with him, and I believe wholeheartedly that he should have to work at wooing me. This is a really great game plan until you realize there are virtually no guys that are willing to do that, under those circumstances (mostly I am referring to the no sex part). Given that life experience and (here's the kicker), given the fact that I have never physically met this man (Tinder, am I right?), I am sick to my stomach that he's already bored of me. Why do I give a damn? I don't know and I am trying to figure that out. I have never met him. His presence in my life will make no difference other than I felt like I connected with him better than I ever have with anyone. We could talk and talk and talk and never stop. We have stayed up all night talking almost every night for a week. I haven't found that since my first boyfriend and I was in high school then. It borderline doesn't count.

So, I lay here in bed, hoping he's still as interested in me, as I am in him. And praying that God gives me the opportunity to at least see where it goes. If any of you read this and have a similar experience as me, please leave me a comment or shoot me an email at anon16408@gmail.com

I would love to hear from someone.

Hardly Golden

"Really too late to call,
So we wait for morning
To wake you is all we got
To know me as hardly golden
Is to know me all wrong, they warn"

-The Funeral by Band of Horses

Trying not to miss him is like trying not to breath. I keep waking up in the morning to these dreams of him. They're so unfair. I wish they would just leave me the hell alone. 

He keeps coming to me. Leans in to kiss me. Like nothing bad ever happened. Like he never stopped loving me. The truth is (and what my dreams won't admit to), he never loved me to begin with. I loved him and (the saddest truth is) I still love him. I loved him more than I ever have anyone else. He was an artist, and a writer, and I thought he was brilliant. He thought I was a child. 

Maybe I was. 

My body wants him to love me. My mind keeps telling me he does. I wish I had never met him. I wish I could move on...

What happens if I love him forever? I'll love his mom, his brothers, his dad, and his cousins. I'll yearn for the life I could have had if I only I had been to him, what he was to me. He was the future. He was finally being happy. He was walking down the aisle with tears in my eyes, and light in my heart. 

And now? Now he is pain, and anger, and the reminder that I might not ever be good enough. He is the reason that I wake up crying, and the reminder in the middle of the day that I can't call him and I can't text and I have to pretend not to care.

I heard this song by Band of Horses and for some reason it just felt like it summed up how I feel about Caleb. Like he never really saw me and I have to live with that. 

Okay, melodrama over. 

I promise I'll try to be more upbeat next time.

Sixteen Candles

Ugh.




Dude (is it okay if I call you "dude"?), I miss being kissed. I mean, really kissed. The kind of kissing that you can feel pulse through your entire body. The kind that you never want to end. I miss that.

The last time I remember that feeling (not the forced kind, not a moment made up in my head) was sixteen year-old me. I was deathly in love with a boy. He was perfect. We were laying in bed just laughing. I was teasing him and trying to make him so uncomfortable (I believe I was teasing him about his parents sex life - don't ask. I was a weird kid). He was such a good sport and we were laughing so hard my stomach was hurting (that may have also been my jitters). We kept flip-flopping between giggling and kissing. It was one of the happiest and most tumultuous moments of my youth (admittedly, I'm still in my youth, but I often don't feel like it).

I am now almost twenty and I have not had a single moment akin to that one. I've had one boyfriend and two guys that I've dated since then, and I haven't had, not one moment that even came close to measuring up. I, for one, am so sick of waiting for the right person to come along. I realize that I am very young and considerably impatient but once you've experienced the kind of love that I have, you crave it. I want it back. If I could rewind time and go back to sixteen I would. Even if it was only to re-experience that same fleeting moment all over again.

I'm not even really sure how to end this post. This moment and this feeling hasn't quite been sown up yet. So I think I'll just leave it at that. I'll let you know if there are any updates in the future.

Tokyo Drift

You ever have a song or maybe even an album that just throws you right back to a certain place or time in your life? I say "throw" because it literally feels like it whips you back against the wall when you hear it.

I am sure this is a common experience for a lot of people, but it's something that feels like it can really rock me. It feels like I have always had a boy around. Someone I was hoping to fall in love with and whom I was hoping would fall in love with me. I wanted so badly to have a best friend. Someone who would always be there for me. So,  I would listen to their music, take an interest in their hobbies, and immerse myself in them.

Music was an especially prominent aspect of my relationship with guys in middle school and high school. It's what drew us together, and I always got on their bandwagon. Whatever it was. In high school it was A Day to Remember's "Homesick" album and a very cute boy who was obsessed with vintage muscle cars and World of Warcraft (as it turns out, more than he was interested in me). I will never forget the summer he introduced me to ADTR and the Fast and Furious series. There is even a shampoo scent that reminds me of that time.

These memories seem to haunt me more than anything. They are always filled with things that I never wish to harken back to (if I can help it). I always wonder if most people feel this way? I think it's so sad that these memories are just filled with broken promises and unfulfilled dreams, and that's why it's so painful for them to pass through my subconscious to my conscious memory.

Even now, as I write this, I'm listening to another boy's music (which happens to be amazing writing music). And when he leaves, it will hurt to listen to this album, just as it hurts to hear Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult (don't ask - I should have known the relationship was doomed when that was "our song").

Why do I keep doing this to myself?

I don't know. Oh well.

Crying in the Bathroom

"One of these days, I'm going to write a book about our family; and I am going to make quite a lot of money off of it!"

That is the threat that my parents have been enduring since I was old enough to have any kind of original or hyperbolic response to their teasing. I have been raised in one of the most hilarious and misunderstood households that you could find. Sarcasm is our love language and calling each other "dork" is a term of endearment. The phrase "don't bleed in the shark tank" was something we learned along with "look both ways before you cross the street" or "never touch a hot burner on the stove".

"Don't bleed in the shark tank" meant that you never let anyone see your weakness. If someone was teasing you and you didn't like it, the best solution was to act as though you didn't care. The more you care and the more you react, the more you were "bleeding in the shark tank". That shark tank, was our family. Which, again, sounds bad, but I swear it was actually hilarious most of the time, and it taught  me to be able to laugh at myself and also to have thicker skin (seeing as I was a pretty sensitive kid - to a fault).

I was not aware that my family was in anyway special (or more accurately: peculiar) until I started spending time around lots of different people (i.e. when I started college). I would interact with my friends in a similar fashion to the way I did with my family. Playing around, being heavily sarcastic, and calling them idiots as a way of playing and teasing. I then (very quickly) encountered the problem that many of those kids (mostly girls) did not understand I was being funny. I learned pretty quickly that my family, and my idea of fun, may have indeed, not been very typical.

Things like my habit of crying in the bathroom all through my particularly hormonal middle school years, are the headline of jokes in my family. The problem is, when you relay these funny family stories to other people (I repeat: especially women) they tend to feel sorry for you. They act as though I had been brutally beaten or emotionally tortured. Which I personally find incredibly amusing, but I suppose, other people do not.

My dad always called it "preparing" us for life. I tend to agree with him (although that was not always the case - i.e. crying in the bathroom in middle school). As a result of my upbringing, there aren't too many things that people can say that will get to me, and there aren't too many things that I don't thoroughly believe I am capable of. My family was tough but loving, sarcastic but supportive, and obnoxious but memorable.

And I'll always have Crying in the Bathroom...

Holly Haven Drive

I don't remember getting old.

I walked out of my room tonight and looked up these high ceilings and down at this cold floor; ran my fingers along the texture of this strange wall that isn't filled with my memories. I see an unfamiliar house like an unfamiliar face looking back at me. I have moved eighteen times in my short nineteen years of life; house to house, apartment to apartment. I remember my life in segments, like cell blocks in a prison. Each memory, each stage, separated in time. Separated from one another.

But when did I get so old?

As an eleven year-old little girl I remember walking down the hallway, looking up at the ninth graders and thinking "It's not fair. It will be forever until I get to be as old as them!" Now here I am, just a couple of weeks before my twentieth birthday, and my life feels so incomplete. And in the incompleteness, I can't seem to remember how I got here. Like I fell asleep for nap one day in our beautiful house in the woods in Georgia and woke up ten-years later in a house I don't recognize, with a face I'm not sure I know anymore. I look in the mirror and I don't even know my own face.

And it's in this moment that I realize that I have the answer to my question.

I have spent so much of my life loving people who didn't love me back. I loved my dad with all my heart. He loved his alcohol addiction and cocaine habit more. I loved my brother with all my heart. He loved pretty much everyone other than me more. I loved my first boyfriend to a fault. He loved his porn addiction more. I loved my second boyfriend with everything I had left in me. He pretty much just loved himself more than me.

I want my life back.  I want my fucking life back. I got old caring about other people more than I did about myself. I got old trying to fix them and support them and do everything humanly possible not to lose them. I got old giving a shit about people who were never going to love me back.

Maybe that's the point. Maybe that's the story. Maybe I will always look at my life in segments and the happiness I keep striving so diligently for will never come to fruition and I will keep looking in the mirror and being unsure of who I see.

Maybe that's the point.

Cherry Flavored Vodka

Recently singled, I find myself back in the vicious and imminently disappointing dating pool of my age group. So, naturally, I decided to further my deep seeded loathing of my generation by downloading the Tinder App to my iPhone (Listen, it was obviously not my choice to be single again. However, I discovered I am likely a masochist since I subjected myself to Tinder voluntarily - Judge me). 

Here are a few of my social discoveries so far:

• Having a nice body does not directly correlate with your worthiness to be in a relationship - shocker     
         a) GUYS - please take note
• Even in my texting generation - men are still not proficient communicators
• I have very limited taste in men
         a) Mostly consisting of nerds without muscle definition
         b) In other words Tinder lied to me when it promised me true love
         c) Wait, it didn't say that? WTF

For all the crap I talk, I actually have an amusingly substantial crush on a guy that I "swiped right" on. This crush, I believe, is uncomfortably reminiscent of how I would have felt about a boy in high school. I have never met this man but I keep re-reading his messages to me and my heart kinda skips when I see his name pop up on my phone.

Oh leave me alone, I haven't lost my mind...yet. I realize that nothing will ever come of this, but I find the concept intriguing. I had a boyfriend for almost a year that didn't make feel half as excited as the little man that lives in my phone. Either that says something very odd about my ex or about our technological age..or both. Or maybe it just says something about me.

In conclusion, Tinder is akin to cherry flavored vodka - gross but amusing.